17 Mar 2022

The Presidential Commission of Enquiry into Review of the Constitution will next week hold its consultative meetings in Kasane and a few other villages in the Chobe region. 

When giving an overview of how this week’s meetings had turned out at the close of the commission’s work in Kgatleng Tuesday, head of its secretariat Ms Pearl Ramokoka encouraged people in the Chobe constituency to wait in readiness so that they too could have an input in the consultations. 

Ms Ramokoka urged them to acquaint themselves with the contents of the constitution so they could make informed and well thought-out submissions. 

“I encourage them to read the constitution so that they make their submissions from an informed point of view. They should also meet and put together their ideas so that when the commission visits their respective villages it finds them ready to share their views,” she explained. 

Regarding the meetings held in Artesia and Oliphant’s Drift, which were the final stops in Kgatleng, the head of secretariat noted that as had been expected, several issues had come up. 

These include a call for the promotion of the family unit, legalisation of same-sex marriage for the transgendered community, and the inclusion of second generation rights in the constitution. Ms Ramokoka noted that some residents of the two villages decried the prevalence of single-parent households, and attributed the lawlessness exhibited by some youths to that state of affairs. 

She said they had thus proposed that the law should force men who impregnate women to marry them so that children would be raised in homes with both parents. 

As for same-sex marriage, she said some residents contended that transgendered people were in a difficult situation, which clearly was not of their own doing, and argued that the law should hence allow them to marry from amongst themselves. 

She said the call had also been for anyone else seeking to marry a person of the same gender to be subjected to testing to determine if they had similar genes to those found in transgender people, and in the absence of such genes, such people be denied the opportunity to marry as per their wish. 

Additionally, Ms Ramokoka said calls for the inclusion of second-generation rights remained persistent. 

“While the main focus as we go around is on fundamental rights as espoused in the constitution, we now have people saying that second generation rights such as the right to education and medical services should also be included in the constitution,” she stated. 

Also she observed that residents had spoken against the election of people into positions of dikgosi, saying the practice was contrary to Setswana traditions and culture. 

“Ba re dikgosi di seka tsa tlhophiwa jaaka mapolotiki ka gore dikgosi di a tsalwa go ya ka tsamaiso ya Setswana,” she said. She added also that there were calls for the autonomy of merafe, and that in the anticipated revised constitution, no tribe should be subordinate to another. ends