Through a joint collaboration of the Department of Social Protection under the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development Botswana and UNICEF Botswana a mapping and capacity gap analysis of the Social Service Workforce to prevent and respond to violence against children was commissioned to Child Frontiers and published in March 2020.
Although the recomendations to solve the problems Social Work and Social Workers are experiencing are adequate, a recommandation to abolish corporal punishment in Botswana is missing. Corporal punished was in 1820 banned in schools in The Netherlands. But 200 years later it is still by law allowed in Botswana.
"A child in conflict with the law who is found guilty may be placed under probation, in which case, a probation officer is responsible for supervision. It is important to emphasize here, that corporal punishment is a stipulated sentence that the Children’s Court can carry out in the presence of a probation officer and social worker. There are no follow-up or care provisions regarding corporal punishment as a sentence other than the limitation of it not exceeding six strokes."
"A social worker is also responsible for making burial arrangements for protected children who die in custody."
I am hoping that this last sentence does not mean that there are expectations that a child might die from the strokes it receives in court.
How is the Social Service and its Social Workers going to prevent and respond against corporal punishment if this is allowed in Courts, in schools and Kgotla's? How are they going to guard children from violence from parents, teachers, caretakers, if these know that by law corporal punishment is allowed, or maybe even think that it is compulsory?
On 30 January I have sent an email to Child Frontiers and Unicef Botswana (it is useless to send an email to the Botswana Government, they never answer them) with the question whether the recommendation to prohibited corporal punishment by law maybe was forgotten to be placed in the report. If in a report about protecting children against violence is stated that by law they may undergo corporal punishment,this report is useless.

We wish everybody a happy, healthy and COVID free 2021.
A parcel with books and baby clothes has been sent, the books for Pioneer Academy and the clothes for Window of Hope Centre.