In three years to come, I am still expecting her to be providing for me. This is just to say, I am a child now and I will still be a child in three years…” So said young Lejwana Joseph, a student from Legae Academy, before thousands gathered under the famous Morula tree at the GSS grounds after the Saturday march by the #IShallNotForget movement. This is a simple and poignant message, which has become the core of the campaign against sexual abuse of children, in Botswana, and worldwide, really.
This is the core message, carried by an estimated 4,000 Gaborone demonstrators, who rose up in the early morning chill to stand and be counted in the fight against child abuse. Coming just 12 days before the Day of the African Child, June 16, the overwhelming response to the march left many in tears, of somewhat sadness and joy at the same time. Joy because while state machinery had tried and failed to stop it, it had taken a fluid social media movement with less than 30 days of existence, to organise, under 10 days, one of the most successful demonstrations the country has ever experienced. Sad, because despite the civil uprising on issues of child abuse, ignited by the Sebina sex scandal in which councillor Kemmonye Amon has admitted to impregnating a 16-year old girl, reports of molesting under-aged girls, and the rape of teenagers continue unabated. Sad because child abusers such as Amon can boast of the fact that the law cannot touch them because they engaged in illicit and unprotected sex with ‘consenting adults’.
