'invisible, voiceless in their homeland'

Bleak treatment: Botswana‘s first people not only experience negative stereotyping, humiliation and discrimination, but their customary land rights are not acknowledged or protected.

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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.