Burundi: Tough law against gender-based violence

The government has enacted a law that is likely to reduce gender-based violence, says the chairwoman of the Association of Women Lawyers in Burundi.

Participants in the round-table discussion displaying the orange colour symbolising a brighter future without violence at French Institute in Burundi.

Sonia Ndikumasabo, the president the Association of Women Lawyers in Burundi (AFJB), unveiled yesterday 7 December 2016, a new law on violence against women and girls that the government adopted on 22 September of the same year.

The law that was little known to the public till then provides for severe punishment against gender-based violence offenders. Moreover, it states that gender-based violence crimes are not pardonable. Ndikumasabo explains that the law provides for double punishment for police officers and judges guilty of cover-up of offences of violence to women and girls.

She hails the law her organisation lobbied for as a significant breakthrough in the fight against gender-based violence.

She says the law is set to promote, among many things, equal rights to education, inheritance and equal rights between spouses to family property. “It’s not a rare thing to find women who live in complete deprivation while the family is well-off”, said Ndikumasabo illustrating economic violence some women are subjected to.

The AFBJ chairwoman says the law further requires the government to regularly report to the Parliament on the situation of gender-based violence. With the new law, the government will also help victims to access justice.

Another salient facet of the new law is that gender-based crimes will have a special court with specialized judges and lawyers.

“The law on the paper is very promising”, says Ndikumasabo, “but its enforcement is far more important. We ask the government to make sure the law takes effect”.

Ndikumasabo says the law has some imperfection. While it punishes crimes, it doesn’t provide for compensation. “Victims may have health problems following the violence they are subjected to”, says the chairwoman.

She also says the association she chairs pushed for the provision for means of compensation, but in vain. AFJB will continue asking, as it did during the elaboration of the law, that either the government creates a fund or that offenders be given work to earn money for victims.

Patrice Vahard, the Representative of the UN Higher Commissioner for Human Rights in Burundi who praised the law, described some of its articles as “very progressive”.

One attendee expressed his worries that since gender-based violence can be observed within members of the same family, the law with its harsh punishment provisions might divide families instead of uniting them since it appears to be antithetical to reconciliation. The chairwoman responded that “impunity not punishment of crimes cause problems within families”.

AFBJ had organised yesterday a round-table discussion in Bujumbura at the French Institute in Burundi within the framework of 16 days of activism to eliminate violence against women and girls. The activity was organised in partnership with the UN Office of Higher Commissioner for Human Rights in Burundi and the French Embassy.

AFJB has no precise figures on the situation of gender-based violence. Ndikumasabo says that the frequent forms of violence against women and girls in Burundi include among others sexual, physical, psychological and economic violence as well as different kinds of gender-based discrimination in education, at the job market, in the workplace, etc.

In Burundi, rapists are punished with a 25 year sentence in prison. However, with the present crisis, many claims of cases of rape have been reported by national and international organisations.