JOURNEYING SAFER INTO 2023
Siliniu Lina Chang, SVSG President
As 2022 comes to an end, Samoa Victim Support Group is appeling to our community to be extracautious as we journey into 2023.
This is because 2022 is marked by the community transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic and thesocio-economic challenges it has imposed on our people as individuals, and on our country as acollective.
For SVSG and its response to gender based violence services, the horrendous abuse of the mostvulnerable, usually women and children, continues. The innonect lives lost during the Christmasperiod is evidence of just how deadly violence has become, and has killed.
The number of calls to the SVSG Helpline during the Christmas holidays however, confirms that our people are now more aware of the support services available, when in need of help. Out of the 65 calls received on both the Digicel Samoa and the Vodafone Samoa Helplines, 20 of these calls were gender based violence cases, with the victims ranging from a 1 year old child being neglected at home while the parents go to work; to an attempted suicide father who has been having marital problems with his wife; to sexually abused girls within their own homes.
Yes Samoa, the reality of the pandemic that is affecting our beautiful Samoa is not so much the COVID-19 pandemic, but violence. As a child safe organization and a human rights defender, SVSG is hopeful that the goodness within all of us, supercedes the temptation to cause harm. That our Christian beliefs and traditional values both provided us with a balance necessary to look out for each other’s safety.
“SVSG takes this opportunity to thanked the Government of Samoa, development partners, churches, village communities families and friends, for supporting SVSG’s transformative journey this year.”
“As a family, we have a collective responsibility to look out for each other’s safety into the new year, especially our children. From the our beautiful children at the Campus of Hope, we wish you a safer new year Samoa, and God bless.” Siliniu Lina Chang, SVSG President