Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-One in three woman experiences domestic violence every day in Zimbabwe and government in conjunction with a group of Apostolic and Zionist churches has launched a policy to fight the scourge in the religion.
Headed by the Union for the Development of Apostolic and Zionist Churches in Zimbabwe (UDACIZA) the campaign also among some of the objectives aims at preventing child marriages, protection of child rights and promotion of education.
UDACIZA is a grouping of Apostolic and Zionist churches formed in 1993 and is composed of 33% of Zimbabwean Christians which translates into 4 million members.
They are around 600 Apostolic and Zionist churches under its grouping to fight such cases as GBV and child marriages.
The World Vison initiative has seen UDACIZA going around the country meeting different apostolic and Zion church leaders in discussive meetings aimed at changing their church policies and beliefs deemed to be retrogressive and abusive of the girl child.
Speaking at the presentation of the UDACIZA Gender Based Violence (GBV) and Gender Equality policy in Harare the Deputy Minister for Women’s Affairs Abigail Damasene said the policy is a historic achievement.
“For some time (Apostolic and Zionists) had been regarded as the main perpetrators of GBV in our country”.
“However this is about to change as the crafting of the policy is testimony that Apostolic and Zionists churches do not condone religious practices that perpetuate GBV”, she said.
The policy was formulated as part of the greater preventing violence against adolescent girls and young women project which is being implemented by WVZ with UN Women and DANIDA as supporting partners.
It will effectively empower UDACIZA and affiliated church leaders to transform religious communities and congregations to be active agents of change in the elimination of violence against women and girls.
“The policy seeks to discourage adverse religious beliefs and practices thereby encouraging faith based communities to be more gender sensitive and responsive to gender equality and the GBV needs of their respective communities”.
“At the infancy and childhood children were denied access to health services resulting in high child mortality as children were barred from participating in national immunization programs”.
“They were also forced to engage in practices that compromise health of both the mother and unborn child such as forced fasting and Kuspetwa (taking vomit inducing concoctions containing salt, cooking oil, etc) she said.
Apostolic churches have courted controversy previously as having institutional deficiencies that promote the abuse of women with some of them stopping the use of pills and going to school.
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