Bujumbura – Salomé* nonetheless recollects the years of home violence she suffered by the hands of her ex-husband as a very darkish interval of her life. “I thought of killing myself, however I used to be afraid of leaving my kids alone,” says the 23-year-old mom of 5, who lives in Kirundo province in northern Burundi.

Hers is definitely not an remoted case. In line with a authorities survey carried out in 2017, 36% of Burundian ladies aged 15-49 had skilled bodily violence a minimum of as soon as of their lives. In 57% of such circumstances, the violence was inflicted by the girl’s husband or intimate companion. The survey additionally confirmed that 23% of girls throughout the identical age group had skilled sexual violence.

Towards this backdrop, the Burundian well being authorities have sought to combine the administration of gender-based violence into public sexual and reproductive well being companies via a undertaking known as Twiteho Amagara, which implies “let’s care for well being” in Kirundi. The undertaking, launched in 2019, supplies emergency neonatal obstetrics care and coaching to well being amenities.

With the help of the World Well being Group (WHO), the Burundian Ministry of Well being has skilled 120 well being employees to know tips on how to establish, deal with and report situations of gender-based violence, in addition to to lift consciousness regarding prevention.

“Since I obtained this coaching, I understand how to obtain, hear and talk about with the victims of this type of violence in line with their explicit particular person conditions,” says Oscar Adabashiman, an emergency nurse in Kirundo Province who was skilled in 2021. “Then as soon as the remedy has been accomplished, psychosocial care continues together with the authorized proceedings.”

With funding from the European Union (EU), WHO has additionally supplied well being amenities with care kits consisting of anti-retroviral medicine and different treatment for sexually transmitted infections as properly undesirable pregnancies.

“In circumstances of gender-based violence, victims not solely endure accidents to their physique which have a detrimental affect on their bodily well being, however additionally they endure psycho-social harm,” says Dr. Eugénie Niane, who oversees reproductive, maternal and neonatal well being on the WHO workplace in Burundi. “Because of this an built-in strategy to this difficulty is essential.”

Overcoming stigma, significantly on the subject of sexual violence, is vital to the success of any such strategy. “It is vitally troublesome to get victims to speak,” says nurse Adabashiman. “They’re typically very reluctant to inform us what they’ve skilled. So, we attempt to empathize with them and present them that what occurred to them was not their fault.”

In line with Dr Ananie Ndacayisa, director of Burundi’s Nationwide Reproductive Well being Programme, such efforts are bearing fruit. “Within the 5 provinces the place the Twiteho Amagara undertaking has been applied, which collectively comprise 120 well being amenities, circumstances that weren’t reported earlier than at the moment are reported and victims of gender-based violence are more likely to go to well being amenities for remedy,” he says.

Adabashiman can be optimistic. “Issues are regularly altering, and we’re pleased about this,” he says. “It bodes properly for the event of girls and women in our nation.”

In Salomé’s case, after one more beating by her husband, she determined to hunt assist at her native well being centre, the place she obtained medical and psychosocial care, which she continued to be supplied with after the emergency help. “I used to be properly obtained, and I used to be capable of get free remedy. I benefited from the recommendation of the medical doctors, who helped me get out of my trauma,” she says. “Little by little, I obtained higher.”