Christine Lundambuyu, the gender coordinator for Oxfam in South Sudan - credit | Lou Nelson/Eye Radio |

Oxfam South Sudan and partners have called on stakeholders in the country to ensure that all covid-19 response plans are aligned to gender based violence for inclusive and tangible impact.

According to the World Health Organization of WHO about 26.7 trillion US dollars has been spent in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, only 0.002 has been spent on Gender Based Violence as incidents increased during the lockdown across the globe.

Recently, Oxfam South Sudan launched a campaign under the theme: “The Ignored Pandemic: Addressing GBV in the Global Response to Covic19.”

This is in commemoration of the 16 Days of activism against Gender based violence.

Christine Lundambuyu, the gender coordinator for Oxfam says evidence indicates that for thirty years, the funding to GBV has been very minimal.

“Our campaign message as Oxfam and our partners for this year’s 16 days of activism is to continue calling all stake holders including us as Oxfam to ensure that we are aligning our covid response plans to GBV,” Ms Christine told Eye Radio on Friday.

“As we are responding to covid 19, let us respond to GBV as well. Let us give it the attention that it needs and let us ensure that it is prioritized just the way we are prioritizing covid.

“It is also a pandemic. Our paper is saying GBV is the pandemic and we are saying, can it also be considered and taken as seriously as other pandemic.”

This year marks 30 years for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence with less progress observed in challenging and eliminating gender-based violence for the past three decades despite continuous activism against this globally.

Harmful social norms and practices continue to carry the order of the day to endorse and perpetuate gender-based violence mostly among women and girls in societies.