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Add to Preferred SourcesThousands of women and girls in Ituri Province have been subjected to gender-based violence, as have women and girls in conflict-affected North Kivu and South Kivu.
“Since the beginning of the year we have seen an escalation of various forms of violence against women and girls in conflict-affected areas of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu,” said Sennen Hounton, UNFPA’s representative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In the first half of 2019, some 17,000 survivors of gender-based violence received support from humanitarian actors in the country, including UNFPA, with major gaps in service observed in key hotspots.
The United Nations Office of the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the crises in Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu. The ongoing Ebola outbreak has only exacerbated the vulnerabilities of women and girls.
UNFPA is working with partners to extend access to vital reproductive health services, including care for survivors of gender-based violence, and to protect women and girls from sexual exploitation and abuse.
“We estimate that the humanitarian community needs $91.7 million US dollars, including $44 million for North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri, to protect women and girls from gender-based violence risks and care for at least 37,500 survivors of violence in 2019,” said Noemi Dalmonte, an expert with UNFPA. “But we are far from reaching this target.”
UNFPA is urging more support for the women and girls of the country. The overall humanitarian action plan in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is funded at only 30 percent.
Original source: UNFPA
Published on 04 September 2019