19 Sep 2019

The Department of Gender Affairs will soon roll out a mobile referral system for Gender Based Violence (GBV) victims countrywide.

This was said by a Maun-based official of the department, Ms Gagoope Modimoosi Ms Modimoosi in an interview on the sidelines of a GBV and HIV prevention sensitisation workshop in Komana recently.

She said the system had been piloted in Maun and Shorobe in the North West District as well as the Kgatleng District villages of Mochudi and Artesia.

The system, Mr Modimoosi said, would improve the transfer of victims from one organisation to another in the sense that once a victim was assisted by one office, the next would get  notification through the system.

She said the department had realised that some clients were lost along the way when being referred from one office to the other due to lack of proper tracing among stakeholders such as police, health and social workers and Non-Governmental Organisations.

The system, she said, would also help in providing correct statistics on GBV victims.

In addition, department had realised the need to strengthen response towards GBV as alarming statistics were recorded.

About the workshop, he said it was meant to sensitise residents on critical matters affecting the community as well as stakeholders to reach out to.

In her remarks, Sergeant Onkabetse Boranabi of Maun Police expressed concern that GBV victims had the tendency of withdrawing reported saying married women were leading in that area.

Ms Boranabi urged men to report cases of abuse noting that police had been sensitised to guard against victimizing male victims of GBV.

She said women and children constituted a higher percentage of GBV victims while men were mainly perpetrators. ENDS