Kinshasa, April 30th, 2025 (CPA) – Women’s difficulties in gaining access to justice in Sankuru (central Democratic Republic of Congo) were discussed on Tuesday in Kinshasa between the provincial gender minister and a commissioner from the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH-RDC), according to the institution.
‘Ms Thérèse Ohaka Deko, Minister for Gender in Sankuru, told national commissioner Gisèle Kapinga Ntumba, in charge of women’s and children’s rights at the CNDH-RDC, that access to justice is a real problem in this province, because the children’s courts and other jurisdictions are not operational, apart from the public prosecutor’s offices’, noted Christian Ciniama, adviser to the CNDH, stressing the various difficulties facing women and young people in this province. National Commissioner Gisèle Kapinga was told of the lack of respect for women’s rights and the various difficulties facing women and girls in particular. ‘Women give birth in homes because of the lack of means to access health care. Access to school for some children is also a real difficulty’, added the Sankuru Minister for Gender, noting that in her province, as at national level, backward customs persist.
‘For the conservatives of these backward customs, women and girls do not deserve the same treatment as men and boys’, she said. She called on the CNDH-RDC to urge the state authorities to respect women’s rights in Sankuru. For her part, National Commissioner Gisèle Kapinga assured her host that her institution intended to lobby the country’s authorities, including UN bodies, on the situation of women and girls in the province.