BCP women tackle tenacious political challenges
Mompati Tlhankane | Tuesday December 19, 2023 07:14
At the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) Youth and Women’s League conference last weekend, women vowed to continue tackling the tenacious global challenge, which includes amongst others, gender-based violence.
Quoting the former BCP Women’s League (BCPWL) president Daisy Bathusi, current BCPWL vice president Ethel Gaompone indicated that men have made the political landscape conducive to them, therefore, women must fight with all that they have to get their space. “Botswana must be run by both men and women.
Men cannot give you leadership roles on a silver platter. We have to fight for the positions in order to lead and advocate for women and children,” she said. Gaompone said the BCP women's league wants to focus on women’s participation amongst others.
“Women’s participation in Africa is low given that in most countries women constitute more than half of the voting population,” she added. She said lack of political will, unfair electoral system, and deeply entrenched patriarchy are some of the root causes of low participation of women in politics.
Lack of interest in women in politics is also a setback something they aim to address as BCP women. Guest speaker at the event, co-founder and deputy leader of a political party called Build One South Africa (BOSA) Nobuntu Hlazo-Webster said they have leaders in Africa unfortunately, many of them are out of the system. She said the leaders in Africa who are out of the system are mostly women. “You cannot say there are no leaders where 24% of the women in Parliament in Africa are women,” she said.
Hlazo-Webster added she was glad that the review of the Constitution has driven a change to advocate for women. She revealed that in South Africa they have 48% of women representation in Parliament but the latter are unfortunately representatives of a corrupt party. “Legislation is the start.
We have to make sure that we have women that have real power to become agents of change,” she indicated. Hlazo-Webster said in her country where there is 48% of women representation in Parliament, South Africa has the highest level of gender-based violence.
She said they have realised that BCP is in the same position South Africa is in where there is a failing and broken government. “We come together on the same values, values that say nobody is coming to save us. We have to rise now and save our respective countries.
From what I have learnt here the system is broken in Botswana the same way it is in South Africa,” she said. She said they acknowledge that there is 16 Days of Activism to Stop Violence against Women and Children but in her country, South Africa, the energy and resources put in to stop violence against women and children is not the same. “In Africa, we have some of the highest incidences of gender-based violence, we are a continent and region in crisis that’s why we meet today as women and women of BCP to save our nation from the crisis,” she said.
Webster said when it comes to statistics on poverty and unemployment, a high percentage of statistics show that women are the most affected. For her part, BCP Youth League president, Bonnie Tlhagwane-Gaboutloeloe, said the BDP government doesn’t care about the plight of unemployed young people. “This situation has since become uncontrollable and it is a state of emergency. We cannot expect the chief architect of the situation we find ourselves in to be our saviour. Getting out of this requires us as Batswana to gig our way out. BCP is the only hope to save the country from total collapse,” she highlighted.