Kalomo District Commissioner, Joshua Sikaduli, has called on a cross section of society to come on board to curb violence against women and girls in communities.
Speaking during the launch of various activities to be undertaken by several organisations during this year’s 16 days of Activism against Gender Based Violence in Kalomo, Mr Sikaduli noted that violence against women and girls has expanded beyond homes and communities into new frontiers such as phones, social media, and the digital space.
This year’s 16 days of Activism against Gender Based Violence is under the theme, ‘Unite to end digital violence against women and girls’.
And Mr Sikaduli further observes that despite the lack of comprehensive national and district statistics about digital violence on women and girls as many cases go unreported, traditional gender based violence remains high in the country and urged all stakeholders to come on board to curb the vice.
“Digital violence , sometimes referred to as technology-facilitated gender based violence includes a wide array of harmful behaviours such as online harassment, cyber stalking, threats, non- consensual sharing of intimate images; all targeting women and girls often in ways that are hard to detect, shameful to report or devastating to endure,” he said.
He pointed out that leaders, parents, and community stakeholders should not ignore digital violence hence the need for unity to fight the scourge.
The Kalomo District Health Office has recorded 333 cases of physical violence from January to October 2025 while the figure for sexual violence stood at 278, emotional and economical violence at 75.
In all the three categories of gender based violence, females are the most affected.
The activism period started on November 25, which is also an international day for the elimination of violence against women and ends on December 10, 2025 which coincides with Human Rights Day.
A wide range of activities are to be undertaken by several Kalomo youth groups, traditional leaders, civic authority, schools, churches and civil society and non-governmental organisations during the activism period.
