Despite Lesotho's outlawing of any form of violence against women and children, offences remain prevalent and hidden from public view and are often exacerbated by archaic civil and customary laws.

Participants at an ongoing Child and Gender Protection Unit (CGPU) workshop in Thaba Bosiu have called for intensified action in the enactment of legislation for the protection and care of orphaned and vulnerable children.

The CGPU officials, most of whom are police officers, said despite the country’s ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) addendum to the gender and development declaration, outdated laws help the perpetuation of the offences. 

Child abuse is especially on the rise now, officers from the country’s ten districts agree, when most children are being orphaned and left to fend for themselves.

According to CGPU National coordinator Ms Motšelisi Mosotho, children are often employed in hazardous forms of labour to sustain their impoverished lives, while women migrate to the cities for employment, not only making them vulnerable to violence and offences but also endangering the young children left behind to fend for themselves.

It is necessary to develop legislation such as a domestic violence Act, until now non-existent in Lesotho, to curb the increasing violence against women.

The Child Protection and Welfare Bill awaiting endorsement must be enacted with utmost urgency, as it is the most critical piece of legislation reviewed in Lesotho that will empower the CGPU to protect the rampant number of orphans and vulnerable children being abused and exploited, Ms Mosotho said.

 The CGPU is a unit within the LMPS, funded by UNICEF, dealing with the abuse, violence and exploitation of children and women.

16 November 2005