Associate Justice Outlines Importance Of Females In AFL

Senior Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of Liberia, Cllr. Jamesetta Howard Wolokollie, says recruiting more women into the national army allows a mixed gender Force that will keep the military strong and reduce the perceptions that the army is violent.
Addressing the 63rd symposium as part of the celebrations marking the Armed Forces Day yesterday at the Monrovia City Hall, Justice Wolokollie said there is a perception that violence is often perpetrated by armed men against vulnerable groups.
The keynote speaker reminded her audience that in cultures where women are confined to limited roles and have been made to accept that they are passive backbencher, the active roles played by women peacekeepers have helped to change the local culture’s perception about women and the potentials they have to impact society.
She said since women and children are the most vulnerable groups of the country’s society, when women are recruited in the army, they can better relate, empathize with women and children in crisis and serve as protectors of these same groups.
“A female recruit many not necessarily serve in combat, but with modern technology, technical expertise and decision making are increasingly more valuable than simple brute strength therefore women can be recruited to serve as administrators, technicians, doctors, nurses, cooks and even engineers in the Armed Forces,” she recommended.
Cllr. Wolokollie said a blanket restriction for women limits the ability of commanders in theater to pick the most capable person for the job and stated that it is possible to calibrate and or adjust recruitment and training standards to suit women.
The Associate Justice who stated that that army is usually equated to being ‘MACHO’ manly, masculine, abrasive, ruff, coarse, fearless, bold and men think, advanced that training be a requisite to facilitate the integration of women into combat units and that extra pre-training for muscle building can be used to reduce female injury risk.
She said that since together women can impact the communities by serving along with men, participating in peace keeping missions it is important to involve them in community services as women possess better interpersonal skills than men because of their nature; they can also gain greater access to communities, allowing the force to gather more detailed information about security threats.
However, she emphasized that the army must seek to recruit professional and competent female personnel to serve within its ranks and files and to work to further educate those recruited to develop and enhance their potentials so as to get their desire output for effective performance in the army.
She said to attract more females in the national army, the AFL must be portrayed as a place where a female can further her career and develop herself as well as be sure that she gets paid well like it is in other organizations.
Outlining some rewards to having a wider personnel base in the AFL, the Associate Justice said, “Allowing women to serve in the ALF doubles the pool for delicate and sensitive jobs that require interpersonal skills not every male soldier has and also allows the military to have the best and most professional soldiers to end conflict quickly,” C. Winnie Saywah-Jimmy reports