Africa-Press – Botswana. Findings from an engagement with the public by the Ministry of Justice suggests numerous and varied hindrances to accessing justice system fairly and satisfactorily, deputy secretary of justice Mr Moffat Lubinda has said.
Recently the ministry engaged communities to set up guidelines of operation and how best to open justice doors to the public.
“The first thing that we must acknowledge as a hindrance is the mindset that we grew up with as a people. There are certain things that we learnt as we grew up, either intentionally or by the wayside,” he said.
Mr Lubinda said often times cases of abused husbands were taken lightly by the presiding law officers , mentioning that generally society expected men to be tough and survive all the odds.
He said this type of behavior dampened the victim’s effort to try and reach out for help, hence mind-set change being crucial within justice doors so as to address issues satisfactorily.
Mr Lubinda reiterated that most hindrances to accessing justice had a lot to do with mind-set, including the way practitioners looked at things, the orientation and how they were taught.
He stated that the responses became hindrances when victims approached the doors of justice, citing that a distinctive example would be a victim of rape where in most cases she would be asked what she was wearing at the time of incident.
Mr Lubinda said this type of question showed that there were some preconceived ideas which would certainly hinder this person from opening up.
Mr Lubinda said absence of guidelines governing gender mainstreaming in the criminal justice sector for investigators, prosecutors, social workers and other law enforcement officers even dealing with GBV cases compromised quality of service to victims, witnesses and perpetrators.
Therefore, he said there was urgent need to capacitate the professionals on laws, from a perspective of gender responsiveness, so as to enable them to adequately intervene as expected from their profession.
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