16 May 2016

Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) women’s wing chairperson, Ms Dorcas Makgato, says they look at issues of defilement as a national, developmental and human rights concern.

She told a press conference on Monday May 16 that the women’s wing trusted Botswana’s law enforcement systems.

She said BDP should also visit its code of conduct and take necessary action if the code was violated.

“But we are not limiting it to the space that its only BDP councillors issue, we look at it in broader based view that we hold as women’s wing,” she said this in reference to a recent case in which a BDP councillor was rumoured to have defiled a student in Sebina.

Ms Makgato said the dark cloud facing the nation was, incest, teenage pregnancy, rape, abortion and defilement, adding that the issue of teenage pregnancies, particularly for young   girls at schools   was a serious concern.

Ms Makgato said teenage pregnancy disempowered school girls of their right to education, human development to reach their potential and was a violation of their human rights.

“It eventually also becomes a sustainable development issue, so we should all be concerned citizens, we should also be concerned when our youth especially under the legal age of 16 are either at their own free will, forced or are coerced into sex,”she said.

She said the women’s wing disdained and condemned the Sebina incident rigorously, given that if left uncondemned the situation might be worse in future.

Furthermore, Ms Makgato said there was need for a broad based multi-sectoral dialogue that would provide information on the magnitude of the problem.

She said stakeholders should therefore develop a plan to implement the proposed interventions that had been agreed upon,given that teenage pregnancy had several implications. ENDS