TENDAI BHEBE IN BULAWAYO
The sharp rise in rape cases and sexual abuse in Bulawayo is increasing the risk of HIV and AIDS destroying the gains made over the years, the National Aids Council (NAC) destroy has said.
“We realised that the cases of rape cases, sexual violence are increasing affecting the women especially the adolescent girls and young women. Our statistics are actually showing that there is a lot of sexual violence among them. This is very sad,” NAC Bulawayo Provincial Manager, Sinatra Nyathi said.
She said where there is violence there is no negotiation of safer sexual intercourse. There is increased spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
“There is also the risk of unwanted or unplanned pregnancies. When adolescents are raped, they don’t even report on time,” Nyathi said.
She said some cases are not reported because women and girls are afraid of being stigmatised.
“The encouragement is when you face such a challenge of sexual gender based violence you are supposed to report within 72 hours so that you are given post rape services. The young women and adolescent girls do not report on time because of many fears. Some fear to be labelled while others fear to destroy family relationships.
“So you find that the person is not attended to and cannot get the services that are there for them. This would increase the number of new HIV infections yet we are saying we are targeting to end AIDS by 2030,” she said.
Nyathi’s remarks came at a time when a Bulawayo man, suspected to be the serial rapist that sexually assaulted 16 women in the city’s western suburbs was recently arrested.
She said people take long to access treatment resulting in some STIs becoming complicated.
“People take long to access treatment and some STIs go until they are complicated because people are not accessing services. This will definitely affect us in ending AIDS by 2030 and also in meeting the 2025 goals of making sure that 95% of people know their HIV status,” she said.
