12 Aug 2021

Lobatse Town Council (LTC) Gender Committee is planning to roll out an action plan aimed at raising awareness about Gender Based Violence (GBV) in the town. 

The council's gender focal person Mr Gerald Mahumba said during a 365 Campaign against GBV Workshop on Tuesday that the action plan was part of the committee's objective to contribute to aspirations of the SADC Gender Protocol of eliminating GBV by 2030. 

Botswana has signed the protocol. Mr Mahumba said they would engage with the community by conducting eight public education campaigns to disseminate information about GBV. He further said they would use mediums such as posters, pamphlets and messages to promote reporting of GBV cases. 

Furthermore, Mr Mahumba said they would partner with two women peer groups in the district to fight the scourge. He added that the committee would also create community gender action teams in conjunction with various Ward Development Committees in the town. He further said they would facilitate provision of counselling to survivors and perpetrators of GBV. 

Mr Mahumba said they would also mobilise and give entrepreneurship training to 30 GBV survivors in the district. Gender Links' gender justice consultant, Ms Onneetse Makhumalo said statistics indicated that GBV was rampant in Botswana. 

She said GBV came in different forms such as physical violence, which included assault. 

She also cited sexual violence, which included rape, incest and defilement as well as emotional violence and economic abuse. 

Ms Makhumalo said majority of victims of GBV in Botswana were women and girls. 

She said findings of the 2019 Botswana Relationship Study revealed that 37 pe rcent of women in Botswana had experienced GBV in their lives. She said the study indicated perpetrators of GBV were mostly men. “Some of the factors that influence abuse include patriarchy and gender inequality which makes men to believe that they have the right to discipline their spouses,” she said. 

She said most cases of abuse went unreported. Police statistics last year indicated that rape, threat to kill and defilement were the leading cases of GBV in Botswana, she noted. 

Ms Makhumalo said the study also indicated that 21 per cent of men had also experienced GBV in their lives. The town clerk Mr Nelson Mogapi said the high number of abused women was a concern. 

He said more was needed to sensitise the society about GBV. An action plan was therefore a step in the right direction to achieving reduction of GBV incidents. The workshop was organized by LTC Gender Committee in partnership with Gender Links. ends