23 Sep 2024

Plans are underway to establish a one-stop centre for gender-based violence (GBV) and child exploitation that would provide a range of services including medical care, counselling and support services to victims.

The director of gender and child protection branch, Botswana Police Service, Ms Goitseone Ngono, said this at the official opening of a five-day GBV workshop for trainers of trainers recently.

She said the move would address re-victimisation of GBV victims and  would see service providers housed under one roof, which would be beneficial.

Ms Ngono said it was recognised that the community had a critical role to play in helping win the war on GBV and child exploitation.

She stated that the police were committed to engaging with the community, listening to their concerns, and working together to develop solutions that were responsive to their needs.

She indicated they had a strong belief that community led interventions could be effective as the residents would be leading the initiatives, participating fully and having a sense of belonging for their programmes.

The BPS, she said, had developed a set of guiding principles aimed at ensuring that officers were committed to integrating GBV into their work and were adequately skilled to do so. She indicated the guiding principles included continued capacity building for police officers to equip them with knowledge on how to effectively and efficiently handle GBV cases.

Ms Ngono said BPS continued to employ science and technology in strengthening its response and interventions to GBV and its emerging complexities, through the introduction of standardised forensic evidence collection kits in sexual assaults, use of DNA and DNA databases for cold cases, use of digital forensics for online sexual exploitation cases.

Furthermore, the BPS boasted of a modern Digital Forensics Laboratory whose mandate was to support criminal investigations by utilising tools, expertise and techniques to analyse computer and mobile devices for evidentiary material, she said.

They assisted in cases such as cyber harassment, revenge pornography, cyber stalking and child pornography which were GBV related.

The acting General Manager Orapa Letlhakane and Damtshaa Mines (OLDM) Mr Howard Kgwarae, said GBV continued to inflict unimaginable misery in the lives of people, families and in particular children.

As part of the intervention to respond to the menace, at OLDM, he said, they developed a GBV risk management framework that focused on five key areas being GBV prevention,GBV risk mitigation, strengthening the capacity of GBV responders, survivor support and addressing the root causes of GBV.

Mr Kgwarae stated that over the past three years, OLDM tragically lost three employees to GBV. ENDS