The Minister of State in the Ministry of Local Government, Alvera Mukabaramba has urged female DASSO officers to partner with all stakeholders in ensuring a collective and holistic approach to eliminate gender based violence.
The Minister made the remarks on November 12, while officiating a one day training aimed at empowering female District Administrative Security Support Organ (DASSO) officers in the fight against domestic and Gender Based Violence.
The training was organized by the ministry of Local Government in partnership with ministry of Gender and Family Promotion and Rwanda National Police.
“We must eliminate these vices in our societies but to achieve that we need to work closely with communities and other institutions concerned,” Minister Mukabaramba said.
The one- day training was attended by 210 female DASSO officers from across the country.
The Minister told the officers that; “you are the people who get first hand information whenever there is a case of violence. So you need to be equipped with response skills like preservation of evidence and counseling.”
Among the lectures offered to the officers include, handling GBV victims, first aid and evidence protection, counseling of victims and reporting.
Other topics discussed during the training were about monitoring and evolutions of homes with conflicts and crime prevention mechanism.
“Any domestic violence case that resulted in death starts with a misunderstanding that can be contained if people reported it early enough, you need to go out and sensitize people to partner and share with you information about abuses and conflicts happening in homes,” said Mukabaramba.
The Coordinator of DASSO, Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Sam Rumanzi, said that the training comes as a response to the female DASSO officers’ request to equip them with advanced skills in responding to GBV and domestic violence cases.
“The officers have been in service for over a year now and they are familiar with issues related to gender based violence and domestic violence, they now need to be oriented on how best to respond to such cases,” Rumanzi said.
He added that DASSO is organizing several other trainings of its officers on the same issue to ensure that cases of GBV and Domestic violence are well handled.
The training came at a time when the several government entities are conducting a three-month long anti-GBV and Child abuse campaign that is scheduled to end in December.