06 May 2015

The media has been called upon to raise awareness on neglected issues of women and children and cover difficult and not always pleasant issues to influence change in policies.

The assistant representative at the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA) head office, Ms Mareledi Segotso, said this when briefing journalists on the UNFPA mandate.

She said the media, as the watchdogs, should monitor progress on implementation of policies and programmes for adolescents and youth.

Ms Segotso said UNFPA has been in existence in Botswana since 1971, and was mandated to work with government and civil society on the five year programme document which is usually based on the aspirations of the state.

UNFPA, she said, aimed to achieve universal access to sexual reproduction, health realisation of reproduction rights and reduction of maternity to accelerate programme on the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) agenda.

She said the focus was on women and adolescents to improve their lives as they strive to achieve gender equality, which promoted respect for human right informed by population dynamics and was a precondition for advancing development and reducing poverty.

Ms Segotso stated that gender based violence was one of the most universal and pervasive human rights violations worldwide. She added that violence against women and girls was an outcome of gender inequalities including unequal power relationships.

The Ministry of Health study has revealed that youth were faced with problems of unemployment which leads to poverty; HIV/AIDS epidemic and limited access to youth services. She added that less than half of the young people have comprehensive knowledge about HIV, but the national adolescent pregnancy rate stood at 9.7 per cent in 2007, while 19 per cent of the population had sex before the age of 15 years.

The study further revealed that unsafe abortions contributed to 15 per cent of the maternal mortality of those aged 15 – 49 years and that consistent condom use among young people was going down.

For his part, the UNFPA Population and Development Programme manager, Mr Moses Keetile, said Botswana as United Nations Member state was a signatory to international and regional Declarations and Conventions, and as such UNFPA assisted the country to report on the Implementation of such Instruments.

He said population dynamics were an enabler to achieve universal access to sexual and reproductive health, in order to realise reproductive rights, reduce maternal mortality and improve the lives of the adolescents, youth and women Mr Keetile said his office focuses on integration of evidence based analysis on population and their links to sustainable development. Ends