Tackling GBV requires all stakeholders
Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Friday November 6, 2020 15:40
She called on key stakeholders to collaborate in order to curb the problem.
Marathe was addressing stakeholders during the official opening of a three-day capacity building workshop on the role of law enforcement officers in responding to GBV cases at Adansonia Hotel this week.
Giving a keynote address, Marathe said it was very crucial for key stakeholders to work together and address the root cause of GBV, especially targeting grassroots levels so as to empower both the girl child and boy child.
She also said there was need for children, especially the boy child to be groomed properly in order to understand that there was life after rejection in all spheres of life.
She added: “We need to nurture boys to be better versions of themselves and protect their counterparts.”
The deputy commissioner operations further said it was necessary to build young resilient boys who are prepared to face all the challenges of life by teaching them how to channel disappointment without harming anyone.
She added: “We are saying we can’t achieve that on our own as the BPS because this is an approach that call for all of the relevant stakeholders to work together to win against GBV.”
Marathe stated that a coordinated and multi-sectoral approach remained an effective technique for tackling GBV, mainly due to the cross-cutting nature of the human-inflicted pandemic including its serious psycho-social effect on the victims.
She emphasised on the need to enrol the support of critical players such as courts, prisons, healthcare, social service providers, civil leaders and others to discharge important services pertinent to their areas of speciality.
She further said that as the police, they continued to record disturbing cases of women and children being abused, seriously assaulted and even killed by their male partners. These include relatives and acquaintances as depicted in crimes such as aggravated assaults, threat-to-kill, murder, rape and defilement of victims.
She noted that cases of defilement in particular continued to increase and it was against this backdrop that BPS has prioritised tackling the crimes in her policing agenda.
She further said as part of addressing GBV, the police found it fit to establish the gender and protection unit, which will deal with, amongst others, domestic violence and sexual offences relating to children.
She also said that as part of the BPS response and interventions to the fight against GBV, they were also piloting child-friendly centres in Gaborone so as to create a conducive environment for interviewing children.
She added that their priority was to also ensure that GBV cases were reported and perpetrators arrested and brought before justice.
The deputy commissioner said as part of providing privacy to victims, they have made it a point that every police station introduced private interview rooms for GBV victims.