04 Mar 2026

The traditional norm that women cannot stand for leadership position, has been a hindrance to women’s progression overtime. Competent and qualified women are reluctant to stand for higher positions because of the patriarchal society and the “Pull Her Down” syndrome, says Ms Rhoda Sekgororoane, former Botswana National Front Women’s League president.

As Botswana prepares to commemorate International Women’s Day on March 5 in Moshana, women in leadership positions and activists took turns to share their experiences.

According to Ms Sekgororoane her efforts to secure a Parliamentary seat in the past proved futile, associating her failure primarily to lack of support by women.

“Women are not supporting each other, I was even persuaded to step down by a woman,” she said.

Ms Sekgororoane said women were mostly handicapped by financial constraints, while their male counterpart were accorded opportunities giving them the financial muscle to amass support.

“I wish that government could finance women in politics,” she said.

Ms Sekgororoane, currently president of Botswana Caucus for Women in Politics, said her attempt to ascend the Mayoral seat in her political career in 2014 was equally unsuccessful after losing through a vote to a male challenger.

She observed that the situation was even worse as political parties were failing to satisfy the required 30 per cent representation quota reserved for women in politics.

Ms Sekgororoane said Botswana signed a Gender Protocol in 1995 at Beijing for a 30 per cent women representation in six critical areas with politics being one of them, unfortunately the agreement was failing to bare fruits.

As for women in the Media space, Ms Pamela Dube, a veteran female journalist, has over the years mentored and vocally advocated for women scribes.

Ms Dube said starting her media career as a cub reporter at Mmegi had not encountered any challenges in climbing the ladder in media.

She has covered real and hard core politics during the apartheid era in South Africa before the 1994 elections, working for the Mail and Guardian and Sowetan, surviving the challenging environment as black journalists were targeted by the then apartheid government.

Even though women have in the past ascended leadership positions in the local media such as the likes of Ms Banyana Segwe, Ms Beata Kasale and Ms Clara Olsen, Ms Dube said their journey was however not a smooth sail as they were doing so in a patriarchal society.

She said local newsrooms were dominated by males, therefore making it difficult for a feminine to break through and ascend leadership position.

“We have predators running all over the show, we are failing to protect young women and we are losing a lot of them as a result of the situation on the ground,” she said.

“Women hardly have a space where they groom, mentor and coach each other, on the other hand, men play golf while giving each other opportunities.We have predators in politics, sports and newsrooms. We need to come together and address issues of sexual harassment in the newsrooms,” she said.

For her part the Managing Director of AT & T Monnakgotla, Ms Talita Monnakgotla said accessing financial support was the main challenge for women.

Ms Monnakgotla said financial institutions had the tendency of undermining the capability of women in business.

She indicated that in most cases, women had good accounting and financial management skills but remained undermined, adding that an unemployed woman could raise a child the same way that her employed counterpart would do.

Ms Monnakgotla said the transport industry involved time and commitment, therefore proving to be a challenging environment for women as naturally women were overwhelmed by responsibilities.

She implored women to venture into a businesses in areas of their specialty and skills.

According statistics from Sejelo Police Station in Kanye, 110 gender based violence related cases were recorded in 2025, 14 of the total reported cases affected children. ENDS