There is need for introducing a desk to fight Gender Based Violence (GBV) in hotels, bars, lodges and restaurants to protect girls from different forms of gender violence in those places, Gender and Family Promotion Minister, Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya has said.

She was speaking over the weekend at Hotel Novotel Umubano in a seminar organized to brainstorm on issues related to gender-based violence.

"Hotels and restaurants should have a desk to help girls working in those places because they are abused by different people in several ways. They are abused by their bosses and the clients as well,” Mujawamariya said. She suggested that the desk should be handled by someone with outstanding integrity.

"That way the victim will have her problem solved, rather than running to another troublemaker,” she said.

The minister said that gender-related abuses have a negative bearing on the girls’ lives.” She observed that with such a desk in place, people at drinking and eating places will be careful because "they will be conscious that there is a watchdog nearby.”

Mujawamariya dismissed claims that girls who serve as bar attendants or waitresses wore provocative clothes, insisting that anybody has a right to be respected.

Organised by the Rwanda National Police (RNP), the meeting was also attended by, among others, Deputy Commissioner General of Police Mary Gahonzire, who also called on participants to intervene in the fight against GBV.
The RNP played a short video showing different GBV cases in the country.  

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