Miller Urges All To Defend GBV Victims
Pini Bothoko | Monday December 12, 2016 16:16
He said this when officially opening the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)’s new directions in global health seminar here recently at Marang Hotel.
The seminar was part of the 16 days of activism against GBV under the theme, ‘From peace in the home to peace in the world’.
Miller said according to 2013 survey Batswana women who experience GBV are 50% and are more likely to be infected with HIV than women in non-violent relationships.
He said the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security reported that during the three-year period between 2012 and 2014, there were more than 6,000 cases of rape against women and girls, that is more than five cases of rape every year.
“During the same period, 235 women were murdered and nearly 1,600 cases of defilement against girls under the age of 16 years were reported. What is the consequence? 407 of these girls dropped out of school due to pregnancy, losing many opportunities that are open to secondary school graduates,” Miller said.
He said despite the long history of this problem, violence should not be accepted as normal or justifiable rather all should come to the defence of these victims.
He said GBV in particular is directly tied to women and girls’ access to health services, their power to make health-related decisions and disparities that lead to earlier HIV infection. He said prevention strategies need to address the unequal power between men and women, norms and practices that put women at a higher risk of exposure to HIV.
He said United Nations (UN) estimates one in three women worldwide will experience physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime and no country is immune to this problem. The survey reflected that 53% of women surveyed had unprotected sex because their partners refused to use condoms and 23% of pregnant women experienced violence during pregnancy.
He said violence against women also has significant economic costs, including health-care costs, lost income for women, decreased productivity and negative impacts across generations.
He said over the last decade, PEPFAR committed more than $750 million to Botswana in the response to HIV and they are investing another $48 million in 2017 to support community programs, health facilities and for the purchase of drugs. He said this year Botswana made history with a move towards controlling the HIV epidemic through the adoption of a new and progressive treatment policy called ‘treat all’. He said the highest rates of HIV/AIDS infections occur among 15-49 year old women in Botswana. Miller said HIV prevalence rates between men and women show that women are consistently infected in higher proportions than men.
He said women, fearing violence, are less able to protect themselves from infection because they do not have the power to negotiate for safe sex or to refuse unwanted sex.