Social initiative held in Sweidaa on the last day of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign

The Sweida branch of the Family Planning Association, through its Center for Supporting and Empowering Women, on Saturday carried out an initiative for training the teenage girls at the Social Care Home (Orphans Home) in the province on means of self-defense.

The initiative was carried out at the conclusion of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign.

The initiative aims at training adolescent girls how to defend themselves against violence and to confront any kind of harassment against them and at helping the girls abandon the belief that they are weak, according Director of the Center for Supporting and Empowering Women Wa’d Mallak.

The activities held within the initiative included holding a dialogue session on sexual abuse against children and women, its psychological effect on them and ways of confronting it.

The psychological and social support provider at the center Sandi Nasruddin, for her part, said that the initiative comes starting from the fact that self-defense is one of the rights of women and girls around the world and that silence over violence will encourage its repetition.

The Sweida branch of the Family Planning Association was established in 1992 with the aim of raising awareness about reproductive health and providing health, psychological and social care for family members.

Hamda Mustafa