Police have raised alarm over a rising trend in the online sexual abuse of children, with predators increasingly using WhatsApp to groom and exploit young victims.
Botswana Police Service (BPS) Deputy Director of Gender and Child Protection Unit, Gontlafetse Cornelious Segolodi, made this chilling revelation during First Lady Kaone Boko’s visit to Maun last week.
Segolodi said foreign nationals were targeting children online, persuading them to send explicit images and, in some cases, threatening to expose them if they refuse. “More recently we have started noticing a shift in offences involving children where we are seeing crimes being perpetrated through the use of technology,” he said.
He further explained that these activities increase the risk of human trafficking, leaving the children even more vulnerable.
“We have also noted the use of spoofing, where perpetrators disguise their identities to appear trustworthy, to gain access to the children’s social media accounts, “he explained.
Besides sexual offences Segolodi expressed concern at what he called “a disheartening rise in the number of violent crimes including murder. Also worrying he said is neglect as a cruel punishment of children.
Despite all the online abuse as well as violent crimes, Segolodi said most of the cases often go unreported, especially defilement. “Often these are reported much later when the child is already pregnant, and they are referred by the health authorities or schools. This limits interventions available to the child as in many of these cases pregnancies would have progressed quite significantly.”
Other factors leading to families staying silent have been found to include fear of retaliation by the offender, especially when they are the caregiver, pressure from family members, in some cases related to family image as well as ignorance of the law.
To combat this crisis, eight Child Friendly Police Centres have since been established with the one opened in December 2020 at Broadhurst Police station in Gaborone, recording 317 reports in its first year of operation. Of those reports 137 were officially registered cases which included defilement, rape and child neglect.
The second centre was opened in 2021 in Francistown, followed by Shakawe, Letlhakane, Palapye, Lobatse, Gantsi and lastly Maun.
The First Lady, a lawyer by profession, commended the police for their efforts but expressed deep concern over the abuse of children by those closest to them. “It’s unfortunate that children who come here are mostly abused, it is even more unfortunate that the abusers are people very close to these children. So, we live in a society where our children are not safe.”
She urged communities to prioritise child safety at home, at schools and everywhere else.
With the introduction of virtual courts Boko said that Children must never go to court or seen going to police stations or any place that scares or intimidates them. “Generally, Police stations are very uncomfortable places to tell the truth.”
Maun Police Station Commander, Joseph Lepodise, in a separate interview indicated that last year alone, his station recorded 29 rape cases, 83 defilement, defilement of mentally disabled persons 2, child neglect 69, cruel punishment of children 20, Assault accessioning actual bodily harm 2, abduction of a child 1, indecent assault 7 and common nuisance 1.
He said most defilement cases involve stepfathers, uncles, tenants, cousins, or mothers’ boyfriends. “These are cases of concern in Maun, they are so many. We have engaged and sensitised communities on these matters through kgotla meetings, but we still record such cases and mostly it is after pregnancies that they are reported,” he lamented.
