UDC budget must address GBV!

Botswana has become home to an array of manifestations of social and domestic violence that include but not limited to high levels of sexual violence, femicide, homicide, suicide, occultism. Violence remains all too common for many people across every corner of Botswana. According to the study carried out by the government of Botswana in partnership with Gender Links, over 67% of women in Botswana have experienced abuse, which is more than double the global average. 

Although GBV cuts across geography and socioeconomic status, the poor face disproportionately high risks. From the political lens of RAP, families have been particularly affected by the social, economic and political policies of the past regime, its scandalous corrupt governance, its inequitable distribution of resources, social changes, divorce and desertion, and the negative impact of social media on children and youth. In turn families’ dysfunction has set in, as a result of dire environmental stress and feelings of powerlessness and frustration. Botswana society has reached an environment of poverty and despair, where men and women have become idle, drinking and gambling their life away, and while yet still women who do most of the household chores including laborious work of fending for their children have become victims of domestic violence. This alarming level of violence is having a very negative impact on the Botswana`s families. Children are also traumatized by the raging violence in communities. 

It is for a historical fact that the UDC inherited a government from a political party (BDP) which had a policy perspective that emphasized family autonomy. The role of the BDP State was all along a residual one: intervening if family responsibility fails. The welfare benefits offered during the BDP state to help parents with the costs of raising children, or service provided for childcare, were never adequate for their needs as they were not explicitly designed to combat family poverty. The BDP government never recognized economic violence in its legal system. Its ruling class tolerated, and facilitated violence, intervening in resolute ways against violence only if the violence threatened the balance of power between the centre and the periphery or the distribution of economic and political power locally. The escort of cash transit vehicles by public security is evident enough to this practice. 

Bottom line is, the rising levels of violence and insecurity is a product of the BDP`s run economy which had the absence of inclusive growth and the stagnation in social mobility, triggered persistent inequalities, job precarity and expansions of disadvantage, a lack of opportunity, and unfairness, that engendered inequality, frustration and alienation among the dispossessed together, spurred violent conduct. Corruption, which had become expansive under the BDP rule, has also had the additional effect of impeding the translation of economic stability into better living conditions among those most affected by the drain on resources. 

Families First approach 

Despite being founded on similar political principles and traits akin to those of ‘Domkrag’, RAP implores the UDC Government to exhibit an otherwise ideal posture to bring about profound change that can prevent the lives of majority Batswana from further disintegration and vulnerability. It is RAP`s submission that if it truly wants to redress the raging flares of gender based violence, the UDC Government ought to establish a family policy as a matter of urgency given the poor quality of life, and the unhappiness of majority of Batswana which has rapidly led to gender violence, murders, rising incidents of crime. RAP is petitioning the UDC Government to forthwith commit to adopting a “families first” approach by putting families at the centre of its attention regarding the development of a coherent and effective family. Doing so, requires having to expand the remit of the Department of Social and Community Development to make family policy and family services central to its activities. In addition, RAP pursues UDC to establish the Family Affairs Unit to complement and relief the already burdened Department of Social and Community Development for the coordination of family policy, and to promote awareness about family issues. 

National Council of Family 

RAP further petitions the setting up of the National Council of Family as a parallel mechanism with advisory role and to function as a link between the government and other sectors of society. The National Council of Family should be an autonomous scientific, civic organization, which brings together representatives of Government, organized social sectors and the community. Specifically, the main functions of the National Council of Family will be to promote the civic and moral values of the family as well as stability and welfare of the nuclear family, whatever the marital status of its members; to prepare, through research an ongoing diagnosis of the situation of families in Botswana; to call for Government family education activities promoting responsible parenthood; to raise awareness and information about the family-oriented programmes; to ensure the application of the legislation protecting minors, the family and its members; to advise on and coordinate the organization, promotion, and management of programmes and policies in both public and private sector aimed at providing preventive care, welfare and protection for minors, the family and its members. 

Parly Committee on Family 

Another development at the national level should be the establishment of a Joint Committee on the Family by Parliament. Its terms of reference should be similar to those of the National Council of Family i.e.: (i) to raise public awareness and improve understanding of issues affecting families; (ii) to examine the effects of legislation and policies on families and make appropriate recommendations to the Government on proposals, which would strengthen families, including to push for enactment of a Protection from Domestic Violence Act to provide protection to victims of domestic violence and to help in the reconstruction of the family wherever possible. 

National Family Day 

RAP further urges UDC government to join many other countries in marking the National Family Day as a public holiday for annual events under various themes according to the current situation and prevailing issues. The National Family Day should be utilized to teach family cohesiveness, ethics and values, and productivity among the family members and to promote issues including; raising awareness about families and; communication within families, family roles and responsibilities, the portrayal of the family in literature and in the media, support and resources available to families as well as families and the law in Botswana. A national arts competition, debate and rhetorical contests for schools should also be held to heighten awareness about families among students. 

Family Related Programmes 

Child Care: 

RAP decries the UDC pittance cash support scheme of P300 for the first 18 months after the child is born. On the contrary, RAP is for the cash support scheme which can improve the financial situation of families with young children, and for giving them a greater opportunity to choose to spend more time with their children. Therefore, RAP is petitioning for the Family Support programme that provides maximum payments of between P900 and P1800 a week per child, depending on the child’s age, and should be subject to an income test i.e. the rate of assistance should depend on the parents’ income. RAP is further entrancing UDC government for the provision of adequate child-care including providing more extensive child-care services including; early childhood development programmes aimed at working mothers, job searching mothers and school going mothers who have very young children. 

In addition, if the UDC Government is to “walk its propaganda talk” and is adamant on branding itself as a “Human Rights” Government, it should set up several financial assistance measures for supporting sole parents in greater part-time work, in domestic work purposes, widows and invalids beneficiaries, who because of their child minding responsibilities or disabilities, are not expected to be seeking full-time work. The purpose of the schemes is to ensure that single parents receive an income and help to help themselves, during a period when they are wholly or partly unable to support themselves because they have to take care of small children, the chronically sickly and those with intense disability. 

Furthermore, the UDC government through its Youth and Gender Ministry must undertake a series of preventive public education programmes such as; the creation of Recreational and Family Counseling service Centres for the family; Campaigns against alcoholism, domestic violence and child abuse; Sensitization sessions through lectures, workshops and media programmes utilizing popular theatre, role play, group discussions, distribution of posters, pamphlets, booklets and positive musical performances that help prevent the development of negative patterns of interaction and psychosocial problems in children and young people. 

Family Support Plus 

In order to bring youth into the mainstream of national development and promote the practice of healthy and productive lifestyles, RAP further petitions UDC to introduce ‘Family Support Plus’ Programme aimed at empowering youth. The programme has to focus on physical, spiritual, social and intellectual development of young persons. The physical aspects should be aimed at providing options for youth to utilize leisure time productively, while the spiritual aspects should emphasize the teaching of positive values and attitudes among participants. The ultimate goal of the Family Support Plus’ Programme will be to teach positive attitudes and values necessary for youth to meet new challenges and expectations brought by rapid development, while at the same time countering negative influences arising from changing lifestyles. 

Well-being of Citizens 

RAP has noticed with dismay the granting by UDC Government, of the largest share of the proposed Ministerial Recurrent Budget to Botswana Police Service, Botswana Defence Force, DEA and the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Weapons Management Authority (CBRNWMA) amounting to P9.79 billion or 78 percent of the Ministry for State President proposed budget. The UDC has granted Defense budgeting a sky – high share of the 2025/2026 National budget at the value expense of the much needed life-sustaining programs. Instead of funding “the tools that would actually solve the problems facing communities, such as mental health services, employment and income support, addiction treatment, improved schools or high quality youth programs, child care and community safety, the UDC administration has prioritized astronomical budgeting for more policing and incarceration. 

It appears the UDC administration`s aim is to lift up crime as the root of social problems and offer policing and incarceration as the only possible solution. Prioritizing military needs, more-intensive policing and incarceration by the UDC State, and blaming violence on communities instead of acknowledging its social roots, is misguided and is an insult to every citizen of Botswana. Such posturing erases the role of growing economic inequality and governmental disinvestment at all levels. 

Based on a limited budget, it is unnecessary to prioritize military and policing because such spending is naturally not marketable. RAP is challenging the UDC to slash military budget to address violence in communities, given the everyday horrifying continuance of violence all over Botswana. Failure to recognize and care about the harms caused by economic violence limits the potential for economic wealth to distinctly influence life satisfaction and meaning to citizens’ access to justice. 

RAP is lobbying Parliament to re-strategize about how national budget astronomical increases could be redirected towards life-supporting priorities. MPs should engage in “Trade-Offs” to deplopy money towards programs like mental health crises, restorative and transformative justice programs, climate justice, childcare, universal basic income earning jobs, shaping the ‘community’ Anchor Models to give communities more agency in key decisions and actions at ward and district level. 

Gaontebale Mokgosi 

Brother Chairman 

Real Alternative Party