With the support of UNFPA, the Council of Christian Churches in Angola (CICA) held a national conference on gender-based violence on 21 and 22 February 2024.
The conference involved the leaders of CICA's 24 member churches, representatives from UNFPA Angola, the Ministry of Social Action, Family and the Promotion of Women, the Social Area of the Presidency of the Republic, women's party organisations such as LIMA - Angolan Women's League and OMA - Angolan Women's Organisation.
This initiative aimed to promote the best approaches to the progress of gender equality and the restoration of healthy relationships between women and men, girls and boys and adults for harmonious coexistence.
According to the Secretary General of CICA, Reverend Deolinda Dorcas Teca, the conference made it possible to create a strategy for churches to address gender-based violence in their congregations and communities.
Luís Samacumbi, programme officer for Youth, Gender and Humanitarian Affairs at UNFPA, addressed the topic of "Gender-based violence from the perspective of the United Nations", pointing out that the United Nations was founded in 1945 on three fundamental pillars: Peace and Security, Sustainable Development and Human Rights, and that the issue of gender-based violence cuts across these three assumptions of its creation.
For her part, the National Director for Gender Equity and Equality of MASFAMU - the Ministry of Social Action, Family and Women's Promotion, Conceição Nhanga, shared with the audience the projects that the Angolan government and its partners have been developing with a view to preventing and combating gender-based violence, emphasising that the government is continuing to work on bringing its legislation into line with the aim of better responding to the challenges.
