232NEWS, FREETOWN —

With support from the United Nations Peace Building Funds and in partnership with Women`s Forum Sierra Leone, UNDP, UNWomen and World Vision, the Mano River Women Peace Network (MARWOPNET)-Sierra Leone has ended a training for the security and justice sectors to provide protection and access to justice for female aspirants, candidates and voters (both women and girls) in Pujehun, Kono, Karene, Bombali, Western Rural and Western Urban.

The training took place on 12^th July 2023 at the Civil Service Training College, Tower Hill in Freetown.

Sixty (60) participants representing the security sectors, CSOs, Peace Ambassadors and women political leaders, paralegals received the training on accessing gender and electoral justice and relevant referral pathways.

The objectives of the training were to respond to the challenges to women’s access to justice, gender equality and women’s empowerment alongside the gaps and lessons learned from strategies, approaches and interventions aimed at addressing them.

The training engaged the security and justice sectors to provide protection and access to justice for female candidates, community women and access to referral pathways in the six districts.

The training/meeting has a broad range of direct and indirect beneficiaries including justice sector actors (Governmental and non-governmental), law and policy makers as well as non-state actors, such as community leaders, academia, civil society organizations, women’s groups and women and girls themselves.

Recommendations for policy and practice reforms aimed at improved access to electoral justice for female aspirants, candidates and voters developed for presentation to Election Management Bodies (EMBs).

Action plan for the protection of female aspirants, voters and the elected representatives during and after elections was also developed.

Participants were identified in each district where the project operates. The Women District Coordinators and partners facilitated the process while facilitators expedited the process.

Experience sharing on lessons learnt, group work, presentations were the key methodologies during the session backed up with case studies from actors while questions and answers in plenary formed part of the methodologies.

A growing number of international policy and legal instruments, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, UN Security Council Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security and their related processes, have emphasized that access to justice for women and girls is not only a right in itself, but also an essential factor in the enjoyment of other rights, and a factor in sustaining peace and sustainable development. 

Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development highlights the importance of women’s access to justice to achieve Goal 5 (gender equality and women’s empowerment) and Goal 16 (peace, justice and the rule of law). However, ensuring the realization of women’s access to justice is challenging. A rapid review of challenges to women’s access to justice shows three priority areas of concern: Discriminatory legal and policy frameworks, Limited Justice Sector Capacities to Deliver Justice for Women and Exclusion and Disempowerment of Women.

The numerical strength and social importance of women, notwithstanding, their status is low and is steeped in deep structural discrimination by socialization, custom and traditional or customary law. In traditional Sierra Leonean society where customary law coupled with traditional laws are widely practiced, the wife is at the mercy of the male household head for practically all decisions pertaining to welfare of the home and entire family.

In order to address the imbalance and restore gender justice system which will liberate the suffering women, there exist every need to orientate especially the security and justice sector field staff of the local councils, civil society organizations among others, the need to know the gender laws of Sierra Leone, political rights and how to get redress, the UDHR and other protocols and agreements that talk of social and gender justice as violation of human rights that need to stop.

Sierra Leone is a deeply gendered society, where socio-cultural norms govern attitudes, behaviors practices and expectations results in gender inequality coupled with staunchly held restrictive gender norms manifest itself in high levels of gender-based violence (GBV) which due to the weakened socio structures in Sierra Leone leave victims vulnerable and unable them to seek redress.

The socio-cultural norm of gender inequality means that gender-based violence particularly affects women and girls denying them opportunity to participate in the rebuilding of the country and leave them with lower status than men and boys fully and equally. Simultaneously, men and boys are not only potential perpetrators of GBV but are subjected to and restricted by the same socio-cultural gender norms. 

Many women and girls are usually caught in political and social crossfire and their rights trampled on just because they are women widely conceived though wrongly, as second-class citizens whose rights are decided by social clan and dictates of society based on what tradition and culture of the land ascribes. Most women do not have knowledge on existing laws and referral pathway to access justice.

To address the imbalance and restore gender justice system which will liberate the suffering women, there exist every need to orientate especially women leaders, engage security and justice actors’ civil society organizations among others, the need to know the gender laws of Sierra Leone, the UDHR and other protocols and agreements that talk of social and gender justice as violation of human rights that need to stop. Women have equal rights to participate in political and public life (governance).

As challenges to women’s access to justice are multi-dimensional, addressing them requires multidimensional, comprehensive, and coordinated efforts to arrive at lessons and solutions. In other words, an evidence-base is necessary to inform policy and program development in rule of law, access to justices and sustainable development at global and local levels.

Unfortunately, the existing evidence base is limited and does not respond fully to the challenges faced.

The goal of the training was to engage the security and justice sectors to provide protection and access to justice for female aspirants, candidates, and voters (both women and girls).

The outcomes of the training were to increase women and girls’ capacities to understand and claim their rights, improved national security and justice sectors actors’ capacities to deliver electoral justice to women and girls, enhanced knowledge for informed policy and decision-making on women’s access to justice as well as enhanced linkages between the justice and security sectors actors and the women’s civil society organizations and groups around gender justice service delivery on fundamental human, electoral and constitutional rights. Women’s Rights must be respected.