27 Feb 2014

Tati Town Customary Court president, Kgosi Ludo Mosojane has implored dikgosi to come up with ways that could combat cohabitation in their communities.

Speaking at the on-going Re a Nyalana workshop in Francistown, Kgosi Mosojane said fighting cohabitation would reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS as well as the number of children born out of wedlock. She implored dikgosi to encourage their communities to consider accepting bogadi in installments whenever possible.

“Parents should be encouraged to advocate for marriage whether there is bogadi or not in order to combat cohabitation,” she said. She also advocated for the revival of mephato (regiments) in a modernised way.

“For instance you can have a group of boys 16-22 years and conduct talks on fatherhood for them,” she said. Kgosi Mosojane said having such mephato would help fill in the missing gaps, because some children were raised by single parents.

She noted that through the same forums, the youth could be assisted to set goals on when to have children. Kgosi Mosojane suggested that institutions such as the Botswana Police Service and the Botswana Defence Force, where men were high in numbers should consider incorporating moral education and reproductive health in their training curriculum.

Gerald police station commander, Superintendent Masego Mathitha said cohabitation contributes to crime citing that in 2012 and last year, five cases of passion killings were recorded each year, while those of grievous bodily harm were 30 and 43 for 2012 and 2013 respectively.

Supt Mathitha said the cases of assault were 303 and 238 for 2012 and last year while those of unlawful wounding were 303 and 238 respectively. She observed that most of these cases occur between lovers and all of the reports were made by women.

Supt Mathitha encouraged the community leaders to implore men to report any cases of violence because the law protects all citizens regardless of gender. She lamented that in some cases of Gender Based Violence , women do not report because they depend on the perpetrators for a living.

A Gender Officer , Mr Sheperd Monyeki said according to the 2011 Population and Housing Census, 22 per cent of the people aged between 18 years and above are married.

He said a total of 1 644 in the country are marriages of people between 12-17 years, which are child marriages and in Francistown and surrounding areas recorded 115 such marriages. ENDS