By Laurina B Lormia
Cub-Reporter
The Women’s Situation Room (WSR) has launched a three-day women’s political mediation and peace dialogue.
The event is to promote peaceful electoral environment and community security, and to inform civil society about the challenges women faced in Liberia during the just ended 2023 Elections.
The day-long program was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Tuesday April 2, to inform citizens about the challenges that female candidates, joint securities, media, and lot more, encountered during the 2023 Elections.
During the program, the women spoke on issues that confronted females during the elections, especially the candidates, securities, and media, how they were overlooked, downplayed, maltreated, and not given equal preference as compared to their male counterparts.
Making remarks at the program, former Foreign Minister and Board Chair, ABIC, Olubanke King-Akerele, said, “We want to see how best we can improve the next election; let us learn and see the implications, especially those women who lost the elections, the problems with the financing and other needs, and even those who won.”
“How can we get more women? The security part is very important; we are always inciting violence in this country, which is very bad, and it is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with. Do not take it lightly; the problems are not finished yet,” Akerele stressed.
She added, “God has blessed us as a nation, and brought us out of the 2023 elections peacefully, but there are too many evil talks, and if we do not take the issues with the security seriously, we will be in trouble.”
“With what is happening in the sub-region, we are in serious trouble. We understand that there are foreigners sitting out there in Grand-Gedeh, and the securities of President Boakai’s Government need to look into that. We have to be aware of the internal and external security,” she said.
The National Coordinator, Liberia Female Law Enforcement Association (LiFLEA), Asatu Bah-Kenneth, stated that women are also important in the security sector, and they should be seen as equal to their male-counterparts. The low level of female officers being selected, lack of assigned vehicles, and poor coordination, are main challenges the security sector is faced with.
“The lesson we learned is that women are not in the security sector. When the UN was here, they advocated for the increase of women in the security sector, and up to last government, we had 3.6 percent of women in decision making; but as we speak today in this new government, it has gone back to zero percent, so women are not taken seriously,” she said.
The Liberia National Police Spokesperson, Moses Carter, Sr., said, “With the help of other joint securities to the LNP, we have been able to succeed and use stability in containing those protests and other elections-related activities across the country; a lot of election observers had a lot to say about the joint security after elections. Liberians were much disciplined; they went to the election with a peaceful mindset that enabled us in containing situations.
