Zambia: Diocesan Catholic clergy in Livingstone Diocese welcome workshop on Safeguarding
The Association of Zambian Diocesan Catholic Clergy (AZADCC) in Livingstone Diocese organized a leadership and child safeguarding workshop for diocesan clergy at Luxe Country Convention Centre. The sessions were led by Father Imasiku Ngalama Mwanamulena IV, the diocesan Safeguarding Policy focal point, and Father John Damascene Rurangwa, the pastoral coordinator, and focused on strengthening protection protocols and accountability. The workshop was part of the mandatory orientation on the diocese’s Safeguarding Policy, aiming to improve clergy awareness of reporting channels for abuse and exploitation. Fr Gregory Chabala, AZADCC president, praised the workshop and urged similar training for lay leaders and religious members.
about 2 months ago
The Association of Zambian Diocesan Catholic Clergy (AZADCC) held a leadership and child‑safeguarding workshop for priests of the Livingstone Diocese at the Luxe Country Convention Centre. The training, led by Father Imasiku Ngalama Mwanamulena IV, the diocesan Safeguarding Policy focal point, and Father John Damascene Rurangwa, the Pastoral Coordinator, aimed to reinforce protection protocols, accountability, and safe environments within parishes and community structures. 1
The session formed part of the mandatory orientation on the Livingstone Diocese Safeguarding Policy and was well received by attending clergy, who expressed interest in the policy’s updated scope. Participants highlighted the need for clear reporting channels for abuse and called for similar training for lay leaders and religious members. 1
Father Gregory Chabala, parish priest of St. Fidelis and AZADCC president, praised the workshop, noting its importance for ensuring priests have correct information on safeguarding procedures and for extending the program to lay faithful. 1
The event reflects the diocese’s ongoing commitment to child protection and aligns with broader Church efforts to strengthen safeguarding measures across Africa. 1
Evaluate Catholic safeguarding policy implementation in African dioceses
Catholic safeguarding policy in African dioceses has a strong universal normative framework, especially through Vos estis lux mundi (2023). It requires accessible reporting mechanisms, prompt transmission of allegations, protection from retaliation, care for complainants, cooperation with civil law, and precautionary measures.
The available evidence indicates substantial and creative implementation in particular African dioceses and Catholic institutions, especially through prevention, awareness-raising, protection of vulnerable groups, and partnerships with civil society. However, the sources do not provide enough independently verified, continent-wide data to conclude that every diocese has fully implemented the norms. The most defensible evaluation is therefore: policy adoption is clear; operational implementation is uneven, locally innovative, and still insufficiently measurable.
The central implementation test is whether dioceses have created reporting structures that ordinary people can actually use. Vos estis lux mundi requires dioceses or eparchies, individually or jointly, to establish offices or institutions “easily accessible to the public” for receiving reports. Information must be handled in a way that preserves its safety, integrity, and confidentiality.
This standard has several practical implications for African dioceses:
The policy also requires prompt transmission of a report to the Ordinary of the place where the alleged events occurred and to the Ordinary of the person reported, unless another arrangement has been made. This is particularly important in Africa, where clergy, religious personnel, seminarians, and pastoral workers may serve across diocesan or national boundaries.
Clerics and members of religious institutes or societies of apostolic life who learn of relevant misconduct, or have well-founded reasons to believe it occurred, are obliged to report promptly, subject to the protection of the internal forum. Lay faithful, especially those holding ecclesial offices or exercising ministries, may also submit reports through the established channels or other appropriate means.
This is a significant shift from a purely clerical model of accountability. Effective implementation requires formation not only for priests and bishops but also for:
The reporting framework covers sexual abuse involving minors, vulnerable adults, and persons whose capacity to understand, will, or resist an offense is limited. It also includes certain forms of abuse of authority, pornography involving minors or persons with imperfect use of reason, and conduct intended to interfere with civil or canonical investigations.
Safeguarding is not adequately implemented merely because a diocese receives allegations. The Church’s norms require complainants and their families to be treated with dignity and respect. They are to be welcomed, listened to, supported, and offered spiritual, medical, therapeutic, and psychological assistance as appropriate.
At the same time, the good name, privacy, and personal data of all persons involved must be protected. This creates a necessary balance:
Retaliation, prejudice, and discrimination against a person who reports are prohibited. The norms also state that a complainant or witness may not be forced into silence concerning the contents of a report, subject to the relevant legal provisions.
Finally, ecclesial norms operate without prejudice to state law, including any duty to report to competent civil authorities. In implementation terms, a diocesan policy that does not clearly explain when and how civil reporting occurs is incomplete.
The strongest evidence in the available material concerns preventive and protective initiatives directed toward vulnerable populations. In Nigeria, the Clarissan Missionary Sisters in Onitsha Province conducted awareness programmes in parishes, schools, groups, and associations to help people identify and avoid human trafficking. More than 10,000 people were reportedly sensitised, while 25 vulnerable young people received skills training and five girls abandoned a planned journey to Europe after learning about trafficking risks.
Although human trafficking is not identical to clerical sexual abuse, it is directly relevant to safeguarding because it addresses exploitation, vulnerability, coercion, and the protection of minors and women. It also demonstrates a valuable implementation principle: prevention is most effective when it reaches ordinary parish and community settings rather than remaining a diocesan office policy.
The same work shows the importance of collaboration among religious congregations, volunteers, and national networks of women religious. Such networks can expand safeguarding capacity in dioceses where professional personnel and financial resources are limited.
The African Catholic safeguarding context includes refugees, internally displaced persons, victims of armed conflict, and people facing extreme poverty. The Dicastery’s African best-practices material records a project in Niger that trained stakeholders on policy concerning sexual exploitation and abuse, supported vulnerable women and girls, assisted orphans, and strengthened protective environments in a region affected by violence and displacement.
This is an important strength because safeguarding risks often increase when:
A narrow policy focused only on priests in parishes would therefore be inadequate. African dioceses often exercise safeguarding through schools, clinics, refugee ministries, Caritas projects, and humanitarian programmes. These settings require the same standards of recruitment, supervision, reporting, referral, and accountability as explicitly ecclesial ministries.
The Assumption Sisters of Nairobi’s Upendo Village, located within the Catholic Diocese of Nakuru, offers another model of integrated protection. The project reportedly serves approximately 13,996 people and families affected by HIV and combines education, medical care, nutrition, psychosocial support, social welfare, and income-generating activities.
Such initiatives address structural factors that can expose people to abuse: poverty, dependence, lack of education, social isolation, and illness. They embody the principle that safeguarding is not simply an investigative procedure but also the creation of environments in which vulnerable persons have greater agency and access to help.
The Church’s wider African pastoral teaching likewise stresses the dignity and protection of women, including personal safety, economic justice, and access to education. This provides an important theological and pastoral foundation for safeguarding policies that address not only children but also vulnerable adults and women exposed to coercion or exploitation.
The principal limitation of the evidence is methodological. The Dicastery’s report explicitly states that much of the information was supplied directly by participating organisations and could not be independently verified. It also warns that different congregations use different criteria and that beneficiary numbers may be overestimated or underestimated because individuals may be counted more than once or not recorded when they are referred elsewhere.
Consequently, these examples demonstrate capacity and good practice, but they do not establish:
A serious evaluation therefore needs independent audits, common indicators, public annual reporting, and survivor-informed assessment.
A diocesan safeguarding policy may exist formally while remaining difficult to use in practice. The universal norms require accessibility, but the available sources do not show whether all dioceses provide:
This gap matters because fear of authority, cultural deference to clergy, dependence on Church institutions, and geographic distance can discourage reporting even where a formal policy exists. The prohibition of retaliation in Vos estis lux mundi is therefore not merely juridical; it must be visible and credible to parishioners.
The available African examples show committed pastoral agents, religious sisters, volunteers, and partner organisations. However, they also reveal the importance of external support, professionalisation, funding, and cooperation with civil actors. The Niger project, for example, depended on partner funding and trained stakeholders in protection against sexual exploitation and abuse.
This suggests that some dioceses may face practical constraints, including:
These constraints do not lessen the Church’s obligations, but they affect the reliability and consistency of implementation.
The Church’s official teaching places particular responsibility on bishops as successors of the Apostles and pastoral leaders. The 2019 promulgation of Vos estis lux mundi states that sexual abuse causes physical, psychological, and spiritual harm and that conversion must be demonstrated through “concrete and effective actions” involving the whole Church.
The norms specifically provide procedures for allegations involving bishops and other ecclesial leaders, including diocesan pastoral heads. Where facts or circumstances require it, the metropolitan is to propose appropriate precautionary measures to the competent Dicastery.
Implementation should therefore be judged not only by the existence of diocesan policies but also by whether bishops:
The African episcopal context contains strong precedents for collaboration and joint pastoral action among bishops. John Paul II praised cooperation among the bishops of Kenya and neighbouring AMECEA countries as a source of mutual support and more effective ministry. The same regional cooperation could be applied more systematically to safeguarding through shared investigators, training programmes, referral services, and audit mechanisms.
The evidence supports several positive conclusions:
The evidence does not establish that implementation is:
The most serious unresolved issue is therefore not the absence of universal policy but the institutional reliability of its application.
African dioceses would strengthen implementation by adopting a common minimum framework:
Catholic safeguarding policy in African dioceses should be assessed as normatively developed but operationally uneven. The Church has established a binding framework requiring accessible reporting, prompt action, protection from retaliation, care for victims, respect for due process, and compliance with civil law.
African Catholic initiatives demonstrate considerable pastoral creativity, especially in trafficking prevention, protection of women and children, assistance to displaced persons, and holistic support for vulnerable families. Yet the available evidence is not sufficiently independent or comprehensive to demonstrate consistent implementation across the continent. The decisive next stage is to move from policies and exemplary projects to verifiable diocesan systems of accountability, supported by professional expertise, regional cooperation, transparent reporting, and meaningful attention to survivors.