09 Mar 2022

International Women’s Day should be used as a yardstick to remember that breaking the bias must be a collective effort. 

Parliamentary Caucus on Women chairperson, Dr Unity Dow said this in a statement she delivered in Parliament as part of celebrating International Women’s Day on Tuesday. 

Botswana has increasingly seen women breaking stereotypes and taking careers traditionally dominated by men as seen when the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) recruited its first female cadets in 2007. 

She said having women in leadership positions should become the norm and not an exception. 

“It tells our daughters that they have the ability to reach the top, that they will be judged on their ideas, commitment and talent instead of their chromosomes,” she said. 

She said a more gender balanced Botswana was a better Botswana for everyone not just women. 

Breaking the bias, she said, was about eliminating gender stereotypes, imagining a world free of bias in everyday lives and constantly being treated differently because they were women. 

She said bias existed in the workplace, sport and in society where more often than not women were remunerated below their male counterparts. 

Thus, she said it was important to take action against it as the nation progressed towards Vision 2036 to achieve prosperity for all. 

She also indicated that there was still a long way to go in efforts to have women in political leadership positions despite the inroads being made in careers which were traditionally seen as those of men, given that women occupied only seven out of 64 seats in Parliament. 

Nevertheless, Dr Dow commended government for making strides in promoting gender equality as well as the policy and legislative changes that had been made to be more inclusive and non-discriminatory towards women citing a law that gave Batswana wives the right to own land independently from their husbands. 

She said slowly but steadily the country was changing, indicating that everything could change with perseverance. 

She said the country had come a long way in levelling the playing field for men and women in social, economic and administrative spaces. After 55 years, she said the nation celebrated having the nation’s budget speech delivered by a woman, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Ms Peggy Serame and also seen the appointment of the first woman Permanent Secretary to the President, Ms Emma Peloetletse. 

She said history was also made when President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi appointed Justice Tebogo Tau as the first ever female president of the Court of Appeal. 

Meanwhile, Dr Dow expressed concern about the escalating Gender Based Violence (GBV) related cases. 

“It is a concern that issues such as GBV remain prevalent in the society,” she lamented. This year’s theme is Breaking the Bias. The first International Women’s Day was held in the 1900s as a labour movement for equal rights for women. Ends