Safari lodges use Batswana women as sex slaves - report
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) last week published a report on core labour standards in the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland.
"According to the USDoS Trafficking Report 2008, one local non-governmental organisation (NGO) received reports from Batswana women that they were forced to provide sexual services to tourists at some safari lodges. Usually with the hope of attaining better education and more opportunities, parents from rural areas give their children to better off families in towns. It has been reported that some of these children are later used for domestic servitude or for herding in remote cattle posts," the report says.
While it is widely acknowledged that Khama holds the title of Kgosi, the government’s failure to properly gazette his recognition has raised serious concerns about adherence to legal procedures and the credibility of traditional leadership. (See a story elsewhere in this newspaper.) Recent court documents by the Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Kgotla Autlwetse, shed light on the intricacies of Khama’s recognition process....