Africa-Press – Lesotho. The Ministry of Social Development together with the ICAP will today launch the Violence Against Children Survey (VACS), a nationwide household-based survey among children and youth adults aged 13-24.
VACS Coordinator Reaboka Maraisane explained that in order to put together the survey, they were worked with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)
which assisted them with funding and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She said the data was collected from July 2018 to September 2018 and the report was compiled until 2019.
Maraisane further explained that before they conducted the survey, they had to carefully analyze the questions to check if they will be appropriate to be asked
children. She said during the survey, they were working with children from the ages of 13 to 24 both boys and girls. She emphasized that in the event whereby they
find that a child is being abused, they would refer such a child to the police station or health centres to be assisted. Ministry of Social development Acting Director Child Protection ‘Mantoa Sejake said the report focuses on three act of violence being sexual
violence, physical violence and emotional violence. She said looking at sexual violence, researches indicated that girls are the ones who are most exposed to
sexual violence. “This indicates that females are the ones who were victims of sexual violence,” she said. She further stated that the survey also indicated
that 7.5% of females were forced into sexual activities and the people who were sexually harassing them were mostly their neighbours and 10% of the victims
were abused by their neighbors, 9% were abused by their friends. “ This proves that most people who go through sexual violence are abused by people they know very well,” she said.
According to the survey 59.5% of the victims reported their cases to relatives while 45% reported to friends and neighbours. Looking at physical violence, Sejake said they discovered that one out of 5 females
were abused which is 21.1% of the females and 1 out of 4 males was abused which is 27.1%. The survey also indicates that males are mostly physically abused than females. Sejake mentioned that most of them were abused by their parents, relatives and guardians.
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