11 Jun 2023

The church has been hailed for remaining steadfast in applying itself to issues of national concern.

Speaking during Botswana Council of Churches (BCC) prayer service against gender based violence (GBV) on Thursday, the Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Ms Anna Mokgethi, said the church used prayer to condemn the shameful acts that had besieged the country.

She said it was be-fitting for the church, inspired by faith in the sanctity of life, to gather collectively, put aside doctrinal differences to harness the power of a united voice in prayer.

“Unity is power, it is therefore, imperative that we all adopt unity as a weapon to fight GBV. The global statistics on GBV are scary and Botswana is no exemption,” she said.

She said even though government had put in place laws and policies to fight the pandemic, other  things were needed to help win the battle.

Ms Mokgethi said over the past weeks, the country was plagued with the sad news of the loss of lives.

She said such incidents robbed the victims of opportunities of the future and deprived families, communities and the entire nation of the untapped potential of what they could have offered the country.

She said recently, in just a week, nine women lost their lives due to GBV, which she described as monstrous and should be classified as a pandemic.

“We will forever condemn such inhuman action and pronounce it as cowardice,” she said, adding human beings were created in the image of God, therefore must be cherished and well taken care of.

She said while violent action disrupted the image of God, it also violated citizens’ constitutional right. She said Botswana’s constitution guaranteed the right to life for all people to the extent that anyone seeking to take another’s life or violated it in any form would be subjected to the wrath of the law.

Ms Mokgethi appreciated church ministers, adding they were morally obliged and humanly bound to unreservedly condemn those that continued to turn themselves into monsters that swallow the peace and serenity prevailing in the society.

She further applauded BCC for joining the global Christian campaign: Thursdays in Black and working to localise it.

She said the campaign recognised the resistance and resilience of women in the face of violence by encouraging people to act against rape and GBV.

She further appealed to BCC to rekindle its Bible based campaign to vigorously raise awareness of the evils of rape, its psycho-social effect and the trauma it imposed on the victims. ENDS