Prosecutor General (PG), Martha Imalwa said there is a need for the police, the judiciary, prosecution and the ministry of gender to work closely to serve better the community at large.
Imalwa, who made the remarks in an interview with Nampa at Keetmanshoop on Friday after a stakeholders meeting said: “We all have different mandates but what we need is an umbrella where all these stakeholders come together, work together, speak one language and solve the problems faced by the community as a group and not individually.”
Speaking during the meeting Local Authority Councillor, Elvin Skakana questioned whether the prosecution is happy with the current manner in which investigations into cases are conducted, arguing that most of the time police officers and complainants do not understand one another because of the language barrier.
“The first statement taken from the complainant or victim is very important in a case, in order for the justice to be fair,” he said.
Imalwa to this said something needs to be done as the prosecution is losing cases because some witnesses or victims cannot express themselves in English.
“Most of the time when complainants come to court they will say that is not what they said because of the miscommunication between them and the police due to language barrier. As stakeholders we can come up with a plan that will work, perhaps have first statements written in local language and then translated into English,” she suggested.
A community member, Innocent Mathys urged the government to come up with safe houses for gender-based violence victims at Keetmanshoop and develop programmes that could help juveniles not to recommit crimes.
“We are faced with the issue of lack of social workers in this region, there is really a need to employ more social workers. Gender-based violence victims have nowhere to be put and besides juveniles doing community work there is a need for them to be put into rehabilitation programmes that will help them not to recommit offences,” he stressed.
The meeting was aimed to introduce the prosecution team to the community and sensitise them to the services offered by the office.
Source: Namibia Press Agency
