By Abasi Ita, Calabar
A two-day capacity-building workshop designed to equip stakeholders with innovation concepts towards mainstreaming women’s rights, security, and peace in crucial decisions making procedures in a bid to safeguard them during conflict situations has been flagged off in Calabar.
Sponsored by a non governmental organization and not-for-profit organization known as Safer World Foundation, the fora aimed at evolving viable options to guard against violent conflict, and mitigate the Impact of violence especially on the vulnerable.
Safer World Foundation also seeks to build safer communities where human rights and equal access to opportunities are accorded top priority to guard against gender discrimination
In her welcome address, the project manager, Coalition for the Promotion of Gender Justice, an implementing partner to Safer World Foundation, Mrs.Mfreke Asigbe explained that the summit was conceived to afford stakeholders an avenue to explore and adopt effective panacea against deprivations and exploitations suffered by women and girls who are often the worst hit victims in conflicts.
According to her, this forum is a capacity-building initiative meant to promote robust synergy amongst women’s rights organizations with a view of improving strategies needed to achieve common targets”
She listed other cardinal objectives of the programme to include enhancing the capacity of participants to deal decisively with the various dimensions of gender-based violence and its impact on the rights, peace, and security of women through teamwork.
Delivering a paper on Addressing Gender-based Violence: An Advancement of the Women’s Peace and Security Agenda” the lead resource person, Barr Uduak Udofia posited that” a holistic approach to promote the inclusion of women in ensuring peace and security in communities remains a
vital in the curtailing outbreak of violence”
Barr. Udofia said since communal clashes, boundary disputes, insurgencies, wars, and other bloody conflicts affect women disproportionately, their inclusion in the decision-making process and implementations remains essential in fostering peace and preventing incessant crises.
She sued for collective action by critical key players to checkmate harmful cultural and religious barriers amounting to a violation of the fundamental human rights of women and girls.
Participants at the event drawn from implementing partners, religious bodies, traditional institutions, and officials of line ministry lauded the organizers for the exposure noting that the training will arm them with the needed information for ahead in advancing the innovative concepts of women’s organizations in tackling the conflicts and its attendant effects which revolve around prevention, participation, protection, relief and recovery.
The training exercise was organized by Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) in partnership with its implementing partners in Cross River State along with other Women’s Right Organisations and funded by SAFERWORLD.