Date Rape High In Mogoditshane
Pini Bothoko | Monday June 18, 2018 13:38
This year alone, from January to May, Mogoditshane has already recorded 58 rape cases. In 2016 the village stood at 150 when the year petered out and the number significantly increased to 159 cases in 2017.
Most of these cases have been identified as date rape as the perpetrators are often casual friends, or individuals that victims are familiar with.
Usually, the perpetrators would on that fateful day had spend some time with their victims, entertaining them, showering them with goodies, but later demand sex in return. This seem to occur, as these men tend to feel entitled to sex as payment for spending monies on the women.
Investigations of these rape cases is giving the police a headache as the perpetrators would claim to have obtained consent from the victims and even accuse them of extortion.
In some cases, victims claim the culprits used sex drugs to spike their drinks whilst at entertainment places and later forced the victims into having sex with them.
In fact the police have conceded that most of the rape incidents occur at residential places and they are usually influenced by the state of drunkenness. Of recent, the police reported and cautioned women about sex drugs they discovered to be highly used at most entertainment places in Gaborone and surrounding areas.
It was revealed that a majority of women have been victims of sexual assault after their drinks where spiked with drugs.
Reports of rape incidents are treated seriously, investigated thoroughly despite what both the victims and the perpetrators would have said according to the Officer Commanding (OC), senior Superintendent Counsel Moyo.
He said in most instances, such men usually claim to have met with women at the bar, had arrangements with the women who would later changed tack. Despite such claims, they treat cases with the urgency and caution they deserve.
“Even though drug use is real, we have observe with concern that a majority of women do not budget for their entertainment. They go to the bars without money to buy themselves alcohol and then they would have not made any plans on how they will return home. We do not condone rape, but we plead with women to take the responsibility of their entertainment and stop depending on strangers they meet at the bars because we have observe that it exposes the women to unnecessary risk,” Moyo said.
He said under the influence of alcohol women could be on a vulnerable situation as they might fail to defend themselves.
He said that there were few instances in which women were attacked walking alone at night from the bar and whilst in their sleep as compared to those who were raped by the people they would have spent time with.
“The rape incidents concerns us because most of the women are raped by the people they know or those that they would have spent some time with prior to the reports,” he said.
Moyo said concerning interventions into the matter, they make sure that after the reports they take victims for medical examination and make sure they are given all the necessary treatment.
“We also make sure that we organise counselling sessions for the victims and perpetrators are arrested as further investigations are carried out and later they are taken to courts for prosecution,” he said.
Moyo revealed that to curb the escalating rape incidents, the police have intensified their public education through community policing forums calling for other stakeholders to join forces with the police to address this menace.