17 Feb 2020

 Dikgosi in Jwaneng on February 14 took advantage of Valentine’s Day to gather women in the township and give them a platform to discuss issues of concern, especially those that emanate from love affairs such as gender abuse.

Kgosi Maleshwane Bakwena said at the event that they targeted women because they were mainly on the receiving end of gender abuse.

She said that they have noted that there was too much co-habitation in Jwaneng, which was the root-cause of most of the abuse that women suffered.

She said that women were too dependent on men to the extent that they were afraid to report them to the authorities when they abused them for fear of losing financial support.

Kgosi Bakwena said, therefore, they decided to call all women to find a way forward on how such incidents of domestic abuse could be addressed.

Kgosi Motlhatswi Pule from Raphalane kgotla warned women that co-habitation was not recognized by the laws of the country, but said that as dikgosi they continue to face cases of couples fighting for assets that were accumulated during co-habitation.

“We have also noted that when co-habitation sours, women suffered the most because a considerable number of the assets are often kept at the man’s house, and as such it becomes legally challenging to divide the assets,” she said.

Kgosi Pule, therefore, advised women to cease over-dependence on men and strive to make a living for themselves. She urged women to embrace the Rea Nyalana initiative as it was the solution to co-habitation.

For her part, Jwaneng township mayor, Ms Ditsie urged women to strive for leadership positions as in that way, they would be able to better advocate for their interests. She said that they should not be intimidated by misconceptions that women who strive for leadership positions were bullies noting that those positions were not the preserve of a particular gender.

Ms Ditsie also said that as much as women needed a pitso to talk about their issues, men as perpetrators also needed to have their own pitso so that they could discuss behavioral change.

After the pitso, resolutions were made, among them that district gender committee is formed, with its role being to talk to women on how to fight abuse.

It was also resolved that some of its activities should even include going house to house to address women. Another resolution made was that a ‘Pitso ya Banana’ should also be arranged as it emerged that the event was only graced by the elderly, even though the youth were the most affected by domestic violence. ENDS