Calls to end violence against women

Botswana's Minister of Labour and Home Affairs Honourable Minister Edwin Jenamiso Batshu has launched The Gender Based Violence (GBV) Indicators Study Botswana (2012) report which reveals the high prevalence of GBV in the country. The research is a product of the partnership between Gender Links (GL) and the Women's Affairs Department (WAD) in the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs in Botswana.

The study, carried out between 2010 and 2011, shows that over two thirds of women in Botswana (67%) have experienced violence in their lifetime including partner and non-partner violence. A smaller, but still high, proportion of men (44%) admit to perpetrating violence against women. In 2011 alone, 29% of women experienced violence perpetrated by men and 22% of men admitted to perpetrating GBV.

Nearly one third of women (29%) experienced Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in the 12 months to the prevalence survey that formed the flagship research tool in this study. In contrast, only 1.2% of Batswana women reported cases of GBV to the police in the same period. Thus the prevalence of GBV reported in the survey is 24 times higher than that reported to the police. This suggests that levels of GBV are far higher than those recorded in official statistics and that women have lost faith in the very systems that should protect them as well as offer redress. (Gender Links)