The Pan African Civic Educators Network (PACENET) has strongly condemned violent acts which are perpetrated on women during elections.

The condemnation has been made on the side-lines of a meeting which the organisation held, to identify forms of violence which women face when vying for various political positions during election period and find solutions on the same.

In an interview with YFM online, the Executive Director for the organisation, Steve Duwa said women endure a lot during elections as such it is important to iron out those issues before holding elections.

“Our women face different types of abuses during election period thus psychologically, physically, sexually, to mention a few.We are concerned with violent acts which are perpetrated on women during this period.”

“We conducted a research recently to find out why most women do not participate in electoral processes and one of the issues which came out was that of violence,” said Duwa.

National Publicity Secretary for United Democratic front-UDF, Ken Ndanga said they have already developed a policy which among other key issues highlights penalties that will be levelled against committers of violent acts towards women.

“As a party we recognise the importance of supporting women in politics as such this policy will guide us during primary elections because this is a critical time, therefore we will penalise those who perpetrate violence against women.”

PACENET recently launched a gender transformative grassroots engagement training manual which among other things is expected to assist in changing people’s perception about women leaders.