Zilipha Dawa, the Commissioner of Mundri-West in Western Equatoria State - Courtesy

The establishment of a mobile court in Mundri-West will help fight rampant gender-based violence in the County, the Commissioner has said.

The County Commissioner, Zilipha Dawa says the Court will also bring relief and justice to survivors of gender-based violence – GBV.

The court was established in collaboration and support of the United Nations Development Programme – UNDP.

Commissioner Dawa called on the community to report any GBV case to authority.

“The issue of GBV is rampant in the area and there is no enough law to deter cases of gender-based violence especially in cases of sexual assault,” Commissioner Dawa said.

“We have no knowledge of the law that deals with sexual assault cases, as well as procedures of reporting sexual assault reports including the rights of sexual assault victims.

“This is the right moment for everyone to know how to deal with these issues and help the community to report sexual abuse cases.”

For his part, Judge Andrew Joshua says absence of Judges in the area since 2015 has caused a backlog of cases.

He pointed out that as soon as they arrived, they began to settle some urgent issues.

The team consists of one high Court Judge, two County Judge, three prosecutors from the General attorney and three lawyers.

Judge Joshua spoke to Eye Radio via phone this morning from Mundri West County.

“There was a court, a Judge, and a Prosecutor in the region, but since 2015, there has been a complete absence of the rule of law represented in the court in the area. This has resulted in the accumulation of cases and the number of crimes due to the absence of the law,”

“Since we arrived, thanks to the media and its awareness-raising, we started working on the cases. Therefore, we got a large number of citizens in the morning present in court because they know the existence of the rule of law in the area.”

Last month, a female Judge encouraged women to have faith in the legal systems and seek justice for all forms of Gender-based violence.

Ajok Tito Telar, who is a second-grade Judge at the County court in Juba stated that women should report the vice to the police then open a court case against perpetrators

Survivors of Gender-Based Violence often claim that the police do not help them after reporting the case.