26 Jul 2015

Child sexual abuse is an organised crime and requires an organised partnership amongst all stakeholders, says  Stepping Stone International (SSI) executive director, Ms Lisa Jamu.

Ms Jamu said every person has an interaction with children, adding that the only way to help children was by gaining traction and taking action.

“In order to take action we need evidence, the reason we undertook the study on child protection are the preparedness of services providers in handling child sexual abuse cases and to really understand what action we need to take,” she said.

She was speaking during a meeting in Gaborone to present research findings on child protection.

The meeting also showed priority areas of intervention in improving child protection against sexual abuse and exploitation in Botswana.

The programme coordinator of SSI, Mr Chirwah Mahloko said the research was done in five government departments of junior and senior schools, police, magistrates and clerks of court, social workers and health care workers.

Mr Mahloko said the research was done in Artesia, Good Hope and Bobirwa district as well as Francistown.

He pointed out that it was important that people change their attitudes towards discussing issues of child abuse, and move away from not reporting them as well as stigmatising those who had fallen victim to the heinous crime.

“Children are not the future if they are not taken care of today,” he said.

At the end of the meeting, participants signed the solidarity book which was the component of the project that aims to gather a minimum of 20 000 signatures agreeing to the recommendations of improving child protection against sexual abuse. Ends