NON-PROFIT organisation Eve for Life has received a grant from RISE Life Management Services to strengthen its efforts to empower young women to take charge of their lives.

Eve for Life, for the past eight years, has been working with adolescent mothers affected by HIV and childhood sexual abuse.

The grant, which amounts to $2.5 million, was disbursed by RISE Life Management under its European Union-funded ‘Finding my Voice’ programme.

Eve for Life will embark on a Survivor Mentor Initiative, where those who have suffered through sexual abuse by way of incest, rape or commercial sexual exploitation, now have the strength to empower other women and girls who have had similar experiences.

The programme’s target group includes adolescent girls and young women survivors of sexual abuse and adolescent girls between the ages of 14 and 19 years old who are currently engaged in or exiting sexual exploitation.

The programme will be implemented in Western Jamaica and should run for nine months in the first instance, with the specific objective of strengthening the capacity of 12 survivors who will participate in a series of training workshops.

During these workshops, the survivors/mentors will garner a better understanding of the Child Protection Act and how to gain access to organisations such as the Child Development Agency, Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse and other similar organisations.

The survivors/mentors will then pass on this vital information to young girls who might not be mentally strong so that they can become aware of their rights and where they can access legal, health and psychosocial support.

“Sexual violence against girls in Jamaica seems endemic and is usually wrapped in a culture of silence and complicity which appears to accept sexual violation of the girl child as a norm,” stressed Joy Crawford of Eve for Life.

She said the programme was most timely and is aligned to global objectives which seek to enhance women’s access to legislation and policies which provide protection against gender-based violence, and equip them with knowledge and tools for advocating for women’s rights and preventing gender-based violence and HIV.

Additionally, Crawford pointed to a 2008 Reproductive Health Survey which states that rape as a subset of sexual violence against the girl child has remained high for decades, with 20 per cent of young women below 19 reporting rape as their first sexual experience.

She said that more recent data from the Office of the Children’s Registry (OCR) indicated that in 2014, a total of 2,403 sexual abuse cases were reported, of which 3,008 were against girls. More than half of all reported cases of sexual abuse were carnal abuse (sex with children under 16 years old) and there were 374 cases of child rape.

Similarly, statistics from the Jamaica Constabulary Force indicated that in 2014, of the 651 reported rape cases, 347 were of girls between zero to 17 years old. Child rape, she said, therefore constituted more than 50 per cent of all rape cases reported in that year.

“This Eve for Life project fits very well into the mandate of the overall grant from the EU which seeks to empower the vulnerable children and women in the society,” said Shawn McGregor, programme manager at RISE Life Management Services with responsibility for the ‘Finding My Voice’ project.