Lesego Chombo: Miss World Africa beauty queen and Botswana's youngest cabinet minister
As she prepared for last year's Miss World pageant, she said: "I really put myself in the zone of service. I really channelled it for this big crown."Now in political office, she is aware of the expectations placed on her in a country where approximately 60% of the population is below 35 years.It also has a high level of unemployment - 28%, which is even higher for young people and women who have limited economic opportunities and battle systemic corruption.Chombo said this was something she was determined to change: "Currently in Botswana, the rates of unemployment are so high."But it's not just the rate of unemployment, it's also just the sphere of youth development."It's lacking, and so my desire is to create an ecosystem, an environment, a society, an economy in which youth can thrive."Chombo said her plan was to develop a comprehensive system that nurtured youth-led initiatives, strengthened entrepreneurship and ensured young people had a seat at the table when decisions were being made.With Botswana's anti-corruption policy undergoing a rigorous review, she said this would ensure that quotas for young entrepreneurs - when state departments and agencies put out tenders for goods and services - were actually reached.The government has begun a 10-month forensic audit of government spending that will include 30 state-owned enterprises.Indeed President Boko is intent on cracking down on corruption, seeing this as a way to bolter investor confidence and diversify the economy - something his deputy has been seeking to do on recent trips to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Switzerland.And a key deal has now been secured with UAE-based CCI Global, a provider of business process outsourcing, to open a hub in Botswana.
While youth development is a central pillar of her work, gender equity also remains close to her heart.Her short time in office has coincided with a growing outcry over gender-based violence.According to a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report, over 67% of women in Botswana have experienced abuse, more than double the global average."It hurts to know that it could be me next," she admitted.A month into her appointment, she was criticised for voting against an opposition motion in parliament to create "peace desks" at police stations and magistrate courts to quickly deal with victims.At the time she said such provisions already existed within the law and what was needed was more public awareness.This was followed in January by a police report noting that at least 100 women had been raped and another 10 murdered during the festive season - this caused public outrage with many lashing out at her on social media over the issue.The minister reiterated - on several occasions, including before parliament in March - that Botswana had many laws and strategies in place and what was important was to ensure these they were actually applied.But she told the BBC the government would be pushing for the implementation of a Gender-Based Violence Act, aimed at closing legal loopholes that have long hindered justice for survivors.She said she was also advocating a more holistic approach, involving the ministries of health, education and local government."We want curriculums that promote gender equity from a young age," Chombo said."We want to teach children what gender-based violence is and how to prevent it."It will boil down to inclusion of teaching gender equity at home, how parents behave around their children, how they model good behaviour."
She has also been vocal about the need to address issues affecting men, particularly around mental health and positive masculinity, encouraging chiefs "to ensure that our patriarchal culture is not actively perpetuating gender violence"."I hear a lot of people say: 'Why do you speak of women more than men?'"It's because as it stands in society, women are mostly prejudiced [against]."But when we speak of gender equality, we're saying that it should be applied equally for everyone. But what we strive for is gender equity."Chombo, who studied law at the University of Botswana, said she was thankful to her mother and other strong women for inspiring her - saying that women had to work "10 times harder" to succeed."[My mother] has managed to create an environment for me to thrive. And growing up, I got to realise that it's not an easy thing."As women, we face so many pressures: 'A woman cannot do this. A woman can't do that. A woman can't be young and in leadership.' I'm currently facing that."She also credited Julia Morley, the CEO of Miss World, for helping her: "She has managed to create a legacy of what we call beauty with a purpose for so many young girls across the world."She has just inspired us so deeply to take up social responsibility."Chombo is serious about this. The beauty queen-cum-lawyer-cum-minister knows she has made history - but is also aware that her real work has only just begun."Impact. Tangible impact. That's what success would look like to me," she said."I want to look back and see that it is there and it is sustainable. That when I leave, someone else is able to carry it through."Additional reporting from Innocent Selatlhwa in Gaborone
You may also be interested in:
'Without sport I'd probably be a criminal' - Olympic champion TebogoBotswana's politician who did the unthinkableWhy voters fall out of love with liberation movements
Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
11 hours ago
- Reuters
Rwanda, Congo agree on outline for economic framework as part of peace deal
WASHINGTON/PARIS, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday agreed on an outline for the regional economic integration framework, according to the U.S. State Department, as the two countries take steps toward delivering on a peace deal signed in Washington last month. The tenets agreed on Friday summarize the framework, which includes elements of cooperation on energy, infrastructure, mineral supply chains, national parks and public health, the State Department said in a statement. Rwanda and Congo signed a peace deal in Washington in June at talks held by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, which aims to bring an end to fighting that has killed thousands and attract billions of dollars of Western investment to a region rich in tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper, lithium and other minerals. As part of the deal, Kinshasa and Kigali agreed to launch a regional economic integration framework within 90 days, the agreement said. A source familiar with the matter said a preliminary draft of the framework has been agreed to and there would now be an input period to get reaction from the private sector and civil society before it is finalized. The framework is planned to be signed at a meeting of heads of state at the White House. No date has been set yet for that meeting, the source said. In the Friday statement, Rwanda and Congo affirmed that each country has "full, sovereign control" over the exploitation, processing and export of its natural resources and recognized the importance of developing mineral processing and transformation capacity within each country, according to a copy seen by Reuters. Kinshasa views the plundering of its mineral wealth as a key driver of the conflict between its forces and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in eastern Congo. Reuters reported in May that Congolese minerals such as tungsten, tantalum and tin, which Kinshasa has long accused neighbouring Rwanda of illegally exploiting, could be exported legitimately to Rwanda for processing under the terms of the deal being negotiated by the U.S., according to sources. The two countries are committed to ensuring that the minerals trade no longer provides funding to armed groups and to create a world-class industrial mining sector in the region, as well as to ensure better cross-border interoperability on mineral supply chains, according to the statement. They also agreed to connect new infrastructure to the U.S.-backed Lobito Corridor, underscoring Washington's aim of greater access to resources in the region and efforts to counter China. The Ruzizi III hydropower project and Lake Kivu methane exploitation were the only specific projects mentioned in the statement, despite U.S. emphasis on critical minerals. The countries said they intended to prioritize financing for Ruzizi and work together to exploit the methane gas sustainably. Friday's announcement comes after the two countries held the first meeting of a joint oversight committee on Thursday in a step toward implementing the Washington peace deal even as other commitments are yet to be fulfilled. In the Washington agreement, the two African countries pledged to implement a 2024 deal that would see Rwandan troops withdraw from eastern Congo within 90 days. Congolese military operations targeting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Congo-based armed group that includes remnants of Rwanda's former army and militias that carried out a 1994 genocide, are meant to conclude over the same timeframe. The deal also said Congo and Rwanda would form a joint security coordination mechanism within 30 days and implement a plan agreed last year to monitor and verify the withdrawal of Rwandan soldiers within three months. But 30 days from the signing has passed without a meeting of the joint security coordination mechanism. The source familiar with the matter said the joint security coordination mechanism meeting would be held on August 7 in Addis Ababa. Congo is also involved in direct talks with M23 hosted by Qatar, and last month the two sides pledged to sign a separate peace agreement by August 18, though many outstanding details need to be negotiated.
The Guardian
13 hours ago
- The Guardian
Why the US is burning $10m worth of birth control
There are few better metaphors for the receding status of American women than one offered up by the Trump administration at a medical waste disposal facility outside Paris this week: rather than distribute nearly $10m worth of birth control, which had been purchased by USAID and was destined to be given to women in low-income countries, primarily in Africa, the Americans decided to burn it. The incinerated contraceptives included 900,000 birth control implants, 2m doses of injectable long-acting birth control, 2m packs of contraceptive pills and 50,000 IUDs. The medicine is just the latest in the far-reaching fallout from cuts made by the so-called 'department of government efficiency,' or Doge, a project in which Elon Musk and a group of his very young, overwhelmingly male acolytes unilaterally slashed congressionally appropriated funding to government programs they did not like. The cuts have been devastating for non-profits that work to improve women's health and safety worldwide. Sarah Shaw, an associate director at the global family planning group MSI Reproductive Choices, says that the cuts will put women at risk as they strain their health with unplanned pregnancies and seek out illegal abortions; other women who are denied access to birth control will lose out on the opportunities for education, professional development or remunerative work that can help them escape abuse, rise out of poverty, pursue their talents and ambitions and better provide for the children they already have. When MSI attempted to buy the contraceptives, the administration would only accept full price, which the organization couldn't afford, she said. Several non-profits, including MSI, had offered to pay to ship and repackage the supplies, according to another representative. But the Trump administration refused, partially due to federal rules the prohibit the US from providing such goods to groups that perform, provide referrals for or offer education about abortions. In addition to the cost of purchasing the contraceptives, American taxpayers will now be on the hook for about $167,000 for the cost of burning them. It's just the latest in a series of signs that the Trump administration is turning against the provision of birth control, particularly the safe, effective and woman-controlled hormonal methods that have been a cornerstone of healthcare policy for decades and which were a precondition of women's advancement in work and education over the past 60 years. In April, the Trump administration abruptly announced that it was suspending a large swath of the domestic service grants distributed under Title X, the program meant to help low-income Americans access birth control, STD treatment and other sexual and reproductive healthcare. Of the 86 Title X grants awarded for fiscal year 2024, nearly 25% were 'temporarily withheld', mostly based on highly suspect allegations that the grant-receiving institutions – including 13 Planned Parenthood affiliates – had failed to comply with Trump executive orders banning things like DEI programs. Eight states now receive zero Title X dollars: California, Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee and Utah. Alaska, Minnesota and Pennsylvania have also lost most of their contraception funding. The domestic cuts – along with the exclusion of Planned Parenthood clinics from Medicaid reimbursements – mean that American women, too, are now facing dramatically greater obstacles to accessing birth control. Clinics that relied on Title X funding are now set to close: 11 Planned Parenthood clinics already have, including in Democratically controlled states like California. Planned Parenthood says that cumulatively, the cuts could lead the organization to close about 200 of its 600 clinics nationwide – a devastating cut to abortion providers in particular that will make a wide range of reproductive services inaccessible to women regardless of where they live. But the Trump administration is not merely forcing these programs for women's health and dignity go up in flames. They are redirecting them to better suit their preferred cultural outcome: one in which women's lives, ambitions and talents are all subordinated to the task of childbearing. The New York Times reported last month that the White House is redirecting Title X funds that once went to birth control to instead fund an 'infertility training center' and programs in something called 'restorative reproductive medicine'. If Title X's original aim was to help American women control their fertility so as to build healthier families and to enable them to pursue other aims – like learning or work – in the new administration's version, the program exists mainly to encourage women to have more children. But the switch should not be seen as a genuine investment in infertility, an often devastating condition with which many Americans struggle. Because the new Title X priorities do not, by and large, direct more money to IVF. Trump promised, on the campaign trail, to make IVF free. But the procedure, which has opponents on the Christian right, is not included in the administration's new priority of 'restorative' reproductive medicine, a practice that avoids controversial fertility treatments; instead, doctors seek the 'root cause' of a woman's infertility, which may involve telling them they can conceive with proper diet and exercise. In government, money allocation is a statement of values. With its dramatic cuts to contraceptive funding at home and abroad, the Trump administration is making its values clear. It does not value women's health; it does not value their dignity, their control over their own lives, their aspirations, their earning potential, their desire to be freed from ignorance, or poverty, or the abuse they suffer under the hands of husbands and fathers. It does not value their ability to control their own bodies, and by extension, it does not value their ability to enter the public sphere. It does not value their dreams, their gifts, their hard work or invention or aspiration to anything other than making babies. American women, like women everywhere, depend on birth control to live lives of freedom and to pursue their dreams. But because of the Trump administration, those dreams are going up in smoke. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
The Independent
14 hours ago
- The Independent
Lawyer says he's not been allowed to see 5 immigrants deported by the US to a prison in Eswatini
Five immigrants deported by the United States to Eswatini in a secret deal last month had served their criminal sentences before they were sent to be held in a prison in the African country, a lawyer working on their cases said Friday. The Eswatini lawyer also said the men from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Vietnam sent to southern Africa under President Donald Trump 's third-country deportation program have been denied access to legal representation while being held in Eswatini's main maximum-security prison. The lawyer, Sibusiso Nhlabatsi, said he hasn't been allowed to see the men and that he filed court papers Thursday against the head of Eswatini's correctional services department and the country's attorney general, demanding access to them. He said he is representing them on behalf of lawyers in the U.S. and was prevented from seeing them by Eswatini prison officials on July 25. It's unlawful for the men, who have been in Eswatini for around two weeks, to be denied access to a lawyer, he added. The Eswatini government has said the men will be held in solitary confinement until they can be deported to their home countries, which could take up to a year. 'They have served their sentences,' Nhlabatsi told The Associated Press. 'If a person has committed a crime and they have served a sentence, why are you then keeping them in a prison?' Nhlabatsi said the men have not been able to communicate with their families or receive visitors since arriving in Eswatini, although prison officials said they were in the process of setting up devices to allow them to speak with their families. He alleged their ongoing detention could have legal implications for Eswatini, a small country bordering South Africa and one of the world's last absolute monarchies, ruled by a king accused of cracking down on dissent. The Trump administration has come under scrutiny for its choice of African countries to strike deportation deals with. It deported eight immigrants described as violent criminals to South Sudan in early July in an operation that was halted by a legal challenge in the U.S. The eight were held for weeks in a converted shipping container at an American military base in nearby Djibouti while the case was decided. A Supreme Court ruling eventually cleared the way for them to be sent to South Sudan. Both South Sudan, which is in danger of tipping into civil war, and Eswatini have poor rights records and governments accused of being repressive. Critics say the deportees, who the administration says were in the U.S. illegally, will likely be denied due process in those countries. The five sent to Eswatini were also described by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as serious criminals. Their convictions included murder and child rape, the department said in social media posts, calling them 'uniquely barbaric." The department, which did not say if they had completed their sentences, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. An Eswatini government spokesman also declined to comment on Nhlabatsi's allegations, saying it was now a matter for the courts. Nhlabatsi said the deportees are being held at the Matsapha Correctional Complex near the administrative capital, Mbabane, the same prison said to hold pro-democracy activists on trumped up charges. The government has declined to say where the five men are being held, citing security concerns. Eswatini's statement about the five men ultimately being deported to their home countries appears to contradict claims by the U.S. that their home countries refused to take the men back. Activists in Eswatini have demanded that the details of the agreement with the U.S. be made public but the government has said they are 'classified.' South Sudan has also declined to give details of its agreement to take deportees from the U.S. ___
