adminRuth Butaumocho Gender Editor
Some 21 percent of schoolchildren have at some point been sexually abused during their adolescence. According to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, Zimstat 2012 National Baseline Survey on Life Experiences of Adolescents report, 33 percent of females aged between 18 and 24 years, and 9 percent of males in the same age category, experienced some form of sexual violence during their adolescence. This gives an average of 21 percent of 18-24-year-olds saying they were abused in secondary school.
The report noted that sexual abuse was not only confined to rape and sodomy but takes a variety of forms which include suggestive touching, fondling, pressured intimacy through use of threats, luring and others.
According to the report, female students were three times more likely to be abused than their male counterparts.
“About two thirds of both females and males reported experiencing their first incident of sexual violence when they were between the ages of 14 and 15.
“About 20 percent of females and males reported that their first incidents of sexual violence occurred when they were aged 16-17, and the pattern of abuse was very similar to both sexes,” the national report noted.
The most prevalent form of sexual violence by females below 18 years was unwanted touching and fondling.
There is an increase in reports of boys being sexually abused, mainly in schools.
This week, a teacher at Longwe Primary in Kenilworth in Bubi District appeared in a Bulawayo court for abusing 10 Grade Seven boys from the school.
The accused, Nkosiyazi Sibanda, is said to have abused the 10 in 2012 and 2013, before one of the boys reported the alleged indecent assault attack to his parents, leading to the arrest of the teacher.
Online Reporter