New gender policies, such as the 1995 Policy on Women in Development, are yet to be implemented. The country's code of conduct for teachers, produced in 1974 and never reviewed, is silent on the matter of sexual harassment or consensual sexual relations. Under Botswana's centralised education system, reporting a case of sexual harassment would mean travelling up to hundreds of kilometers to the nearest regional education office. The matter, if followed up, would then be reported to the Teacher Service Management in the capital Gaborone. For schools in the North-West district this would mean a journey of at least 1,000 kms.
Students generally believe it is more risky to report a teacher, than if they stay quiet.
According to Rossetti, sexual harassment in schools is ''essentially an unreported crime''. Head teachers are nervous about allowing outsiders into their schools, fearing they will become targets of ''witch hunts''. Until now there has been virtually no research on the topic and the authorities, both local and central, have reacted defensively to reports in the press. Many students see harassment as an inevitable part of school life and many teachers have come to believe it is behaviour they can get away with. In some cases guilty teachers are simply warned not to do it again, others are transferred to another school where the practice continues.