Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
The United Nations (UN) Women Deputy Country Representative to Nigeria, Mr. Lansana Wonneh, has called for more women participation in peace building and conflict resolution.
Wonneh, who stated this during the official launch of Women, Peace and Security Programme in Benue State stressed that women will play a greater role if they are allowed to participate in peace building and conflict resolution.
At the event launch which also coincided with the celebration of this year International Women’s Day, Wonneh lamented that women were usually affected in situations of conflict.
He expressed worry that 99 percent of women are marginalised and not given the opportunity to participate in peace and security issues.
Wonneh said gender equality was a human rights issues and needed to be handled and treated with all seriousness, hence the need to get women who are mostly at the receiving end actively involved in peace building process.
Programme Specialist, UN Women, Mr. Peter Mancha, said the objective of the programme in Nigeria and in Benue State was to ensure that women participate effectively in peace and security process, peace negotiations,
conflict prevention and resolution as well as improve public perception of the role of women in peace and security.
Mancha noted that the programme was sponsored by the Norwegian Government and designed to end within two years (2019-2020), and would involve key stakeholders in realising it’s aims and objectives.
“The programme approach would also be to support government issues of insecurity with active involvement of women, reforming security and judiciary to have active gender policies.
“It will also look at capacity building and strengthening of institutions as well as make use of media sensitisation,” he added.
Earlier, various stakeholders including Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN in Benue, FIDA, BENGONET, Police, among others commended the UN Women for the programme saying it will help in promoting women participation in peace and security.