Restore hope to sexual abuse survivors in Zambia

Following the conclusion of our baseline research on abuse within churches, Restored Hope Zambia started to follow up on some of the issues identified in focus group discussion and facilitated some workshops with small groups individually in Chongwe district. The groups were women (10), youth (8) and men (11), and the focus of the workshops was on “What is Abuse?”.

The need for training

During the workshop with the men, they acknowledged that abuse is a real and big problem. They shared that it is happening in their churches and there is need for the churches in Chongwe to be taught or sensitized on what abuse is. All of the men present, most of them church leaders shared that they feel people are abused in their churches because they do not know what abuse is. They also highlighted that the churches lack policies and systems on how to handle abuse.

An issue of local police in the area not taking cases of sexual abuse seriously was raised. One participant added “that is why we need you here as an organization, people are suffering here in Chongwe. You need to work with the police or maybe train them on how to handle abuse.”

Identifying Financial & Spiritual Abuse

Another outcome of the workshop was participants being able to identify other more subtle forms of abuse such as spiritual abuse and financial abuse. The workshop with the women was well attended and was more interactive.

Most of the women shared that they know and have seen abuse happen in their churches, but they do not speak up because of fear. Most of the women fear that if they speak up against the abuse or abuser who is a leader, they might be in trouble or even cursed. They have been taught that if you speak up against a pastor or church leader you will be cursed, in unison they recited “touch not the anointed”.

They were excited and looking forward to Restored Hope Zambia potentially going to the area regularly to help more people.

Outcomes Summary

The workshop helped raise specific training needs of community leaders, faith leaders and the police as well. Restored Hope Zambia is actively engaging further to implement this training. Generally, the people in Chongwe shared that they were open to reporting cases of abuse if there is a place which is transparent in dealing with these cases of abuse.

In addition, it provided an opportunity for those who suffered abuse but did not recognise it as such to do so, and be able to have a platform to share their story.

Over the last quarter, Restored Hope Zambia (RHZ) focused on community engagement through media (TV & Radio) and in person discussions in local districts in Zambia, combining rural and urban areas.

Radio Programmes

RHZ has had three radio programmes and three TV programmes to raise awareness of abuse dynamics within the church. One of these programmes has a focus on safeguarding children and vulnerable adults where the team highlighted the role that faith leaders and those within the church can play in recognising and preventing abuse. The programmes got good engagement which we will build on by hosting listening groups to discuss the points raise in more detail.

Focus group discussions

As well as using media to raise awareness of abuse, RHZ was able to go to three districts in Zambia (Ndola, Mongu and Solwezi) to facilitate focus group discussions with men, older women and youth (girls). The purpose of the discussion was to understand the understanding and perception of abuse, barriers faces by victims of abuse in reporting the crimes and getting the support needed as well as getting an understanding of unhelpful narratives that perpetuate these crimes. We had 33 men, 14 women and 19 youth in attendance with 6 focus group discussions in the districts. The engagement was lively with participants highlighting a desire for follow up conversation.

The next phase of our community training will be to implement the output from these discussions into our resources and follow up training.