Girl Child Sexual Abuse in Lusaka Urban

The study on girl child sexual abuse and whose findings are presented in this article was conducted in 2010 as an academic requirement for the purpose of completing a Master’s degree in Gender Studies at the University of Zambia. This article outlines issues of sexual abuse and the various reasons why under-age girls are more vulnerable to sexual abuse, cultural beliefs with regard to sexual abuse, gender and power relations and sexual abuse, and existing community programmes and knowledge levels, and institutional mechanisms of the sexual abuse case reporting in Lusaka urban. The article has drawn conclusions and recommendations for enhancing the protection of the children against child sexual abuse. By conducting a study that comprehensively assesses the types of programmes and perceived implementation gaps from Lusaka, this report poses specific policy and structural recommendations on how best to address the existing problem of increased vulnerability of under-age girls to sexual abuse. Child sexual abuse is a form of abuse in which a child is abused for the sexual gratification of an adult or older adolescent (CHIN, 2005: 53). Child sexual abuse is the actual or the likely sexual exploitation of a child and includes rape, incest and all forms of sexual activity (VSO, 2008: 2). In Zambia, anyone under the age of sixteen is classified as a child. Researchers cite various reasons why child sexual abuse is so common: Gender power relations (patriarchy views which place women and children in lower positions), poverty, a legacy of violent homes, power relations between children and adults, and cultural beliefs. The research was an exploratory study undertaken in Lusaka urban and endeavored to explore why the problem of sexual abuse was persistent and why under-age children were vulnerable to it. Using purposive and simple random sampling, a sample size of seventy was arrived at and both qualitative and quantitative approaches of research were employed. The data was then analysed manually and by Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The institutions visited were: Ministry of Community Development and Social Welfare, Women and Law in Southern Africa Trust, The Child Protection Unit of the Zambia Police Service, Young Women Christian Association, Isubilo Orphanage and Drop-in Centre and Jesus Cares Ministries Orphanage. Additionally, community members from Chawama, Mtendere and Kabwata compounds were interviewed for more insight into the study. The study results showed that under-age girl-children were more vulnerable to sexual abuse because they were easy to coerce, threaten, lure and could be more trusting than much older girls. Further, the study revealed that gender-power relations, power relations between children and adults, cultural beliefs and community programmes on sexual abuse played a role in girl child sexual abuse. The overall study recommendations were coined from the outcomes and conclusions made in the study as follows: children needed more focused education to increase their knowledge about child sexual abuse; intensify funding injections into already functional community and school programmes, for example the School Liaison Programme under the Zambia Police Service; putting in place a holistic approach to sensitise community members centring on encroaching cultural norms and practices that perpetrate child sexual abuse; there was need to intensify and widen the coverage of programmes on child sexual abuse clearly stipulating and defining types of sexual abuse; the law and punishment for perpetrators; perceived gaps in the awareness programmes and institutional mechanism for sexual abuse case reporting was bureaucratically long, long court procedures and negative cultural doctrines also played a role and as such needed attention.