Bleak treatment: Botswana’s first people not only experience negative stereotyping, humiliation and discrimination, but their customary land rights are not acknowledged or protected. Photo: Kimmer Conner
More than five decades after Botswana gained independence, the country’s San, who are the first inhabitants of the region, continue to experience some of the worst forms of discrimination and marginalisation, said the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people.
Albert Barume raised these concerns during a press briefing in Gaborone last week after concluding a 12-day mission across Botswana from 1 to 12 September.
“During my visit, I encountered numerous personal accounts from indigenous people describing a reality shaped by marginalisation and discrimination,” Barume said. “They carry a heavy burden of societal judgment that seeps into every facet of life. Many told me how they feel invisible or voiceless in their own homeland.”
Barume’s fact-finding mission, which included meeting community leaders, government officials and civil society groups, painted a bleak picture of the San’s lived realities in modern Botswana. Children, he said, endure humiliation at schools, often mocked for their accents, clothing and especially for speaking their languages.
“The schoolyard, ideally a space of growth and acceptance, becomes instead a stage for ridicule. The weight of this humiliation leads to a profound sense of shame,” he observed.
San leaders echoed his concerns. One elder said: “I just ask the government to restore our dignity. Ninety percent of us cannot provide ourselves with food. Others disrespect us because of that.”
A key theme of Barume’s findings was the absence of legal and constitutional recognition of the San as indigenous people, which has left them without equal protections under the law. In a preliminary report by Barume presented during the press briefing, several senior government officials privately admitted to the UN envoy that this gap remains a significant obstacle.
Particular concern was expressed over the 2005 Constitutional Amendment that removed section 14(3)(c) of the Constitution, which had previously granted protections to the San.
“This demonstrates a commendable degree of honest self-assessment by state officials,” Barume noted, but he stressed that recognition of indigenous people must now become a policy priority.
“Indigenous people in Botswana told me that their top priority is constitutional recognition and related legal reform,” Barume said.
They lamented that the Constitution, the Ntlo ya Dikgosi (House of Chiefs) reforms, and the Tribal Land Act continue to exclude them. They argued that despite having unique cultures, traditional knowledge and languages that could enrich Botswana’s development and international image, they are still widely dismissed as incapable.
Perhaps the deepest grievances expressed to Barume concerned land rights. The San remain the only people in Botswana whose customary land rights have not been acknowledged, respected or protected.
“It is as if we don’t belong to this country, yet we are told we were the first inhabitants,” said one San representative.
Barume found that land issues fall into two main categories. First, many San were forcibly relocated from ancestral lands into government settlements where they feel culturally uprooted. In these settlements, people depend on government food baskets and are stripped of opportunities for self-reliance.
“Relocation destroys us, kills our sense of community, undermines our culture,” one San leader was quoted as saying in the preliminary report. “We are brought to unfamiliar places where we feel disconnected, hopeless and lost.”
The second issue concerns San who live on privately owned land, including farms and churches. These families effectively live as squatters, with no rights or guarantees.
“Here on this land belonging to the church we own nothing,” one San member was quoted as saying.
Public services are often inaccessible in such areas, and residents risk eviction when they can no longer provide labour.
Barume urged the government to reconsider the settlement policy, to allow San to return to their customary lands or be allocated land of equal value and legal status, in line with international standards such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
He also recommended accelerating plans to acquire land from private owners for redistribution to the San.
Barume stressed that the people commonly referred to as “Basarwa” reject that label, which they regard as derogatory. Instead, they prefer to be identified simply as “indigenous people” or by their ancestral names.
“They informed me that they do not wish to be referred to as ‘Basarwa’,” Barume reported. “They feel that the word is a label of shame, reinforcing their marginalisation.”
He said restoring dignity involves more than legal reforms. It requires public education to eliminate prejudices, dismantle negative stereotypes and promote respect for indigenous identity.
“I encourage the government to educate the public on the contemporary human rights concept of indigenous people,” he said.
One San leader also told the UN envoy that: “Restore the dignity of the San by empowering them to be self-sufficient, rather than leaving us as one of the few communities primarily reliant on government assistance.”
Oarabile Mosikare’s work has appeared in Mmegi, the Mail & Guardian, City Press and CNN.
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