–IRC wants collaboration in ending violence against women
By Mafanta Kromah,mafanta.kromah@gmail.com
Monrovia, Liberia – Faith Cooper, Country Director for International Rescue Committee (IRC) is calling for better coordination, collaboration and more effective communication on the fight against Gender Based Violence in the country.
She said strategic that being use to tangle these issues needs to be changed.
Madam Cooper made the call in Monrovia recently during the celebration of Orange Day in Liberia (September 25, 2019), which is implemented by the United Women and sponsored by Orange Liberia GSM Company.
The United Nations General Assembly in 2014 changed the official theme for the campaign UNiTE to end Violence against Women to Orange your Neighbourhood or Orange Day that is celebrated on 25September of every year by Liberia. Internationally, November 25th is the official day for celebration and it is intended to raising awareness of that fact that women in the world are subject to rape, domestic violence, and other forms of violence Orange day is celebrated.
The IRC Country Director maintained they all need to make sure that the community is at the center of what they are doing, noting the community needs to be at the center of whatever they will be doing, “because they drive the message,” she said.
Madam Cooper also called on the government of Liberia to take ownership of the fight against violence in the society.
She stated that the government through the Ministry of Gender need to do more through collaboration and coordination ensuring that there is a unifying approach and clear strategic as how to protect the children.
There should be a conversation on the steps they have been taking to fight violence, looking at what has worked, what hasn’t work and how do they better coordinate to change the strategic and how do they ensure that they are unify in their approach, voices and collective efforts, the IRC Country Director said.
Also speaking, the Deputy Minister for Gender, Alice Johnson-Howard said violence against women and girls is unspeakable and needs to be condemn in the strongest term from home, school, work places and every other places.
She maintained that many at time it is women abuse stories that is being tell, noted men and boy too are abuse on a daily basic and they are afraid to tell their story because of the reaction from society.
“Our legal frame work must be stronger than ever before or we will not go anywhere, until we can unite our forces and efforts to have it done, we can never get there,” she lamented.
She continued: “I hope we take on a unique approach where all of our competitors are joined together and together we can have a better result.”
Also speaking was the UN Women Deputy Country Representative, Sangeeta Thapa, who maintained that Gender Based Violence is a major threat to the security of women and children throughout the world with Liberia being no exception.
She said the act is triggered by various factors but specific the
root lies in the unequal power relationships in society between men
and women.
“It is now our responsibility to reach out to every part of our society and raise awareness as well as take actions to end all forms of violence against women and girls, not forgetting ending abuse, harassment and rape of girls and young women and even babies,” the UN Women Country Representative stressed.
“I would like to say a big thank you to Brenda Brewer Moore for giving us the opportunity to share her documentary, “Stolen Childhood,’’ an account of her experience with sexual abuse. Brenda’s story is the story of so many young girls around in Liberia and around the world who are still traumatized by childhood sexual abuse. Thank you for turning the spotlight on a problem that continues to plague Liberia. We hope that we leave here today with a renewed commitment to ending sexual violence against women and girls,” she maintained
She encouraged the audience to engage in productive and fruitful discussion in contributing towards ending the scourge and promote a society where each woman and girl can live a life with dignity, respect and without fear.
At the same time, the Ambassador of Sweden Embassy, Ingrid Wettergvist called for the expansion of more gender policies in the country and noted for that to be achieved, the should be equal gender representation in all spaced including the parliament.
She said “Women need equal access to representation and I think we need 50 percent women and men representation in parliament. To talk about women, it’s important to make changes in the society.”
“We don’t want more rapists, survivors need protection and perpetrators need punishment,” she added.