16 Dec 2015

Stepping Stones International has presented the Gaining Traction by Action Project reports.

The project looked on the gaps of service provision in handling child sexual abuse and exploitation, a policy review of laws affecting child protection and a 10-point recommendation document.

Stepping Stones, through support from the European Union, has been implementing this project and 20 400 people pledged their support towards the recommendation through signatures of solidarity.

Giving welcoming remarks at the reports handing over ceremony recently, the minister-counsellor health and human rights, Ms Harriet Pedersen, said EU had supported Stepping Stones to make a difference in curbing child sexual abuse and exploitation through the Gaining Traction by Action Project”

She said Stepping Stones secured the funding for the project in a strong competition with 40 other organisations that made Stepping Stones international part of the global human rights community under European instrument for democracy and human rights. For his part, the Human Rights and Child Protection coordinator, Mr Chirwah Mahloko, said they conducted two researches which included the legislative policy and case study analysis that looked into different pieces of legislation, which aimed to protect the child.

Mr Mahloko said they analysed the laws and policies and identified the strengths and weaknesses and compiled a report that will inform their planning and interventions towards child sexual abuse.

He added that they have carried out an evaluation of government service providers, how as a government and the civil society have made it their duty to make sure that they play their role by taking up the responsibility of raising community issues they have to deal with. “We have developed a report that speaks of how prepared we are as a country and have developed ten recommendations that we believe will address those issues as early as we can which would give us greater results,” said Mr Mahloko.

 

He said by implementing the project across the nine districts in Botswana they are instances where they come across touching stories of child sexual abuse.  Ends