Shame on you Slumber!

Elsewhere in this publication, we carry a story in which President Mokgweetsi’s (Masisi) assistant ‘driver,’ Slumber Tsogwane played ‘Russian roulette’ with the plight of women recently at the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) political rally at Bophirima ward to the chagrin of women politicians.

Tsogwane, the whole BDP chairperson, told the party’s campaign rally: “If you are not going to vote for our woman candidate Onkemetse Mothei, that will be akin to committing gender-based violence (GBV).”

This unfortunate statement comes at a time when the country is struggling with GBV cases. While his government has come up with interventions to deal with the matter, they are far from being enough.

Tsogwane’s behaviour should be enough to have him axed from Cabinet. The least you can do Mr Vice President is offer a sincere public apology and demonstrate your role in fighting the devil that is GBV.

It is even more unfortunate that there are two women contesting the by-election including his own party member. The Vice President should not be surprised if his party’s candidate is punished for the reckless mistake he made.

We call on the civil society and all stakeholders to put pressure on Tsogwane and his party to demonstrate that indeed they care about abused people especially women.

The numbers have been skyrocketing and his constituency is one of the hardest hit by the GBV scourge. How is he going to discuss these issues where the people need to trust him? You went too low Mr VP.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Nationality, Immigration and Gender Affairs, Anna Mokgethi late last year revealed GBV continues to plague our country and intimate partner violence has become one of the most challenging socio-cultural issues in contemporary Botswana.

Mokgethi pointed out that since the COVID-19 outbreak, 4,996 GBV cases were reported to the police. These included murder, rape, defilement, threat to kill and indecent assault. The minister highlighted that statistics also indicate that for the period January 1, 2021 to February 28, 2021, there were 196 rape cases recorded.

She said those statistics were alarming and therefore, require immediate interventions. The interventions are what we want to see Mr Vice President not demeaning statements.

According to the World Bank (2019), 35% of women have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence. At home, the 2018 National Relationship Study revealed that 37% of women and 21% of men reported experiencing some form of violence at home, being either emotional, physical and sexual at least once in their lifetime.