Mayor of Gaborone, Austin Abraham has pleaded with residents to improve efforts to ensure that Gender Based Violence (GBV) is uprooted by protecting women and girls and reporting incident cases to authorities.

Addressing a full council meeting in Gaborone this week, the Mayor said that the only way that women and girls could reach their potential is if their rights are respected and protected.

He bemoaned the rising incidents of GBV, adding that it is disheartening that while government has tried various interventions to combat GBV, there continues to be more reports of horrific acts of abuse that include cold blooded killings.

“Children and women are degraded, bullied, defiled, raped and murdered and the disturbing trends of cyber bullying and rising incidents of missing persons compound the situation. The fair treatment of women and girls could therefore be a way of combating GBV.”

He was speaking on the backdrop of the annual international campaign dubbed ‘16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence,’ which started on November 25 and ends on December 10.

This is a time where Governments, individuals and organisations globally unite to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls.

Many victims of GBV tend to suffer in secret because they want to create an impression of happiness or fear judgment, while others fear the people who abuse them.

Seeing how many GBV victims were withdrawing cases, the judiciary and law enforcement agencies adopted a policy discouraging withdrawal of GBV related cases.

Ministry of Justice, Chief Public Relations Officer, Oteng Mokowe said that there is need to capacitate professionals on laws from a perspective of gender responsiveness to enable them to adequately intervene, adding that is the reason that government has prioritised reforming the justice system.

Botswana dialogue project on gender mainstreaming within the justice system was influenced by growing concerns over GBV cases countrywide, according to senior magistrate,

Segametsi Basinyi.

“There are many cases of people who reported cases and later requested that they be withdrawn inconsiderate of the resources expended. These withdrawals allowed perpetrators to get off scot-free and to repeat the crime, while some victims lose their lives,” she said.

Basinyi explained that the disposal of GBV related cases took long due to lengthy processes such as investigations, arraignment, setting of trial dates, the trial itself, sentencing and appeals but through government interventions, GBV related cases are given first priority.

“GBV related cases are urgent by nature against normal cases to avoid distortion of evidence,” she said. Basinyi said government had come up with various interventions to address GBV, one of them being the introduction of specialised courts.