Director stresses need for national GBV policy

MAUREEN ODUBENG
Staff Writer | Friday March 29, 2013 00:00

Speaking at the second Botswana SADC Gender Protocol Summit and Awards, hosted by Gender Links at Boipuso Hall, Mogegeh told the gathering that plans are at an advanced stage to develop a 365-day plan of action for GBV prevention and eradication. She said the 2012 GBV indicators study conducted in Botswana revealed that a greater proportion of women who experienced Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) or rape were diagonosed with sexually transmitted infections compared to those who had not experienced IPV or rape.

She said 20.3 percent of the women who experienced sexual IPV  in their life were HIV positive.  The study  revealed that of the women who experienced IPV in their lifetime, 8.7 percent attempted suicide. During the 12 months preceding the study, the figure was 11.6 percent. The study found that 15 out of 100 women who were raped in their lifetime attempted suicide. Of the women who were raped during the 12 months preceding the study, 30.8 percent attempted suicide. Mogegeh said there has been recommitment to the establishment of the national GBV Referral System.

This should be facilitative in addressing GBV more holistically by relocating the responsibility of service access and provision from the clients to the service provider, constituting the network. She gave the example of the sub-referral system between the police and Ministry of Health.

'We consider this experience un-chartered waters. For us, this is a bold first step towards meaningfully responding to the needs of service seekers in this area. We are bound to make mistakes but it is essential that we all go through this learning curve together and hopefully emerge stronger with positive results, for both service providers and seekers,' she said.

Head of SADC Gender Unit, Magdeline Mathiba-Madibela, reaffirmed that the SADC Secretariat continues to invest in prudent strategies in order to facilitate member states to implement their gender commitments on the ground.

'Secretariat has developed tools, frameworks and plans of action, among others, to catalyse action at national level. Support through different initiatives is also in place to instigate more action towards implementation. Recent examples are the SADC Gender Mainstreaming Toolkit, the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy for Open and Distance Learning and the up-coming guidelines for mainstreaming gender in communicable diseases, HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis,' she said.

She stated that Gender Mainstreaming toolkits and guidelines are important as they make gender equality the centerpiece of organisational practice in the SADC region. 'Secretariat is convinced that these efforts are instrumental in ensuring that all SADC regional integration dispensation has a gender face,' she said.