AMECEA Secretariat Consults Zambia Clergy On Child Safeguarding

A two-day consultative meeting on Child safeguarding between AMECEA’s Pastoral office and the Association of Zambian Diocesan Catholic Clergy (AZADCC) has been held in Lusaka, from 9^th– 10^th, October, 2019.

Some of the issues being discussed were prevention of child sexual abuse, the 2017 Vatican Summit on safeguarding’s resolutions and commitments.

Meanwhile Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB) Assistant Secretary General Fr. Justin Matepa reiterated the bishops’ commitment to implementing Child Protection policy by including it in Caritas Zambia programing and the employment of a child protection officer at the Catholic Secretariat.

Fr. Matepa also expressed hope that the consultative meeting will help to refine ZCCB’s commitment and expand the Church’s knowledge, skills and compassion in its endeavour and become ambassador in promoting and making sure that the young ones find space to play, pray and grow in physic, faith and charity.

In his remarks AZADCC National president Fr Dennis Punthamboyo called on all priests in Zambia to protect children that are in their custody at all times, adding that they have a mandate to report any form of child abuse.

Fr Punthambuyo further thanked AMECEA for implementing the resolution arrived at during the launch of the AMECEA Child Protection standards and guidelines which took place in May 2019.

Meanwhile AMECEA Secretary General Fr Anthony Makunde who said that Zambia is a second conference to be consulted after Tanzania, acknowledged the turnout and expressed his gratefulness to AZADCC.

Fr. Makunde announced that bishops in AMECEA region will soon gather in Nairobi to discuss and plan how they will address the challenges of child protection and safe guarding in their respective conferences using local resources.

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By Mwenya Mukuka, ZCCB Communications Officer