31 Mar 2022

Forcing children to convert or adhere to parents religions is violation of their right. Ngamiland District Child Protection Committee representative Ms Veronicah Ridge told the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Review of the Constitution Wednesday that forced conversion of children must be criminalised as it violated their right to freedom of association and worship. 

She argued children should be allowed to exercise their right to choose a religious path of their own once they attained age of majority. Ms Ridge also suggested that the customary marriage regime should be reviewed to guard against the oppression of women. 

She said there should be parameters in place through which the consent of women, particularly those just entering adulthood, could be ascertained prior to them going into marriage. 

She noted there was a growing number of incidents among some tribes where young women were forced into marriage against their will. 

This, she said, perpetuated gender inequality and fuelled gender-based violence (GBV). 

Re-a-Dira Society for the Disabled representative Ms Olerato Diile proposed that a commission of inquiry on the rights of people with disability should be set up to identify their needs, and come up with recommendations aimed at ending their marginalisation. 

Further to that, she submitted that the constitution should have a supremacy clause in which it would pronounce itself as the supreme law of the land. 

“Botswana’s constitution does not recognise itself. There should be a supremacy clause that will pronounce our constitution as superior to all other laws,” Ms Diile said. 

Professor Bernadette Malala submitted on behalf of the Maun Ministers Fraternal for the law to disallow party affiliations in parliament, a provision that she argued could ensure that legislators made the interests of the public their sole objective. 

“Our suggestion is that the moment Members of Parliament assume their positions in parliament, they should shed their party identities and become non-aligned representatives of the people,” she noted.

 She observed that presently many motions whose adoption could greatly benefit the nation were being thrown out as a result of them being debated along party lines. 

Prof Malala also proposed that the clergy be included in the constitution to render to government proper guidance as well as solutions to different religious problems and social ills which the nation was grappling with. 

From the Village Development Committee, Mr Tapoloso Mosika said though no price tag could be attached to human life, the community’s view was that the P70 000 financial assistance provided by government to finance the burial of people killed by wildlife was insufficient. 

He proposed therefore that the amount be reviewed upwards to P500 000 as acknowledgement of the permanent void that the death of the victim would have created as well as to cushion the family financially in case the deceased was a breadwinner. BOPA