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Tendai Rupapa, Senior Reporter
Women’s Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Minister Dr Sithembiso Nyoni has urged families to utilise this lockdown period as an opportunity to bond and reconnect and not make it a chance to perpetuate gender based violence.

This comes at a time when cases of gender based violence have increased during this lockdown period.

Minister Nyoni said this during the handover ceremony of hundreds of dignity kits for vulnerable women which the ministry sourced from United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The kits which included sanitary supplies and basic hygiene items were handed over to women and children who were taken from the streets during this lockdown period and are being housed at the ministry’s National Training Centre for rural women.

The other kits will be distributed to the ministry’s one stop centres for GBV survivors in Chinhoyi, Rusape, Gweru and Gwanda.

“My Ministry would like to urge families to utilize this lockdown period as an opportunity to bond and reconnect with loved ones and not make it an opportunity to perpetuate gender based violence. We encourage families to stay at home in harmony and resolve disputes amicably,” she said.