The Paramount Young Women Initiative was among other women organizations that participated in the two-day 9th Women’s Movement Consultative Conference under theme: ‘Bridging the Gap Fostering Women’s Solidarity, peace building and inclusion.’
The conference was held in Gompa City, Nimba County with Sponsorships from Kvinna Kvinna, RFSU, Forum (CIV), Medica Liberia, Care, Sweden Sverige, UN Women, Action Aid and Plan international.
KVINNA Till KVINNA foundation, a Swedish based International Organization who has collaborated with her partners organizations goal is organize women’s movement Building Conference, Unite women in Liberia with goal to unite women to identify barriers to fostering solidarity amongst women, build a stronger women’s movement and address critical challenges of intersectionality, solidarity and movement building to advance gender equity.
They believe women’s participation in decision making is fundamental to increasing their power and contributing to democratic peaceful progress.
Other partners includes Women NGO Secretariat of Liberia, Humanity Care Liberia, Women Rights Watch, Liberia National Rural women rights structure and Raise Bar amongst several others.
However, United Nations Human Rights office of the High Commissions, Medica Liberia, Sweden Sverige, Plan International, Forum CIV and RFSU are donors for the ongoing program.
The Country Director of KVINNA KVINNA, Aisha Lai, said this year women’s movement building conference will enable the women of Liberia to take collective actions to engage more extensively at local and national levels to create a stronger women’s movement in Liberia that can address challenges faced by women, break down barriers and strategize ways of uniting in sisterhood.
The women’s movement conference also aimed to promote solidarity and advocate for increasing women’s participation movement building, promoting women in leaderships, promoting gender equality while also addressing Gender based violence and other forms of discrimination against women including as well as other issues affecting women in Liberia which together will advance peace peacebuilding processes amongst others.
According to KVINNA KVINNA Country Director, the first consultative meeting United Women in Liberia was held in April 2015 followed by subsequent consultative meetings where women came together to discuss relevant issues affecting women’s movements in Liberia.
Since then, there have been eight consultative meetings held with various themes such as “How to unite women in Liberia”, “Values and principles”, Cultural sensitivity as an Approach/Method to Unite Women in Liberia”, Unity of women’s in Liberia: Roles and Cultural considerations, Integrity linked to the unity of women and integrity, culture and diversity towards strengthening Unity to name a few.
She called on the women of Liberia attending the two-day conference to speak out on what are affecting them because this conference is forum created for them to bring out everything affecting them.
Also speaking at the conference Fenny Louise Taylor who prexy for the Executive Director of Medica Liberia, Yah V. Parwon who said, the ongoing two-day women’s conference was both vital and timely.
Madam Taylor added that the Movement building reminds them that there is power in numbers adding, “As our national anthem states, in union strong, success is sure. We must work together to bring about change in every sphere.”
She further that, Medica Liberia believes that collaborative effort is crucial in advancing and protecting the rights of women and girls in Liberia noting, “Currently, we are analyzing the government’s expenditure on SGBV (Sexual and Gender-Based Violence) cases. Our findings reveal limited funding for essential SGBV services such as safe homes, one-stop centers, and legal support.”
The Medica Liberia senior staff revealed that these services heavily depend on donor funding, making them vulnerable to changes in donor priorities.
She narrated that their policy brief calls on the government to prioritize and take ownership of these services to ensure their sustainability.
This is why this conference is so important to us. We need a collaborative effort to address and change this situation.
This is a problem that affects us all, whether we are survivors of SGBV or not. Violence against one woman is violence against us all.
However, she hope that they take away from this conference the imperative to work together, address issues collectively, and create an inclusive, diverse, and strong women’s movement and must ensure that the needs of women and girls, in every walk of life and location, are addressed and met.
