09 Dec 2020

As part of the 16 days of activism against Gender Based Violence the BDP National Women’s Wing, Bobonong Mmadinare and Selebi Phikwe (BOMASE) region on Tuesday marched to sensitise the community on GBV matters.

Speaking at the event, Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism, Ms Philda Kereng said cases of Gender based Violence had been on a surge since the outbreak of COVID-19 especially during lockdown, worldwide.

She said police reports indicated that GBV cases were on an upswing nationally with defilement cases having increased and still rising.

Defilement cases, she said rose from 44 to 101 cases between January to June this year.

Ms Kereng explained that relationship studies suggested that GBV cases were high in mining towns, Selebi Phikwe not exempted.

She said that it showed that the root problem could be attributed to economic pressures.

Ms Kereng said some perpetrators defiled young girls with impunity while parents turned a blind eye just for financial gain.

She said closure of the BCL mine played a role adding however, that some men endured abuse because of their financial predicaments and in the same vein, such men could also direct abuse to their spouses and children out of frustration of not being able to provide like before.

Minister Kereng said government was alive to the challenges posed by GBV, which prompted a swift response in the form of  the First Offender Bill and the First offender Registry.

Ms Kereng said district gender committees were among the many forms of government’s efforts to address GBV, together with the recently launched toll free number and police special units that specifically dealt with GBV.  

The minister highlighted that the Ministry of Nationality Immigration and Gender Affairs came up with a strategy that would run from 2016 to 2020 and identified multi-coherent relationships as being at the forefront of GBV, a trend the strategy discouraged and recommended behavioral change, community mobilisation by empowering communities to foster a platform of exchanging of positive ideas through funding of community organisations such as the BDP National Women’s Wing, Botswana council of women and others.

Ms Kereng said government was working on a comprehensive format that addressed clear steps to be taken in reporting GBV.

For his part, Selebi Phikwe mayor, Mr Lucas Modimana said government was fighting a three fronts war being HIV/AIDS, COVID-19 and GBV.

He stated that the community of  Selebi Phikwe was a resilient one, given their misfortune with the closure of the BCL mine.

He said he was optimistic that the town would do all that was necessary to address the pandemic.

National Women’s Wing, BOMASE region representative, Ms Lillian Sethula said GBV should not be mistaken as abuse directed only to women and children, adding that all were directly affected by GBV. Ends