Africa-Press – Lesotho. GENDER Minister Likeleli Tampane says she is itching to see the death penalty carried out in Lesotho. Tampane spoke in the wake of the latest murder of a Leribe woman who was found strangled in the veld last week.
Her two toddlers were found wandering on the road. Tampane said her Democratic Congress (DC) party is eager to ensure that capital punishment is fully implemented if it wins next year’s elections.
She said they will “push harder to ensure that the perpetrators are sentenced to death”. While Lesotho still has the death sentence on its statute books, the last hanging took place 25 years ago in 1996.
An extradition treaty Lesotho signed with South Africa has also contributed to the non-implementation of the death penalty. Under the terms of the treaty, an extradited criminal cannot be hanged in Lesotho.
Many murderers have exploited that loophole by fleeing to South Africa knowing they would not be hanged when they are extradited to Lesotho. Speaking to the Matlakeng community last Saturday, Tampane said the murderers must pay for their “satanic deeds”.
“We are bothered as a ministry by the skyrocketing statistics of women who die in the hands of men recently,” Tampane said.
She said a week does not pass by without a woman being brutally murdered, adding that in Mokhotlong alone in the previous few weeks, two women were killed by their husbands.
She also recalled the case of a woman who was recently killed by her boyfriend in Butha-Buthe. “While burying that woman another young woman was found dead,” she said.
She stressed that there was a new trend where the victims are raped, strangled and tortured to death. “We heard how she suffered in the hands of her killers before she died,” she said.
“We are living in strange times where women are killed every day and other people make jokes out of such tragedies,” she said.
She also said some women suffer in silence at the hands of their husbands “but they think things will be alright”. “Men go to bars and drink, they come back and beat their wives like dogs, they rape them and insult them,” she said.
Tampane encouraged women who are going through such hardships to speak out and inform the authorities about the abuse, adding that it is now time for women to take control of their lives.
She said women should fight hard to stop domestic violence. Tampane said gender-based violence has always existed but was happening more frequently than ever before.
She said women should be active on social media and encourage each other to fight against abuse. “Women should work together instead of talking about other bad things,” she said.
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