Batswana are increasingly becoming an angry and violent nation as depicted by cases of gender-based violence (GBV), which mirror the nation’s fury. It’s the umpteenth time that we make this appeal.
Almost every week, the police record cases of men cruelly battering their loved ones to death, and in some cases, then take their own lives, leaving the surviving relatives in incessant pain.
Therefore, we would like to call on Batswana to exercise restraint and deal with pain emanating from a love relationship that has gone wrong in a better way. We also want to believe that before a man executes the last fatal blow, he would have planned this fatality over time. Some of them would have long exhibited a potential to kill or just strange behaviour towards their loved ones, especially when things do not go well.
Sometimes women, who have become the majority of victims, would have withdrawn a case from the police after being assaulted by a live-in lover or the father of their child or children. This, in most cases, would morph into the genesis of a cat-and-mouse battle in the house, which is rarely taken note of or not even further reported to the police or the elders.
We know sometimes women find themselves unable to report their abusive lovers for fear that they will lose the means of support if the man faces the full wrath of the law.
We would like to remind the vulnerable women that there is life beyond their abusive love relationships. And as such, they must defend their lives at the earliest possible opportunity by reporting the beasts before they can injure them or even take their lives. There is nothing wrong with a woman running away from an abusive home and seeking refuge at safe places, either with the police or relatives and friends.
In some instances, we have realised that the authorities would have taken some of the threats lightly, which ended up with bloodshed.
Men have to rise and wise up, and understand that no matter how much they have invested in a love relationship, there is a possibility of such a relationship breaking up.
No matter how much a man invests in a woman, it cannot buy the life of a poor woman. The practice of doling out gifts to women by men, also known as go becha is as old as humanity itself. In most cases, some men just gift women with the notion of trying to keep them oblivious that a relationship can at some stage break, especially if not founded on strong principles.
We plead with Batswana to stop killing each other in the name of love. The police, social workers, the elders, and friends can relieve a man or woman heavily laden with the pressure of a relationship that is not working by providing the requisite wise counsel. Let’s explore other avenues when we are at our wits’ end and desist from acting on impulse. Why do we kill others? We appeal to men in particular to stop GBV, as it’s the majority of them who kill. We also appeal to the few women who have killed their loved ones to end GBV.
Today’s thought
“In violence, we forget who we are.” -Mary McCarthy
