15 Oct 2013

How important is it to involve family members of murder victims and to what extent should they be involved?

They should be involved to the point they are given opportunity in court when the killers of their loved ones are tried, said Ditshwanelo: The Botswana Centre for Human Rights.

Such was Ditshwanelo’s conviction that they recently invited two representatives of Murder Victims’ Families For Human Rights (MVFHR), a US rights group that shouted from the rooftops that “victims family members also want to be heard in court too”.

The two women, Yolanda Littlejohn and Kate Lowenstein, formed part of a panel discussion on the death penalty held in Gaborone recently. Like many of those they represented, the two women’s loved ones were murdered.

As if the trauma of losing loved ones to a murder was not enough, the women could only watch helplessly as the wheels of justice squeaked by, adding trauma to trauma.

“All I was told by law enforcement officers when I demanded information about my sister’s murder was that the perpetrator has been arrested and justice will be done”, said Ms Littlejohn.

The police never bothered to update her, and painfully, she had to read newspapers, watch television and listen to radio to get information about the trial of her sister’s murderer.  The alienation from the court process and apparent disregard by the police and prosecution increased the pain and grief of her family.

It was failure to engage the victim’s family that delayed their emotional healing, added Ms Lowenstein whose father, a former US congressman and United Nations Ambassador was murdered.

Engaging family throughout the court process was not only therapeutic. It allowed family members to find closure, she said. “Families of murder victims need to be given a platform to be heard as a way of assisting them to heal from the shock, pain and ache they go through after losing their loved ones.”  

Another member of the panel, University of Botswana clinical pyschologist, Ms Christine Bitsang concurred. She said victims' families went through a lot of emotional turmoil: sadness, anger and wanting revenge.

“Family members go through a lot of emotional turmoil, sadness anger and want some form of revenge. They need open communication and should be given a platform to discuss, be engaged and informed of all issues surrounding their family members’ murder”, she said.

Ms Bitsang said she had come across family members’ victims who disdained the state taking over of a murder case. “Some family members have said that when the state takes over a case, it is as if the person who has been murdered belonged to the state and never had a family,” she said.

But the courts were yet to appreciate that it was imperative for family members to find healing and closure, said Ms Lowenstein.

Family, she said, should never try to tie their healing to the court cases but to rather find better ways of dealing with the situation. For the case is not a direct healing process but rather a piece of work that is done for the justice system, she said. Ends