By BONNIE ABOLA
STUDIES conducted by the Port Moresby General Hospital (PMGH) reveal an alarming rate of gender-based violence (GBV) cases.
Child sexual abuse is the most common form of sexual violence apart from rape, domestic violence and sexual assault.
Twelve women have died in the last 11 months at PMGH as a result of domestic violence, 47.9% of victims of domestic and sexual assault were under the age of 16.
These were from findings recorded from 2004 to 2007 at PMGH and revealed by Dr Angela Seginame at the launching of the Gutpela Sindaun campaign in Lae last week.
Among these cases reported at the hospital by NCD residents, 70% of the survivors were from the Southern region, 19% from the Highlands region, Momase 6.1% and Islands 3.1%.
Most of these cases were from survivors who lived in settlements (52.6%), urban survivors (31.7%) and villagers (17.7%).
Dr Seginame said most of these act of violence occurred in their homes, where the assailant were known to the victim.
She said the statistics showed how alarming the problem was but added that this was a small part because there were many victims who had not reported their cases.
Dr Seginame also revealed that the after-effects of GBV were mostly fatal which included homicide, suicide, maternal mortality which had a rate of 370 deaths for every 100,000 deliveries, peri-natal (immediately before and after birth) mortality was 30-50 deaths in 1,000 while infant mortality rates accounted for 73 deaths in 1,000 births and HIV/AIDS related deaths made up 1% of pregnant mothers.
Mental health problems were another consequence of GBV, which included post traumatic stress disorder, depression, mental disorder anxiety, fear, anger, shame, mental illness, and suicidal thoughts and behaviours.
Meanwhile, there are attempts to alleviate the problems and they are to set up user-friendly services for survivor centred skills, safe-houses for survivors of sexual violence and also for PMGH to upgrade family support centres to a one-stop-shop.
She pointed out that no one was violent, but it was not good for the children to be exposed to violence.