22 Jun 2015

Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has partnered with the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Botswana to conduct a survey on violence against children.

Presenting the national survey on violence against children to members of Ntlo ya Dikgosi on June 19, the social protection technical assistant, Mr Daniel Motsatsing said violence against children was initiated by, amongst others, the UN secretary general’s Global Survey on Violence Against Children.

“We also note that at the country level, there is lack of comprehensive statistics on the extent and nature of the problem. Equally, anecdotal evidence in some communities point to the existence of various forms of violence against children,” he said.

In Botswana, Mr Motsatsing said a situational analysis on families was done in 2011 and pointed to the family institution going through a transition, adding that some undesired outcomes included traumatised children caused by dysfunctional families.

To date, he said the survey had been completed in eight countries of Cambodia, Haiti, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Swaziland. Another eight countries, he said, were undertaking or planning to undertake the survey in 2014 through to 2016.

The countries, Mr Motsatsing said, include Botswana, Cote’d Ivore, Lagos People Democratic Republic, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia.

So far, he said funding had already been set aside specifically to conduct the survey in support of governments in the fight against HIV/AIDS. He added that financial and technical support to the survey would be provided by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC-PEPFAR).

Additionally, he said UNICEF had also availed technical personnel to lead the coordinator of the survey, whilst Statistics Botswana would lead in providing advisory responsibilities for conducting surveys on human subjects.

“Various government ministries and departments, international agencies, civil society, academia, Statistics Botswana and research institutions would provide various forms of technical input as they partake in the development, review and adaptation of survey materials.

They also sit in working committees to address issues such as community mobilisation, providing sampling information as well as assisting in hiring and training of field teams,” he added.

The Social Protection technical assistant appealed to members of Ntlo-ya Dikgosi to engage their communities on issues of the survey by advocating for their participation in the survey when data was collected and when HIV testing on some respondents was done.

As dikgosi are ex-officio members of village or district child protection committees in their areas of jurisdiction as prescribed by the Children’s Act 2009, he also requested them to have regular communication with their communities with a view to reduce issues of any kind of violence in their respective areas of operation and keep up the momentum on executing their oversight role of guiding child development.

“As a country, we also expect to have robust discussions, debates and dialogue on how to best to address the issues pertaining to child development and in particular violence against children,” he said.

The survey aligns directly with government’s key policy documents related to the well-being of children such as the; Children’s Act, 2009; Domestic Violence Act, 2008; Child Sexual Abuse Communication Strategy 2010-2014 and Botswana National Plan of Action for Orphans and Vulnerable Children 2010-2016. Ends