Pascalinah Kabi
A BEREA chief, ‘Mamohau Kokobo has called on women to join community policing projects to gain self-defence skills as well as plough back into their communities.
Pulane, Berea chief ‘Mamohau Kokobo said women suffered more at the hands of criminals who considered them soft targets because of their physiognomy but this would be a thing of the past if women were empowered.
Chief Kokobo said it was therefore important for women to join the community policing projects to be empowered with self-defence skills, adding, “Since establishing community policing in Pulane, the crime rate in my village has drastically dropped and we are happy with the role each community member has played to this effect”.
She said that unlike in the past when only men and boys were expected to safeguard their villages while women and children slept at night, it was increasingly evident that women had a critical role to play in crime prevention.
She said as a result, women were part of the Pulane community policing project alongside men and the youth.
“I have seen it in my village that empowerment of women can go a long way in crime prevention as they will know what to do when crime takes place and also defend themselves,” she said yesterday in an interview with this publication on the sidelines of an event organised by the Lesotho Mounted Police Service (LMPS) in Pulane, Berea to celebrate good relations between the police and community policing members.
The officer commanding Pulane station, Inspector Khopiso Mothibeli commended the Pulane community for working tirelessly to fight crime in their community.
“Pulane is made up of several villages and today we are celebrating fruitful relations between the police and community members in preventing and fighting crime,” Inspector Mothibeli said in an interview with this publication.
He said they were some criminal cases they would not have solved without the help of the community policing.
“Some of these offenders are serving their sentences while some cases are ongoing in the courts of the law, thanks to community policing members,” he said, adding, prevention was better than reacting to incidents of crime.
“Prevention is way better than fighting acts of crime because we have seen incidences where community members point fingers and end up hurting each other unnecessarily when crime has occurred.”
For his part, Pulane community policing forum chairperson Bulane Souru expressed satisfaction with the progress they had made in preventing crime.
“We sacrificed our sleep and we are now a safe community where our women and children are no longer living in fear of being violated,” Mr Souru said.
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