07 Nov 2022

Every member of the society is duty-bound to protect the next person from gender-based violence (GBV).

Dr Mpho Seretse of Boteti District Health Management Team (DHMT) said on Saturday at a GBV and women economic empowerment panel discussion in Letlhakane that some victims of the societal ill continued to suffer because fellow community members felt no sense of obligation to help them free themselves from the grip of abusive environments.

Encouraging people to be each other’s keeper, Dr Seretse said people who turned a blind eye to instances of GBV were no better than the abusers themselves.

“As a person I have a duty to protect the next person from GBV, and if for whatever reason I do not do this I wouldn’t be any better than their abuser,” she added.

Nonetheless, she implored individuals to stand for themselves, saying whether one was undergoing GBV or not, the ultimate decision to prevent any further occurrences of any form of GBV lay with them.

“GBV can be prevented and its prevention starts at individual level.

A victim should see the need to get out of toxic situations,” she said, emphasising how identifying that one was being abused was the first step to them disentangling themselves from the hold of their abusers.

Shedding light on the GBV situation in Boteti, Dr Seretse painted a sad picture that was characterised by, among others, high teenage pregnancy rates totalling around 20 cases per month, as well as cases of assaults where Letlhakane Primary Hospital on average recorded two cases on a daily basis.

All these, she noted, were clearly just a tip of an iceberg as some cases went unreported.

She added also that victims more often did not seek help when dealing with non-physical forms of GBV.

“People don’t come out to seek help when they encounter problems of a psychosocial nature.

We only often get to pick the existence of such problems when a victim has maybe attempted to commit suicide,” she pointed out.

Media personality, Ms Marang Selolwane underscored the need for women to guard against losing their true identities in the course of them juggling their many responsibilities.

She said it was sad that oftentimes women got swallowed up in their responsibilities such that they eventually could barely recognise who they truly were.

Ms Selolwane thus encouraged women to deliberately create time for the things that defined them, that being a way of helping themselves retain their true identities.

Former Miss Botswana Ms Oweditse Phirinyane emphasised the importance of self-introspection, urging women to constantly look inward with the intention to build a version of themselves that they desired to evolve into.

The panel discussion formed the second and final part of the maiden Boteti Marathon, which had earlier in the day saw athletes take part in 10 and 21 kilometre races. ENDS