Women, stand up
Baboki Kayawe | Friday January 20, 2017 15:00
Pedersen has been at the helm of the international organisation for five years. “The civil society raise your voice, women of Botswana in particular stand up,” he said. “Men won’t give up power easily, you better stand up and fight for it.”
He reiterated the UN’s call for more women in politics and stressed the need to get their political representation up. This call is not new because when the UN Women started operations In Botswana last year, the then country programme manager, Karin Feug made a similar call. Feug had expressed concern at the fact that women political participation still lags behind in her first local press interview.
She said the women movement seems to have lost its spark which she attributes to an inter-generational gap and consequently the absence of a cohesive dialogue in which women activists could share lessons with young women leaders, with the objective of joining forces towards strengthening the women movement.
“At such fora, the younger generation can share notes with women leaders as well as communicate their women agenda.
“There are many ways that can be employed to promote women’s participation and supporting women movements as well as political parties commitment to help women who aspire to contest for political office,” she said.
The departing Pedersen also implored more women to venture into entrepreneurship.
“I would like to see more female entrepreneurs,” he said.
Moreover, he spoke against Gender Based Violence; a social ill that rivals with developmental aspirations as the cost of its containment are quite hefty, and have massive cross-sectoral implications.
According to a 2011 study commissioned by government and non-governmental organisation Gender Links, the prevalence of violence against women stood at 67% in Botswana.
This means at least two thirds of women in Botswana were victims of violence in that year and this only relates to reported cases.
The study shows that 62% of women sampled experienced abuse within intimate relationships.
Statistics made available by the Botswana Police Service at the end of 2015 painted a deteriorating picture of violence against women in Botswana. According to the police, 64 cases of murder and attempted murder were reported as having been committed against women in the first quarter of 2015 alone.
“It does not cost anything not to harm somebody,” Pedersen said.
Futhermore, he called on every Motswana to be an active participant in the development agenda and desist from seeing development as the responsibility of government alone.
He hailed former statesman, Festus Mogae for the bold war and tenacity he put up at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which he called “quite a remarkable achievement”.
For his part, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation, Gaeimelwe Goitsemang hailed Pedersen as hardworking, and having contributed immensely to Botswana’s development agenda.
“You came at a very crucial juncture of Botswana’s development journey, when we were in the middle of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework review, and also trying to achieve synergy between the document and the National Development Plan 10, and you managed to help us resolve teething problems we had,” Goitsemang said.
He commended the UNDP for assisting with the establishment of Legal Aid, which has enabled Batswana access to justice. Moreover, he said the UN’s evidence based research prowess led to the creation of Statistics Botswana among other crucial contributions.