Make all legal systems child-friendly

Elizabeth B. Mupfumira Correspondent
It has been 20 years since Zimbabwe set up the Victim Friendly Courts. These make courts friendlier to vulnerable witnesses such as women and children.

Since then, Zimbabwe has established solid institutional structures through the victim friendly systems that articulate the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders to provide psychosocial, medical, legal and referral services to victims of sexual and physical abuse.

This multi-sectoral victim friendly system includes victim friendly police units that are manned by officers with the specific responsibility of providing child-sensitive responses to children affected by sexual and physical abuse.

Also included are victim friendly health services that provide children who have experienced abuse with psychosocial support and health care to address immediate medical needs and future health risks associated with abuse.

Evidence that can support criminal investigations can also be collected.

Also included is the Department of Social Welfare that ensures a place of safety for child survivors before and after their case is heard in court; and the victim friendly referral system which gives children access to any elements of the system that are relevant to their protection, care and support.

This year, 1 600 children, a majority of them girls, have received justice through the 22 Victim Friendly Courts set up around Zimbabwe. While this is a highly commendable achievement, the 2011 National Baseline on the Life Experiences of Adolescents (NBSLEA) report shows that less than 3 percent of the victims of sexual and physical violence seek professional help.

So why are so few victims of sexual and physical abuse utilising these services?

Especially when, according to the same NBSLEA report, approximately one third of girls and young women and one in 10 boys and young men aged 18-24 experienced some form sexual violence in childhood, and nearly 1 in 10 girls reported experiencing physically forced sex (rape) before the age of 18; and over a third of the respondents experienced physical and emotional abuse by an authority figure?

Globally, almost one quarter of girls aged 15 to 19 worldwide (almost 70 million) report being victims of some form of physical violence since age 15; while round 120 million girls under the age of 20 (about 1 in 10) have been subjected to forced sexual intercourse or other forced sexual acts at some point in their lives.

In Zimbabwe, the existence of a plural legal system has resulted in a large number of sexual and physical abuse cases against children passing through the traditional and customary justice system, which are usually more accessible to people living in outlying parts of the country.

As a result, a large majority of these cases of child sexual abuse are tried through mediation at a family and village level.

In these cases, village heads or traditional chiefs pass down judgements that often times do not meet the severity of the crime, and in some instances are even detrimental to the victim where for example, the offender is forced to marry the girl he has raped as compensation, or where girls are married off to appease an avenging spirit.

Without minimising the long standing and critical role played by customary law in Zimbabwe, it is important that where the best interest of the child is compromised, there should be a system that protects these victims by referring sexual abuse cases brought before the traditional courts forward to the victim friendly system, and subsequently the criminal justice system, to ensure that the victims are first and foremost protected from future abuse, and that the perpetrators receive punishment that fits the crime.

When Zimbabwe signed and ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, without reservations she bound herself to take all appropriate legislative, administrative and other measures to implement the rights of the children enshrined in the convention.

In this case particularly state the need for children to be protected from sexual abuse and exploitation.

The Victim Friendly System contributes to efforts to meet this international obligation. It is now up to us to ensure that these systems are strengthened, and capacitated to reach all children in Zimbabwe.