Cohabitation fuels Gender-Based Violence - counsellor
Cohabitation is contributing to the increase in the cases of abuse being recorded while emotional violence is also on the lead according to Botswana Gender Based Violence Prevention and Support Centre (BGBVC).
The Centre Manager and also Senior Counsellor at BGBVC, Kitso Motlhale tells The Midweek Sun that they still record a significant number of GBV cases. Since January 2022, they have received 444 cases of GBV, primarily of emotional abuse. “The problems emanate from issues of infidelity in relationships,” she says, adding that they witness a growing trend of unfaithfulness which leads to dysfunctional families and above all abuse. Motlhale emphasises that the age cohort with the highest number of GBV prevalence is 25 to 49 years and mostly women are affected. “We have noted with concern that cohabitation mostly increases chances of abuse. Our families have also normalised abuse and developed a culture of ‘silence’ where even when an uncle abuses a child and other family members become spectators and choose to keep silent as long as it doesn’t directly affect them,” Motlhale says. She laments that the silence often exacerbates violence and accords the perpetrator more power and motivation to continue with their abusive behaviour.
This, she says, is one of the reasons why issues of learned behaviour pass from one family member to another and eventually from one generation to the next and becomes a norm and socialisation.“We have also observed this silence trend in marriages which has existed for years. When a married woman or man comes to seek service, it appears most of the time that the incident they are reporting had not happened only recently but over the years,” she says, noting that they only seek help after something extreme happens and pushes them to seek help. “They will share that the abuse has been there from day one of marriage but they, for some reason, kept quiet about it with the thought it was a minor issue until it gets worse. Some see the red flags from the beginning and don’t confront it for so many reasons,” she tells The Midweek Sun. She notes that even newly-weds who come to seek help often report that they have been battling for a long time even before the marriage, but went onto marry their spouse with the hope that they would change after the marriage. “We have observed that if issues are not resolved before marriage, then there is high likelihood that it will worsen after marriage. This is simply because abuse doesn’t stop on its own or because you keep silent about it but it stops or reduces after confronting or taking necessary action against it,” Motlhale says, emphasising that cohabiting partners should learn a lesson from this and join in efforts of ending GBV issues, instead.