Misunderstanding Between Intimate Lovers Fuels Murder Cases

Pini Bothoko | Monday May 21, 2018 15:04

People used to be able to control anger or frustration and channel those feelings to nondestructive outlets, but of late people have been exhibiting a frightening lack of control. Murder cases involving intimate partners especially boyfriend and girlfriend and exes worry the police.

Over the years dozens of women in Botswana have been killed at the hands of their lovers something that continues to spiral of control. A total of 315 people were murdered in 2017 as opposed to 305 during the preceding year, which translates to three percent increase. Usually the victims are young women who their lives are occasionally ended in the most inhumane way. What concerns the most is that the perpetrators and victims are mostly young adults in what has become known as passion killings. Usually the murders occurs when the other party wants to walk out of a relationship whilst others are as a result of jealousy. In some instances men fight each other to death in disputes over women.

These sad occurrences are attributed to young adults who are no longer able to tell right from wrong as well as low self-esteem amongst men, material dependence, poor coping mechanisms and failure to handle rejection. Addressing senior police officers at the just ended 46th Botswana Police Service (BPS) senior officers annual conference, President Mokgweetsi Masisi also raised this concern and encouraged officers to increase effort on the prevention and detection of sexual assault crimes and other serious offences.

He stated that those offenses have the potential to undermine the rule of law and the economic prosperity of the country.

However the police has over the past years been conducting awareness campaigns urging people to respect the sanctity of life, and avoid settling disputes through violent means, but that seem to be falling on deaf ears.

One can say the killings point to an urgent need for parents and the community to raise their children, inculcating the values of peace and respect for women and human rights, as people no longer value the sanctity of human life.Most of the people no longer have fear, they lose temper and patience easily something that has been established to be occurring as a result of alcohol and drug abuse but mostly drug abuse especially that the police has pointed out that marijuana use remains on the rise amongst druggies.

Addressing the same conference, 46th commissioner of BPS Keabetswe Makgophe raised a concern over escalating cases of serious and violent crimes like murder that remain the country’s nightmare. He said that murder cases, together with other serious and violent crimes like rape, threat-to-kill, to mention are their main target crimes. He pointed out that most of the perpetrators who are mostly men, are usually not brave enough so they eventually resort to suicide.Makgophe stated that these were societal issues that called for joint intervention of all stakeholders. He disclosed that a collective approach is however being implemented as resolved during the last conference.

He said drug abuse in particular the consumption of marijuana, cocaine and methcatinone, especially by the youth and middle aged populations has also presented itself as an area of growing concern in this country.

“The violence associated with the use of drugs often result in the commission of aggravated crimes such as rape and murder,” Makgophe said. However there have been debates on social media platforms with some people putting the blame on women accusing them of chomping their partner’s money by using the money to pay for their own upkeep, buying Brazilian hair, paying for their studies, rent and other day-to-day necessities.

It has been argued that the angry partners would apparently kill women when they try to end the relationships because they would have invested a lot in the lady and thus cannot end the relationship.  Recently the officer commanding, senior Superintendent, Counsel Moyo pleaded with women to refrain from abusing men’s money at the bars because they have observed that they (men) usually want sex in return.

Moyo pleaded with women to budget for their entertainment, refrain from depending on strangers to buy them alcohol at the bars to avoid unnecessary rape cases that usually occurs as a result of their dependence on strangers who they also depend on to arrive home later at night.