ZAMBIA: Human Rights Watch Slams Zambia over Violence Against Women

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

ZAMBIA: Human Rights Watch Slams Zambia over Violence Against Women

Agence France Presse (12.18.07) - Thursday, December 20, 2007

Zambia's government must do more to protect women from violence and ensure their equal access to HIV treatment, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Tuesday.

HRW's Nada Ali told a press briefing that despite an increase in reported cases of violence against women, Zambia lacks specific legislation to address the problem. Many Zambian women are reluctant to undergo HIV testing because they fear that if they are positive, their partners could obstruct them from accessing treatment.

"Unless the Zambian government introduces legal and health system reform and removes barriers to HIV treatment that women face, gender-based abuses will continue to shatter the lives of countless Zambian women," said Ali.

According to HRW's report, 17 percent of the country's adult population has HIV/AIDS, of whom 57 percent are female. Elizabeth Mataka, the UN special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa, urged women's groups in Zambia and elsewhere on the continent to push for legal reforms to address gender inequities. "Let us go beyond talking now," she said at the briefing. "We need to push for implementation so that these problems can be addressed."

HRW acknowledged that Zambia is one of the few African countries to provide antiretrovirals for free though its public health system. "But ignoring these abuses will mean that the Zambian government's goal of universal access to HIV treatment by 2010 will fail," Ali said.
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