08 Nov 2017

While the number of women in government executive positions has increased, their poor representation in political positions remains a cause for concern.

Commenting on the State of the Nation Address (SONA) that was delivered on November 6 by President Lt Gen. Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama, Gender Links country manager, Ms Gomolemo Rasesigo said while it was good to have women in executive positions, that did not help the cause for women much as most of those positions were not in decision-making.

Ms Rasesigo noted that having women hold political positions, where laws were made was integral to empowering all spheres of women’s lives.

“We are a beacon of democracy, but our level of women representation in political positions leaves a lot to be desired,” she noted.

Another problem that Gender Links has with the SONA, she noted was the apparent lack of gender mainstreaming.

She argued that as long as there was no gender mainstreaming, not much would be achieved with regard to women empowerment.

“As things stand, we are looking at gender from the surface,” she observed, saying empowering women went beyond giving them hand-outs as it was more about how accommodating the existing policies were to women.

She said when talking about the various empowerment programmes and initiatives, it should be made clear how many beneficiaries were women and how many were men, a situation which she observed would give a clear picture of any imbalances that could be existing regarding access to the programmes by gender.

She said while the current women empowerment initiatives were commendable, they were not enough as it was still necessary to critically look into the assistance they were being given, with particular emphasis on the numbers of those accessing the schemes and programmes, how many of those were able to keep their business ventures going and how many of the ventures were collapsing, as well as the reasons for the collapse.

Ms Rasesigo added that now that Botswana had signed the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, it was incumbent upon the country to ensure that it made strides towards women empowerment.

On Gender-Based Violence (GBV), Ms Rasesigo commended the Botswana Police Service and other stakeholders for their efforts aimed at ending the social ill.

She however indicated that it remained of paramount importance for Botswana as a nation to develop a zero tolerance for GBV.

She said the same stance that the nation has towards drunk driving should adopted towards GBV, a problem which she described as one of the signs of societal imbalances.

Ms Rasesigo noted that while statistics were important when talking GBV, they did not help that much as having even one case was worrisome.

“Even if we have one case, it’s one case too many,” she observed.

She however applauded the courts of law for hearing cases of GBV on urgent basis as dictated to by the Domestic Violence Act, which she said compelled the courts to treat the cases as emergencies and thus hear them without delay. 

Still commenting on SONA, Ms Lorato Moalusi-Sakufiwa of Kagisano Women’s Shelter said government involved civil society organisations on issues relating to GBV.

She pointed out that their roles as Kagisano Women’ Shelter and other similar organisations included creating awareness in communities, building capacities of communities to prevent GBV as well as to respond to it.

In addition, Ms Moalusi-Sakufiwa noted that in efforts to stem out GBV, they take seriously issues of children as they too were often affected.

“Children are affected by Gender-Based Violence as they either witness or experience it,” she said.

Speaking in an interview soon after the delivery of the president’ speech, an aspiring businesswoman Ms Mpho Ntsima said it was gratifying that the number of women holding executive positions had grown.

Nonetheless, on the issue of GBV, she said a lot still needed to be done as in recent days incidences of women being gruesomely murdered were on the rise.

Ms Ntsima said if GBV had gone down as stated in the SONA, the figures by which it had declined were insignificant.

During the delivery of his address President Khama had indicated that in the SADC region Botswana was leading with 43 per cent of women in government executive positions.

He had also stated that government had also committed resources to the National Gender Machinery which increased from an annual budget of P18 million to P48 million; P30 million of which he had said was for the Women Economic Empowerment Programme.

Lt. Gen Dr Khama had, on GBV indicated that while it remained a challenge, there had been a decline in violent and intrusive crimes including those perpetrated against women and children. ENDS