22 Apr 2013

Faith based organisations should favour human rights and stop violence against women and girl-child.

The director of Women’s Ministry of Botswana Union of Seventh Day Adventist Church, Ms Susan Williams said this during a campaign themed:  “End it, say no to violence against women.”

Such organisations, she noted, should recognise an urgent need to end violence against women and bring about justice. 

She noted that approximately one in three women worldwide experiences gender-related violence in her lifetime, with rates reaching 70 per cent in some countries.

Violence, she noted, affects majority of women worldwide in all socio-economic and educational classes and cuts across cultural and religious barriers, impeding the right of women to participate fully in the society.

Ms Williams observed that throughout the world, violence against women and girls is perpetrated within marriages and families by husbands, intimate partners and relatives, strangers and traditional leaders.

Across international borders, she said, women are trafficked for sexual activities and labour.

The Seventh Day Adventist Church has come up with a program dubbed “End it now”, which aims at mobilising the Adventist women, church members, all individuals, social groups, faith based organisations, schools and business community to join hands and say 'no to violence against women and girls.'

She contends that believers must become agents of change and end the evils of abuse and gender-based violence both in the society and within the church itself, she added.

“Our position is clear because we affirm the dignity and worth of each human being. We do not condone decry all forms of physical, sexual and emotional abuse and family violence."

For his part, acting Maun station commander, Assistant Superintendent Zhabi Hulela explained that cases of domestic violence were on the rise, noting that it was a worrying factor that some people fail to report such incidents.

He said 111 cases of rape were reported last year alone, 29 cases as from January to March this year.

He appealed to the public to report domestic violence incidents for law can take its course. ENDS