Nine school-going girls from Chief Mbang’ombes chiefdom in Katete District in Eastern Province have been rescued from the Chinamwali initiation ceremony.
ZANIS reports that Chief Mbang’ombe of the Chewa people of Katete and Sinda districts has said the nine girls were rescued after a tip-off from concerned members of the public.
“Recently, we rescued nine girls from a woman who had recruited them for Chinamwali initiation. It’s a woman, the very people we have been talking about,” Chief Mbang’ombe said.
The traditional ruler was speaking during the launch of the 16 days of activism against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) held under the theme “range the world: end violence against women now”.
He stated that the woman culprit made a mistake by taking a girl in an examination class into her initiation circle.
“Mostly, it is these same women who ruin things for themselves, they take a school-going child who is in an examination class and take her for Chinamwali and expect her to come back to school to write the examination. The next thing we hear is that that child has stopped school,” he said.
Chief Mbang’ombe has since called for enhanced cooperation between the women initiators and the traditional leadership so that such cases involving school girls do not continue to happen in his chiefdom.
He underscored the importance of cooperation in upholding traditions like Chinamwali so that the future of the girl child and that of a boy child are protected and made bright.
The Chief further indicated that the woman has now got a case before his throne as the girls she had taken in for initiation were supposed to be in school.
Meanwhile, Katete District Commissioner (DC) Michael Matebele has bemoaned the failure to report GBV cases timely.
Mr Matebele said due to this, most GBV victims have not been helped effectively as evidence has been eroded due to the passage of time.
“Unfortunately, most of these cases are either not reported or reported late after 72 hours when evidence has been compromised. Please let us report the cases so that this cruelty can come to an end,” he said.
He further appealed to the public to hastily report such cases especially those that are time and evidence bound such as defilement, for easy, effective, and efficient handling and processing of the case by the relevant authorities.
And St Francis Mission Hospital One-Stop Centre representative John Mwanza urged the public to report GBV cases as all services rendered to the victims of are free.
Further, he also hinted some of the forms of GBV that the public might overlook such as failure to take a child to school, and child neglect. – ZANIS
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