Selebi-Phikwe — Assistant Superintendent Goganang Pule has expressed concern over the high rate of maintenance cases reported against men in Selebi-Phikwe.

Pule said during a Women's Affairs Department-arranged workshop on Wednesday that the police are so overwhelmed with such cases that they have set aside Fridays to process them. He noted that this is an indication of how cruel men can be in that they are forced by the law to support their own children.

He lamented that it becomes a stigma to a child to learn as he/she grows up, that the father was forced to support them through court orders. He also urged men to discard their pride and demand maintenance from women where it is necessary and indicated that there are some women who are also paying maintenance though they have not yet registered any such case in Selebi-Phikwe yet.

Meanwhile, the assistant superintendent said they are faced with serious challenges when dealing with gender-based violence cases. He added that women present worst challenges in that they fail to get full particulars of their partners and said this defeats police efforts to arrest the culprits and the police appear incompetent in turn.

He said some of the gender based violence cases lack independent witnesses because they happen in bedrooms with only two people involved. He said this is sometimes made difficult by the fact that culturally parents cannot involve their children as witnesses in their relationship issues though there is no law prohibiting it. He added that as a result the case remains in abeyance.

He further indicated that women report abuse cases when the situation has worsened and beyond control after compromising for too long and urged them to report as soon as the abuse starts. Pule also said 97 percent of threat-to-kill cases have been withdrawn from courts by women because of their economic dependence on men.

He also highlighted the fact that men, especially those in the uniformed forces do not turn up for summons in courts leading to them being taken to prison after the magistrate issues a warrant of arrest.

Pule stressed that defying the court order empowers the police to make arrests immediately. He urged those suffering abuse not to hesitate to apply for court orders to protect them and said as the police they also encounter situations where applicants of court orders do not know how to do it.

Participants of the workshop wanted to know how the police treat threat-to-kill cases because women exploit it because the law seems to favour women.

They also indicated that they usually end up withdrawing cases from the police because it takes unnecessarily too long for cases to be heard due to inefficiency by some police officers.

The Department of Women's Affairs had organised the workshop to sensitise participants on gender and development issues, make them aware of the laws that have been amended which affect the status of women in Botswana as well as to train them on issues of gender- based violence.