LWF and Zimbabwean Church Collaborate on Safeguarding Policy to Prevent Abuse in Church Institutions

LWF supports churches and their institutions to become safe places for all. Learn how the church in Zimbabwe accompanied survivors of abuse and developed a safeguarding policy to protect all those in its care.

Participants in a safeguarding training organized by the Lutheran Development Services in Zimbabwe. Photo: LDS

(LWI) – Churches, church-run schools and other institutions should be safe places for all. But how should their leaders react if they discover that a child or vulnerable person has been harmed, exploited or abused? Where can they turn for help? What steps can they take to support survivors and their families? How can they restore trust and prevent such tragedies from happening again?

Those questions were under the spotlight at an event, facilitated by The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and led by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ), together with its diaconal organization, the Lutheran Development Services (LDS), which recently had to deal with a situation of abuse in a church-run school.

“It was in March 2025 that we first heard the news,” said former ELCZ Presiding Bishop Kenneth Sibanda. “We were quite shocked and we didn’t know what to do, where to begin,” he recalled.

Amid widespread agitation among students, their families and the local community, Bishop Sibanda immediately sent a diocesan team to find out the facts by speaking to all those involved. He then released a statement taking responsibility, expressing his deep sorrow, while offering support and counseling to those affected.

First and foremost, he said he wanted people to know that “we are very sorry as a church, as a community of believers, and we are there to continue to journey together with survivors, parents and local community.”

The headmaster of the school called the police who did a full investigation, while the bishop reached out to the LDS, and, through them, to a nationwide organization called Childline Zimbabwe, which partners with the government to prevent abuse and provide a safe environment for all young people.

Together they developed a safeguarding policy with the goals of supporting recovery, rebuilding trust and strengthening awareness to enable students to report any future concerns.

“Our safeguarding policy was approved at the end of last year and is being implemented in the 16 church-run institutions all over the country,” noted Bongiwe Mavuwa, an adviser for Justice and Peace at LDS, with many years of experience in gender, psychosocial support, disaster risk management and emergency response.

“Key interventions included the safeguarding policy and rollout, but also capacity building for staff and pupils, psychosocial support for survivors and the establishment of effective reporting mechanisms,” she continued.

Source: Read the original report