Many countries across the world have moved along the line of establishing a national human rights commission.
Where they exist such organisations have helped in complimenting government efforts to empower citizens by way of guaranteeing and safeguarding their rights.
Very often, the reason given as not establishing such bodies especially for countries that have moved ahead in establishing their democracies like Botswana is that it would amount to duplication, or that resources are not yet permitting.
In fact resources would of and by itself not be such a big hindrance in the instance of Botswana because the United Nations, through its Human Rights Council plays a big role in assisting member countries that want to establish such organisations like the Human Rights Commission.
What is needed is political will.
There has to be consensus among our leaders that our democracy needs to be taken to another level.
It is disheartening to see countries that arrived much later than ourselves in their achievement of not just independence but also democracy, surpassing in establishing key institutions of governance that empower their citizens through promotion of participation.
Establishing a Human Rights Commission or whatever we would choose to call would send a further message to the world and also our peers that we remain committed to entrenching our gains from our democratic existence.
We suggest those in leadership positions to kick start and spearhead the debate along those lines.
Citizens have to be taken along.
What such a debate should seek to achieve is to steer away from political point scoring.
Rather we should honestly interrogate what as a country and people we stand to gain and or lose if we were to establish such a framework.
We also would need people with training in international relations and law to help us by way of leading the debate through providing comparative analysis and also benchmarking with experiences from countries that have moved along those lines.
It should not end there.
Such a debate should also seek to make it sufficiently clear what additional obligations creating such an institution would place on the country but also on individuals.
In short the costs, not just financial but also political should be made clear.
Like we say the debate should not be polarise along political party lines.
There should be no winners and losers.
It should not be a case of them against us.
In many instances we lose out on many issues that stand to benefit our country because those calling for such changes often adopt a posture of blaming those in power.
This hardens attitudes, contaminates the atmosphere and leads to a feeling among authorities that by buying a proposal they would actually be giving in to demands of an unaccountable pressure group.
Botswana has a disturbing shortage of human rights organisations.
Those that exist are perceived to be discredited either because they are too close to political establishments or they are seen by the public as one agenda organisations.
It is our hope that establishing a Human Rights Commission would lead to strengthening of human rights advocacy groups which will in turn lead to empowerment of marginalized groups like Basarwa, for example.
