Gender based violence: Whose agenda is it?

| Friday November 26, 2010 00:00

Every year around this time, women who have been battered by their husbands and partners are thrust in the spotlight to share their experiences with the world on how they survived. There are painful stories where one questions why those acts could be inflicted on another human being. Listening to those stories can force a woman to stay celibate and never want to share a roof with another man. Stories of children who are being neglected and abused by their parents and guardians forcing them into the streets are also told.

After listening to those and you see the streets children you wonder what drove them away from their homes, you wonder where their parents are and whether they are well off or poor families. You wonder why their parents did not go out to look for them after they ran away. There are also untold stories of men who have being battered by their women, who are being laughed at by the police officers when they go to report and who resort to living with their abusive partners because speaking out will mean there are weaker than the fairer sex.

Then there are the sexist tasteless jokes demeaning women and where the same women manage to find nothing wrong with those and laugh with the men who are laughing at them. It is a sad world where one just stop and question why people who are at the forefront of advocating for women's issues wait till this time of the year every year to talk about this issue? 

The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP)'s Botlogile Tshireletso, who is Assistant Minister of Local Government and former chief whip in Parliament, said that it is not 'a problem to share sexist jokes with men because we all know we would be joking and we do not take any of those seriously.'

In her joking, Tshireletso was referring to the time when President Ian Khama was reported to have jokingly insulted her at a mock court when he said he pressed her 'bums' because she was too fat and had blocked the door and he had to force his way through. While another 'fat' woman could have taken offence to that, the BDP women laughed. 'There are issues that we can think are said in bad taste but we would want to just relax and joke when we are in good atmosphere with our fellow party members. I think there is nothing wrong with that,' she said.

The jokes continued with some members of the same BDP told party members that the current Miss World second Princess Emma Warreus should marry the President as 'she was tall, slim and befitting the President's choice of woman'.

The pundits viewed that as giving a green light to older men to go after the teenage girls, something has been said to be the cause of divorces and heartache to married women. 'The media is just blowing this out of proportion and making it sensitive while it is real not. Emma was not there in the first place to make her uncomfortable around the president,' she said adding that she is quite on the advocating women's issues in parliament because she has a lot on her plate as the assistant minister and not getting enough support from the women activists who used to inform her on women's issues.  The Botswana Congress Party's President for the Women's League was frank to state that her party has done very little to advocate for gender based violence against women and children.

Tebogo Dingake said that they only met last weekend to come up with a programme of activities that they could do during this time of the campaign. 'I was only elected two weeks ago and I must admit that this is an issue that we have to talk about all year round and not only wait for this period of the campaign.

We are meeting again this weekend to pave the way forward on what we need henceforth to keep the momentum and pioneer the campaign to be all year round and not for just this 16 days,' Dingake said explaining that they would be educating their women on what gender based violence is about.

Like the BCP, the Botswana National Front women have admitted to doing very little in advocating for eradication of gender based violence. 'We have however started sensitising our members every Wednesday at the bus station during a slot that we have been given on those weekly political rallies. I agree that this should be a continuous process but even the Women Affairs Department has been doing it only around this time of the year,' the BNF President of Women's League said.

However, the Women's Shelter has revealed an increase in the number of cases that they get for drop-in even from men. A total of 127 with about 29 being men at the dropping centre from April to June this year while 70 were received from July to September.

This year's global theme for the 16 Days of Activism campaign is: 'Structures of violence accentuating the intersection of HIV/AIDS' with focus being to take stock of achievements in addressing violence against women, with the overarching theme for this year is, 'Halve gender based violence by 2015' which is also the main target around GBV in the SADC Gender Protocol.

The 16 Days of Activism campaign is the period November 25 to December 10 annually when activists raise heightened awareness around gender violence. The campaign started in 1991 and since then has brought various stakeholders including gender activists, civil society, governments, private sector, faith-based organisations, communities and development partners to find lasting strategies to curb gender violence.