August month is women�s month

Michael Dingake | Tuesday August 12, 2014 11:22

“iv) Repealing and reforming all laws, amending constitutions and changing social practices which still subject women to discrimination, and enacting empowering gender sensitive laws...”

The Declaration was signed on behalf of Botswana by then President Festus Gontebanye Mogae. I now read in The Botswana Gazette of 06-14 August 2014, Minister Edwin Batshu’s statement: “We are committed to SADC, that is why we opted to host the SADC secretariat when no one else wanted to… We are implementing the SADC Gender Protocol  even more than states who signed it…” 

In the same article the United Nations  Population Fund’s (UNFPA) Country Representative, Aisha Camara-Drammeh, says they will always advocate for government to sign the protocol: “I have never understood why we have not signed it. We are the only country in the Southern region which has not signed and we will advocate for the protocol to be signed.”  UNFPA official sounds agitated that our shining example of democracy, Botswana, has not yet signed the SADC Protocol on gender equality. I feel the same way. The Protocol is the product of the Declaration that we signed in 1997.What are the seven articles out of the forty articles of the Protocol that Botswana has taken a conscious decision not to sign the Protocol, when the principle of gender equality is the common denominator between Declaration  signed and the  unsigned Protocol? Is there something we are missing here on why the Protocol scares the wits out of the BDP government? The BDP government has made the point before and Minister Edwin Batshu repeats it, namely:

“…We are implementing the SADC Gender Protocol even more than states who signed it…”  So, if Botswana, the Protocol delinquent is more true to the observance of the Protocol than those states who have signed, what is the problem? I think Batswana should dig out the truth from Batshu and his cabinet colleagues. They seem to have become ‘a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’. These, ladies and gentlemen, are more protoclic than those who have committed their countries to the Gender Protocol! It does not make any sense!

Batshu never ceases to be interesting, petty and condescending, I must say! He wants to tell us  that Botswana is more SADC than SADC! “We are committed to SADC, that is why we opted to host the SADC secretariat when no one else wanted to do that…” What was the other option? Not to host the SADC Secretariat, obviously! And had Botswana been less SADC , apparently SADC would not have had a secretariat; in a nutshell there would be no functioning SADC as I write! Does anybody believe that Botswana was the hope of the last resort? I want to commend the Batswana men and women who ‘opted’ to host the SADC secretariat, they were visionaries and true Africans who loved and were proud of Africa, their continent.  The importance of the formation of SADC,  perhaps is still in the future that is why our ministers don’t appreciate why we grabbed the opportunity of ‘hosting’ SADC in contradistinction to opting out like the rest.

SADC secretariat is a prestigious institution to have been ‘opted’ to be hosted! Do you think the US looks back regretfully to have ‘opted’ to host the UN? Do you think Netherlands has qualms to have hosted the International Court of Justice? Ask the Swiss whether they regret having the headquarters of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation  (UNESCO) in their capital. All these institutions are prestigious institutions for which many countries envy the hosts that ‘opted’ to host them!

The article’s objective is to urge Botswana government to be fully committed to the ideal of gender equality. SADC secretariat has graduated from ‘30 percent target of women in political and decision-making structures by the year 2015” (next year).

The secretariat now says 50 percent; and our political leaders are still mulling whether to sign the Protocol or not. When the BDP government boasts of ‘implementing SADC Gender Protocol more that states who signed,’ they may be right, only in reference to posts of Permanent Secretary Generalship, Directorships held by some of Batswana women promoted through nepotism and patronage! But the Protocol talks about (50 percent, which is parity) of men and women in “political and decision-making structures.”

That’s in Parliament and Councils!”  Genocide Rwandans have more female MPs than males in their Parliament! Shall we go the route of genocide to learn we have to have gender equality? 

Or shall we conjure, I don’t know how, the liberation route? Countries which took the liberation route have done better than we. I suppose because women proved themselves in battle. We don’t have to go that route; we don’t have racists or colonialists among us, we are sane and intelligent people who know the demands of our times! Our neighbours, kith and kin, South Africans have declared August a month to commemorate women in the political struggle, aren’t we inspired? In fact many Batswana women were an important part of that struggle. We must honour them for having helped remove the polecat stench!