Mobile Phones Usage for Gender Based Violence Prevention in Kigali, Rwanda

ABSTRACT Gender-based violence prevents people's enjoyment of fundamental human rights and it is also central social, economic and health problem. Similarly, gender-based violence is viewed as a significant problem throughout the world. However, in Rwanda studies on gender based violence prevention have done, Gender based violence is still problem. Most researches in this area were conducted but ICTs remain gender blind. The purpose of the study was to find out the use of mobile phones on Gender Based Violence prevention in Rwanda. the study was guided by three specific objectives which includes; i) to determine the level of the use of mobile phones in Rwanda, ii) to investigate the level of gender based violence prevention in Rwanda and iii)to find out the significant relationship between Mobile phones usage and Gender based violence prevention in Rwanda. The study employed descriptive survey in its methodology and random sampling technique was adopted for selecting the sample. From the findings, it was revealed that both men and women participated .in the study, The Level of mobile phones usage in Kigali was generally moderate and The Level of gender based prevention was generally Low and basing on the results, null hypothesis was rejected. Furthermore, the findings indicate that there was a positive significant relationship between mobile phone usage and gender based violence prevention. The study recommends that the ministry of gender and family promotion should usually introduce strategies and method of running the mobile applications; this will increase on the gender based violence prevention, the ministry of gender should give financial support to the mobile applications and provide handsets to victims that have all applications that can offer support, information, help and protection, and this will help to improve on the gender based violence prevention. The government of Rwanda should turn policies into practice to develop scalable, sustainable strategies to implement effective mobile applications.