By Emmanuel Moyo
Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Karonga have expressed concern over delays in arresting perpetrators of defilement saying this has potential to cause more pain on victims and fuel the malpractice in the District.
This comes after CSOs and concerned citizens in the District conducted a solidarity match last year to push Police to arrest Harrison Sibale who is alleged to have defiled, abducted, trafficked and violated a girl’s right to education but no arrest has been made so far.
In an interview, Executive Director for Foundation for Women and Girls Empowerment (FOWOGE), Christobel Munthali, said they are saddened that four months down the line after CSOs petitioned authority to arrest Sibale, nothing tangible has happened.
“It is sad that Police have not yet arrested Sibale, however, we are putting more pressure on the law enforcement agents to have him arrested because these delays are causing more pain on the victims which is very bad,” she said
Munthali has since pleaded with people to stop making Gender Based Violence (GBV) a norm, rather to report the cases to relevant authorities for justice.
On her part, one of the country’s (GBV) experts, Linda Jimu, delays in arresting perpetrators can create comfort zone for many people to turn into offenders and this causes more pain onto victims.
“Issues of gender based violence including defilement are traumatic in nature, these perpetrators should be brought to book as soon as possible because justice delayed brings more pain to the victims and can cause more perpetrators to freely offend again,” Jimu said.
