A Call to Integrated Action: Deploying Social Work Expertise to Resolve the National Gender-Based Violence Crisis
Your Excellency, President Duma Boko, and Honourable Minister of Youth and Gender Affairs, Lesego Chombo, we write to you as the collective voice of Botswana’s social workers a professional body movement deeply committed to the restoration of our nation’s social fabric. We are currently witnessing a national crisis of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) that threatens the core of our democracy and human dignity. While we applaud the government’s commitment to transformation, there remains a painful irony: an army of highly trained, competent, and specialized social workers stands idle, some underutilised in administrative roles and many others entirely unemployed while the very trauma they are equipped to heal consumes our communities. This is not merely a social issue; it is a structural failure. As the economy faces tightening pressures, we know from professional experience that such strain often acts as a catalyst for increased domestic conflict and abuse. We do not need more awareness walks; we need the immediate, strategic deployment of professional social workers across all sectors.
The unique power of social work lies in our holistic “person-in-environment” perspective. While law enforcement focuses on prosecution and medicine on physical repair, social work is the only profession trained to dismantle the systemic roots of violence addressing patriarchy, economic dependency, and cultural norms simultaneously. At the micro level, we provide trauma-informed crisis response and safety planning that restores survivor agency. At the macro level, we are architects of policy reform and community prevention programs that challenge the foundations of abuse. We are here, qualified, and ready to serve. We call upon your administration to integrate social work expertise into every level of the national GBV response, ensuring that no survivor is left without a professional advocate and no community is left without a specialist in social change. The solution to this crisis is already within our borders; we ask only for the opportunity to do the work we were born and trained to do.
Questions we consistently come across as social workers in research and policy regarding GBV:
1. Why is this issue persistent in Botswana? How did we get here?
2. Is it a gender thing?
3. Does culture still play a role?
4. What are the causes?
5. How can we reduce or stop it?
6. Why is not declared a national crisis?
What we often see on social media is not GBV, it is just the “LAST STRIKE”. What we do not see behind closed doors are the patterns and linkages connecting causes of GBV. And the government has been failing/lacking when it comes to addressing this pressing issue because “they are simply looking at it the wrong way” and they are slow to involve trained and certified experts to help construct interventions that effectively de-link these variables.
All that is said is based on facts. It is based on what we see on the ground, not some assumptions. And when we say failure to involve trained personnel who can specifically address GBV, we know what we are speaking about, because after doing these projects, we take time developing frameworks and interventions specifically aligning with what we see on the field to propose solutions to the relevant Ministry, but we have been running the same race without winning, simply because, they seem to care on the face of the nation, but in their offices, there is no place to care and entry, and this is not about politics or fame or power, this is about the lives of Batswana, and coming from a place of care, cure and change.
We always talk about “solutions, solutions”. Gatwe we should stop complaining without proposing. Jaanong here we are, using our own platforms to evidently understand what is happening, and using that understanding and knowledge to propose interventions, but those with the power and resources to implement, continuously reject us. We do not even go to their offices looking or employment because we know their everyday cry of lack of funds, we go there to say, involve us in projects, we can help, this is what we can offer. Each day we get many newly registered cases of the “LAST STRIKE” of GBV. But with the interventions we are proposing, we could stop patterns leading to the “LAST STRIKE”, we could even stop GBV. Go tlhola re goeletsa mo re re GBV must stop, it doesn’t work cause when we go back to our individual houses, we are going back with the same possible abusers and to the same environment birthing those patterns. We are giving the Ministry of Youth and Gender Affairs chance to respond and to act right and prove they care about Batswana. There is nothing that social action can’t fix. We do not want to play political games.
movementforsocialworkers@gmail.com
