03 Jul 2023

The Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government says while it supports the legal position that all children have the right to know both their biological parents and to be cared for by both, compulsory paternity tests on every child is not ideal.

Responding to a motion tabled by Kgosi Oscar Mosielele at Ntlo Ya Dikgosi recently, assistant minister, Mr Sethabelo Modukanele said he did not support the request for government to formulate a policy that would make it compulsory for a paternity test on every child to avoid the frequent court cases over paternity.

Mr Modukanele explained that whether a child was born in or out of wedlock, the considered view was that policies must be crafted to address challenges on the ground and not to avoid court cases.

Mr Modukanele also pointed out that in terms of Botswana law, every citizen had a right to approach the courts on any matter they were aggrieved of, saying a number of factors existed, making it difficult to make a compulsory policy for paternity tests to be made on every child at birth.

He said one of the reasons was that a paternity test required collection of samples from both child and alleged parent and budgetary issues of who would bear the costs.

“Consequently, that means that the collection of one’s DNA sample requires volunteerism on their part. Who is going to force and why should they be forced?” he added.

He further said there was currently no legal process, such as a DNA bank, where government stored the DNA profile of every citizen to make the DNAs readily available for comparison, adding that until such an institution was established it would not be prudent to make paternity test compulsory on every child.

“That is why compulsory DNA testing must be done through the courts of law, which have the power to issue compulsory orders for alleged fathers to submit their DNA for the paternity tests,” he said.

Furthermore, he said in the event there was such a case at the customary courts, the matter would be referred to the magistrate courts who had powers to issue compulsory orders.

Kgosi Mosielele of Moshupa Region had tabled a motion requesting government to consider formulating a policy that would make it compulsory for a paternity test to be run on every child to avoid the frequent court cases over paternity.

He said he was tabling the motion for the second time, arguing that a research he had undertaken indicated that 25 per cent of the court cases had proved to be positive and that children had not been given names of their biological fathers, but instead their mothers had looked at extenuating factors.

Kgosi Mosielele had said paternity tests that were often conducted when the child had grown, tended to affect the psychological wellbeing of both the child and the parent that had been taking care of them.

He said it was therefore advisable that the tests be done at infant stage.

That, he said would also curb promiscuity and assist children to know their real parents.

He further said that government could establish a unit specifically working on DNA paternity test. Ends