17 Jun 2019

The United States and 2018 Mandela Washington Fellows Botswana Alumni have been hailed for raising awareness about issues of human trafficking.

The duo also brought together stakeholders to build new frontiers of engagement on the issue. Various speakers hailed the duo at a human trafficking awareness workshop in Maun.

The Mandela Washington Fellowship is a flagship programme of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) that empowers young people through academic coursework, leadership training and networking. 

The US embassy sponsored the Botswana alumni to organise the workshop because it was concerned about issues of human trafficking and lack of awareness on such issues. Mr Victor Paledi from the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security thanked the US government and workshop organisers for helping Botswana combat human trafficking. 

He explained that human trafficking was a crime whose perpetrators were often described as inhuman, diabolical and devoid of any conscientious looking at traumatic sequence of events that the victim experienced.

He stated that human trafficking could lead to severe physical injury inflicted on victims by perpetrators and even loss of life such as in the case of organ harvesting from victims. 

Young people, women and children, he said, were most vulnerable to the crime. Mr Paledi stated that government had articulated its position in terms of combating human trafficking through pronouncements made through various national and sub-national frameworks such as NDP 11, Vision 2036 and Botswana’ Sustainable Development Goals roadmap.

Government also developed Anti-Human Trafficking National Action Plan that was continually monitored and evaluated. 

The gathering was informed that the action plan required government to escalate activities that would intensify public awareness on issues of human trafficking. 

Mr Paledi also pointed out that government had intensified its quest to raise awareness on human trafficking and various ways in which the crime manifested itself.

“We continue to reiterate that it is very important for us to understand human trafficking within the local context so that persons who commit human trafficking are detected accordingly and prosecuted, and victims assisted and afforded access to justice,” he added.

Furthermore, he said the workshop was a direct result of government efforts to strengthen national coordination and partnerships in that the ministry had teamed up with beneficiaries of the 2018 Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders Initiative.

District officer, Mr Sedikwa Motshipi hailed the organisers for being champions in ending human trafficking, adding that they had committed their time, effort and resources to raise awareness on dangers of trafficking and the need for all to scale up their responses in addressing the heinous crime.

The workshop, he said, would mobilise the communities to share solutions on how to effectively combat trafficking, adding that Maun was no exception to the issue. Mr Motshipi mentioned some factors that contributed to human trafficking as high rate of youth unemployment, rural-urban migration, advent of technology and poverty.

Outlining the objective of the workshop, Dr Boitumelo Tau said it aimed at bringing stakeholders together to share ideas on issues of human trafficking with an intention to end it.

She stated that the platform gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss and avoid duplication of efforts. She said they had already held another workshop in Gaborone and the next one was billed for Ghanzi next month. ends