By Nita Bhalla, Thomson Reuters Foundation
3 Min Read
NAIROBI, April 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A sharp rise in gender-based violence in Kenya during the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted an urgent need for more shelters to help victims and awareness campaigns, women’s rights groups said on Friday.
Cases of violence targeting women and girls - including rape, child marriage and murder - rose 36% in 2020 from a year earlier to just over 5,000, government data showed this week.
The report released by Kenya’s ministry of public service, youth and gender was based on the findings of an investigation ordered by President Uhuru Kenyatta last year into rising reports of violence due to lockdown curbs.
Rape victims denied justice in Ghana by costly medical fees Reuters > By Reuters - 07 August 2020 - 11:22 Rape victims are denied justice because of costly medical bills Image: 123RF/Andreypopov
Reporting rape is traumatic for anyone, but having to pay two months wages to complete the medical form prevents many in Ghana from seeking justice, said a leading actress whose campaign to waive fees has reached the presidential palace.
British-Ghanaian actress Ama K. Abebrese - who starred with Idris Elba in the award-winning 2015 drama Beasts of No Nation - started a petition after hearing about the prohibitive charges in the West African nation where rape convictions are rare.
Increasing number of schoolgirls are becoming mothers, thus ending prospects of their education Kizito Makoye | 13.12.2020
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania
As rain drizzles, Teddy Meshack,18, is lazily lying on a mat in a shack in Tanzania’s Mbarika village, breastfeeding her baby. She is trying to protect the baby from cold, as the leaky roof gives way to rainwater, which is filling the floor.
Two years ago, Meshack was expelled from school, after she became pregnant. She was also forcibly married to a man 35 years older than her.
“I got pregnant by accident. But my father saw that as an excuse to marry me off,” she said.