Tanzanian authorities said Wednesday that plans were underway to carry out a study in the 2023/2024 financial year aimed at establishing the extent of violence against children in the country.
John Jingu, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Community Development, Gender, Women and Special Groups, said the study will be carried out in collaboration with development partners, including the United Nations Children’s Fund.
“The study will enable authorities to know the extent of the problem and come up with measures aimed at ending the malpractice,” Jingu told a news conference in Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania. “Children are an important national resource. They should be protected by any means.”
He said violence against children was a threat to national security, adding that statistics by the World Health Organization for 2022 showed that at least 1 billion children across the globe were violently abused and more than 50 percent of children in Africa were abused in the year.
