By Tokpa Tarnue, tarnue82@gmail.com
VOINJAMA, Liberia- As part of efforts to curtail Sexual and Gender Bases Violence (SGBV) Liberia, a week-long capacity building training for both judicial and non-judicial actors has ended her in the northwestern Lofa County.
The week-long SGBV training, which began on Monday, June 13, 2022, has been organized by the James A. A. Pierre Judicial Institute in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme the (UNDP).
Speaking at the start of the week-long SGBV training, Cllr. Nelson B. Chineh, Training Coordinator at the James A. A. Pierre Judicial Institute disclosed that the week-long activities seeks to sharpen the skills of the participants in their individual roles in dealing with SGBV cases.
He said the over fifty participants at the week-long training include judges and magistrates from across the county, health workers, and security apparatus among others.
The week-long training he said is focused on basic concepts of sexual, gender based violence and definitions, types of sexual gender based violence, methods of prevention of sexual gender based violence and responding to SGBV; other key topics include, gender mainstreaming, the jurisdiction of magistrates in sexual and gender based violence as well as the Act creating criminal court ‘E’.
He further named the jurisdiction of the magistrates in domestic violence cases, overview of the amended rape law, Special nature of in-camera hearing, cases and circumstances of SGBV, guiding principles, in the prevention and response to SGBV and gathering evidence (to include medical evidence).
Participants excited about the training
Participants at the week-long training described the activity as timely and an opportunity for them widen the current networks both as judicial and non-judicial actors as well in the fight to end sexual and gender based violence against women and girls.
Speaking on behalf of participating magistrates, his honor stipendiary magistrate, Gaba Kaba of the Voinjama city magisterial court, underscored the need to include prosecutors in future elections.
According to him, the inclusion of the prosecutors in such training will also help in making them have a better understand of the SGBV pathway.
“Sometimes, we see government losing serious case or cases because of how indictments are drown up; so having the government’s prosecutors in these training will be of great help in the fight” magistrate Kaba noted.
Also speaking un behave of the civil society organizations, Boikai Nymah, head of the UN Spotlight Initiative CSO Sectorial for Lofa County said the week-long training has widen their knowledge on the various steeps in reporting SGBV cases from various communities.
“We as CSOs have had some lapses in our work but with this training, you can rest assure that we will work collectively and collaboratively with all those stakeholders involve in fighting SGBV so that we can all be successful in this,” said Mr. Nymah.
In conclusion, the current assigned judge at the 10th judicial circuit court in Voinjama, his honor Judge Joe S. Barkon, congratulated the participants for their time and courage to have made themselves available for the wee-long exercise despite their personal engagements.
“You are ending this five days training today but my caution to you as participants is to go out there and passed on the skills or knowledge that you gotten to your colleagues so that together, we can get rid of SGBV in our communities,” Judge Barkon emphasized.
James Alexander Adolphus Pierre was the 13th Chief Justice of Liberia, serving from 1971 until his death in 1980.
He had previously served as the Attorney General of Liberia from 1964 to 1971 in the administration of William Tubman.