TAAAC's Inception

In 2006, a girl aged 13 was sexually abused by her teacher at a known school in Lusaka, Zambia. The minor and her guardian sued the teacher, along with the school and the Zambian Ministry of Education. This case attracted public attention and was followed closely by many people both locally and outside the country. On June 30th, 2008, the presiding Judge, Philip Musonda delivered a judgment in the High Court of Zambia in which the victim was awarded K45 million Kwacha (about $13 000) as compensation.

Justice Musonda made the following telling observation:

“The government is responsible for all school going children in the care of its agents — such as teachers, school authorities and any other person in it’s employment during the time the schools are in session,”

This case became one of the few that have held government accountable for its obligations to the African Union’s Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa to which Zambia is a signatory. The case has been hailed as a landmark judgement for the bold step taken by the Judge who held the Government liable for the violation of the girl Child in school and the state was asked to award damages.

The plight of this girl child was followed with keen interest by Equality Now, an organisation that works with national human rights organizations and individual activists to documents violence and discrimination against women and mobilizes international action to support their efforts to stop these human rights abuses. Equality Now saw this case as an appropriate advocacy tool for effecting the necessary change in Zambia and convened and strategised with various civil society organisations in Zambia to develop a program to address violence against girls by teachers.

After a few consultative meetings with Equality Now, some Zambian civil society organisations saw the need to form a coalition. In the formative stages of this coalition, Sara Longwe, (see picture below)

a renowned Human Rights Activist played a critical role, offering her wealth of experience in conjunction with the NGOCC that hosted most of the coalition meetings.

Since its inception, the coalition has developed a multi-faceted approach to fight violence against girls, under the banner of “Our girls, our future: building synergy to end violence against girls in Zambia,” using funds from the UN Trust Fund. This intiative is focused on securing justice for girls who experience sexual abuse and strengthen the national legal framework to address violence against women and girls.


In January, 2010 Equality Now hired a Consultant (TAAAC Coordinator), Shupe Makashinyi to coordinate the activities of the coalition. The coalition was officially launched on February 18th, 2010, at a colourful and well attended cocktail held at the Southern Sun Hotel in Lusaka.

The launch was preceded by the coalition building workshop which was attended by all implementing partners, and three members of staff from the lead implementing agency, Equality Now: Yasmeen Hassan, Director of Programmes (New York office); Faiza Mohamed, Director of Programmes (Nairobi office), and Muthoni Muriithi, Programme Officer (Nairobi office). The Country Director of Population Council, Dr. Jill Keesbury (see picture below), also attended the workshop to explain Population Council's responsibility of monitoring and evaluating the coalition's activities.


Among the people who attended the official launch were Hon. Richard Taima, Deputy Minister of Education, Hon. Lucy Changwe, Deputy Minister for Gender, her Lordship Deputy Chief Justice, Irene Mambilima, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services, Mr. Ngosa Chisupa, NGO Directors, senior officials from the Ministry of Health and the Zambia Police Service, and other valuable stakeholders. (The three Equality Now Staff members, from left to right Muthoni, Yasmeen and Faiza)


Although the problem of sexual abuse of adolescent girls in Zambia has been growing at a very fireghtening rate, it is gratifying to note that there has also been a growing recognition of the need to safeguard the rights of adolescent girls and to ensure that interventions are centred on the concerns of these girls. This is what the coalition is seeking to do for the girl child in Zambia.

Kamulanga High School Teachers Meeting

Kamulanga High School is situated approximately 9 km from the town.  It is located south of Lusaka in Jack compound.  The school is one of the safe space schools where TAAAC is currently operating under the Forum for African Women Educationalist (FAWEZA).

On July 1, 2010, ZNWL Men's Network working with FAWEZA gave a presentation to teachers of Kamulanga High School.  The main aim of the meeting was to introduce the Men's Network Project and the Boys Network club for the boys.  The teachers were very enthusiastic about the project.

ZNWL also participated in the Parents Teachers Association meeting in the afternoon.  One of the interesting issues that ZNWL learned was how the school was transformed into the school of excellence by FAWEZA from an ordinary basic school.  The school authorities working with parents have also managed to secure a boarding house for underprivileged girls.

One of the critical issues that came out of the discussion was the increasing number of pupils dropping out of school due to lack of school fees.  After a lengthy discussion between teachers and parents, various proposals were made including parents making a certain amount of money to meet school for pupils who cannot afford to pay school fees.  ZNWL's proposal was to engage pupils themselves to fund raise for their friends who are not able to pay for the school fees.  This was welcomed by the school authorities and parents.

Teachers Sensitisation
During this session a brief introduction of ZNWL and its programs was given to the teachers.  It was mentioned that ZNWL works with women politicians from all political parties in processes of capacity building, lobbying and advocacy with government departments, the presidency, political parties and other strategic allies.  The teachers were informed that in 2000, ZNWL launched the Men's Network Project to deal with escalating concerns of women by involving men as models to reach other men.  Some of the activities for engaging men include capacity building of new network members, the Men's Travelling Conference and the Men's Campfire Night Conference and the newly introduced Boys Network Project.

The focus of the teachers' sensitisation was to help the teachers grasp the project before it come into school.  The Boys Network club will be an advocacy tool against the sexual violence on adolescent girls in schools.  It was explained that the development of this project was prompted by the fact that there are increasing cases of violence against girls in schools.  In principle the teachers welcomed the initiative.  The boys network will work in key focus areas which include training of boys as advocates, radio programmes as one of the innovation for giving an opportunity to boys to speak out against violence as well as reaching other boys in schools and in the community and sensitisation of parents on SGBV.

The teachers were informed that a formal request will be made to the school to have the initiative recognised.  So far a letter has been written to that effect.  A date for establishing the Boys Network is yet to be set up.  So far so good as communication has been established with the head teacher, Ms. Patricia Mudenda.

Men's Network Project Coordinator, Nelson Banda, flanked by Kamulanga High School headmistress, Patricia Mudenda, and FAWEZA's Mwenya Chiti, giving a session to teachers during the Teachers Sensitisation at Kamulanga High School, of of the Safe Spaces Schools.

 Kamulanga High School teachers listening during the sessions.