05 Jul 2020

Family, friends and well-wishers gathered on Thursday afternoon to pay tribute to Ms Susan Sentime, a woman whom police suspect to have been slain by his boyfriend before burning her body inside a vehicle over the weekend near Jwaneng.

Speaking at the memorial service, Jwaneng mayor, Ms Olga Ditsie said that although they did not want to pre-empt police investigations that were still ongoing, cases of violence against women and children were a concern in the small mining town.

She said it had become an annual occurrence for the town to have a gruesome incident of violence against women and children, adding that such incidents made the nation to cast a negative eye on the town.

“This, therefore, calls for residents of this town to introspect and look for a way forward of making women and children feel safe. Violence and abuse are diseases perhaps even worse than COVID-19. With violence we seem to have failed over the years to come up with a remedy,” she said.

Ms Ditsie urged parents to groom their boys to respect women, and also encouraged women not to suffer in silence when they were in abusive relationships and marriages, but to come out and seek help.

Ms Ditsie said the late Ms Sentime was a true representation of women empowerment as she was one of only two women taxi drivers in Jwaneng.

“As a woman taxi driver, parents trusted her with their children to school, especially the girl-child,” she said.

A representative of Women and AIDS organisation, Ms Gracious Moreetsi also urged women to stop blaming themselves when a relationship went sour.

Ms Sentime was laid to rest at her home village of Hunhukwe near Hukuntsi on July 4. Ends