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Dr. Jenfan Muswere, the Minister of Information Communication Technology (ICT), Postal and Courier Services has lashed out at people who abuse the Internet to perpetuate violence against girls and women.
Statistics from UN Women indicate that as many as 37.6% of Zimbabwean women experience gender-based violence in their lifetime.
As the world observed the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, the Minister said that any statistic that documents gender-based violence against either men or women is unacceptable in this day and age.
The theme for the observances this year is “Orange the World: End violence against women now!”, a theme that zeroes in on violence against women.
“As we move towards creating a digital economy in line with NDS1 and Vision 2030, Zimbabwe has seen a surge in the use of ICTs. This surge has sadly also seen ICTs transform into tools used to perpetuate gender-based violence. We have thus seen gender-based violence evolve to include revenge pornography, hate mail, extortion, and blackmail based many a time on threats to publish videos, audios, and images of an intimate nature on platforms such as social media. As a countermeasure, the Ministry of Information Communication Technology, Postal, and Courier Services has crafted the Cyber and Data Protection Bill, a compendium of laws that will aid the fight against gender-based violence by criminalizing acts such as revenge pornography.
“We must use ICTs to fight gender-based violence in all its forms. To this end, I encourage all of us to use ICTs to “Orange the World”, by documenting and exposing gender-based violence through ICTs. The Covid-19 pandemic has ushered in a new culture of working from home, a culture that has in some cases created a platform for the perpetuation of gender-based violence in the home. Most if not all such gender-based violence can be combatted through psychosocial support.
“I want to, therefore, encourage our nation to embrace the use of ICTs to offer psychosocial support such as counselling on platforms such as social media. I would also like to take this opportunity to encourage our telecom players to consider zero-rating applications that offer psychosocial support to our citizens to eradicate gender-based violence.
“The fight against gender-based violence must be won in our lifetime to create a gender-based violence-free society. Working together we can “orange the world and end violence against women!” Minister Muswere added.