A/HRC/40/64 Rights of the Child. He referred to the need for steps to address this lack of clarity in his first speech to the General Assembly in October 2017. A. Country visits 9. In pursuance of his mandate to promote the implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities and to identify best practices in every region, the Special Rapporteur looks forward to continuing a dialogue with Cameroon, India, Jordan, Kenya, Nepal, South Africa, South Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu, to whom he has made requests to visit. 10. The Special Rapporteur wishes to thank the States that accepted visits by previous mandate holders for their good offices and cooperation, and encourages other States, including those to which requests for visits have been made, to engage positively with the mandate. Country visits have helped in addressing fundamental issues pertaining to minorities and in creating effective communication channels to bring together the means to improve technical cooperation and respond to the need to capitalize on existing and evolving positive practices. In addition to country visits, the Special Rapporteur will ensure continuous and consistent exchanges with Member States on all matters relevant to the mandate. 11. In all of his missions, the Special Rapporteur focuses on the importance of addressing discrimination, exclusion and other violations of human rights involving particularly vulnerable minorities, such as Roma, of doubly or triply marginalized minority women, and issues pertaining to deaf and hearing-impaired persons who, as users of sign language, are members of linguistic minorities. During his country visits, the Special Rapporteur emphasizes the need to have consultations with members of those marginalized groups and communities. 12. The Special Rapporteur undertook an official mission to Slovenia from 5 to 13 April 2018 (A/HRC/40/64/Add.1). He also conducted a mission to Botswana from 12 to 24 August 2018 (A/HRC/40/64/Add.2). 13. Despite being sometimes viewed as largely mono-ethnic, Botswana is diverse in ethnic and linguistic terms, though perhaps less so in relation to the religious make-up and compared with some of its neighbours. Ethnolinguistic communities, for example, can be divided into five broad groups: Tswana, Basarwa, Bakgalagadi, Wayeyi and Hambukushu. Officially, some 28 languages are acknowledged in the country, while the Tswana are comprised of eight subgroups or tribes – Bakgatla, Bakwena, Balete, Bangwaketse, Bangwato, Barolong, Batawana and Batlokwa – which use mutually intelligible language varieties collectively known as Setswana. Together they may constitute a demographic majority, though this is sometimes contested. Some stress the perceived unreliability of the disaggregated data in the last population census in 2011, which asked for language spoken by all family members at home, rather than an individual’s mother tongue, in the determination of ethnicity or language identification. The figures in this last census indicated 77.3 per cent of the population spoke Setswana at home, 7.4 per cent used Kalanga, 3.4 per cent Kgalagadi, 2 per cent Shona, 1.7 per cent Tshwa, 1.6 per cent Mbukushu and 1 per cent Ndebele. Members of the deaf community who use sign language are present in Botswana and are considered to be members of a linguistic minority for the purposes of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur. There is, however, an absence of recent disaggregated data on the situation of minorities and on matters such as ethnicity, religion or language. 14. The Basarwa, also known as the San, appear to be among the countries most marginalized minorities. They include several groups and are, conservatively, estimated to number some 60,000 people, and are usually considered to be the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa. Botswana voted in favour of adopting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 4