Yesterday, we told you that the Joint Sexual Violence Prevention and Response program had been launched and saw collaboration between the Ministries of National Security and Border Defence, and Home Affairs. This progressive program seeks to subdue and eventually eliminate the cases of sexual assault and rape prevalent - but under - reported in the security forces.
The press wasn't invited to yesterday's launch so we caught up today with the Minister of Home Affairs who explained that there will be a change in legislation and continuous support for victims of sexual crimes. The program will even have different options depending on how the victim wants to proceed. Here's how he put it:
Hon. Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs and New Growth Industries
"What it is really is a year's worth of research and analysis by the experts who were tasked to carry out this analysis and assessment and giving their part and suggestions on the way forward in terms of victim support within the security forces in terms of a very adequate reliable response on the part of the hierarchy of our security forces and definitely providing the type of support legislatively that we can change the laws to ensure that there is this zero tolerance support within out security forces."
"Response and prevention are two of the key things that the group is looking at and that we in terms of the Cabinet, the ministerial support, and at our CEO level we are looking to implement these various strategies that this group has come up with and for us to implement it, like I said, not just in the law but in terms of the protocols and practice to be followed whenever an instance of sexual violence occurs, so that victims now don't have to live in fear, they can be assured if action will be taken if they desire for action to be taken criminally against the offender, they can be assured that they will be getting that support as well as victim support in terms of the mental counselling they may need after such a traumatic event to provide those types of services in these types of situation."
"There are mechanisms that are going to be put in place that will offer you two types of relief, you can take the unrestricted relief or the restricted one. Obviously one of them will entail much more service, much more support, which includes criminal investigation as well so if you as a victim opt to take that route in terms of making a report to the authorities, there will be in fact units that are set up. These sexual violence units that you can take your report to and action will be taken from those units. So you do have that option to follow up on a criminal investigation."
