International Development minister Lynne Featherstone is currently visiting Zambia and blogging her trip for the Huffington Post. In her first post she writes:
My first visit since arriving in Zambia was to a UK aid adolescent girls empowerment programme in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of the capital, Lusaka. This initiative is supporting more than 1,500 of the most vulnerable girls, providing safe spaces and mentoring to help build their confidence and life skills.
The girls I met told me they were learning about their rights as women. One 16-year-old girl said she now felt more confident to say no to unwanted approaches from boys. Another said the girls now understood that if a spouse or boyfriend attacked his partner, she had the right to go to the police. This is a much-needed message in a country where 63% of women aged 15-24 report wife-beating to be justified under certain conditions.
Read the rest of Lynne Featherstone’s account here.
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One Comment
This is an excellent initiative, but one could equally ask, what exactly, we as a Party are doing to protect women and girls from domestic violence here in the UK, given the reality that funding has been slashed across the country, and refuge’s have been closed, or at least had to reduce their services?