Stakeholders have called for the adoption of practical steps and initiatives, to propel more active roles for women in all aspects of conflict prevention and post-conflict peace-building.
At a day symposium to mark the International Day of Peace, they stated that women are generic and pivotal to sustaining cohesive human activities that promote peace.
According to them, Women’s equal participation in peace processes is an essential precondition for establishing lasting and sustainable peace.
Fostering peace contributes to the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals which aim to bring more peaceful, just and inclusive societies, free from fear and violence.
The Director of Digital Media, Voice of Nigeria, Hajia Sani stated that to achieve peace practical steps and initiatives should be adopted, domesticated and enshrined in our country, to propel more active roles for women in all aspects of conflict prevention and post-conflict peace-building.
She called on the government to “Ensure that our national and state legislations are compatible with the Statute of the International Criminal Court as a matter of priority, with particular attention given to the substantive and procedural provisions regarding crimes against women”.
“Support women’s participation in peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction by strengthening women’s representation in local, state, national and international bodies, for the resolution of conflicts”, she added.
The UN Ambassador of Peace Mrs Adaora Sydney Jack said peace can only be achieved through collaboration.
“Only by working together one for each other, one with each other can we hope to bring about lasting peace but above all when women’s voice has absolute and not the alternative the road to world peace in his entirety be finally be complete”.
Also, the Executive Director, of the International Society of Media in Public Health, Ms Moji Makanjuola noted that there is a need to amplify, record, recognise and reward the voices of women to affirm the impact of their contribution to the peace space.
In her words, “Women’s participation in peacebuilding has been known to produce ground-breaking or epoch work in the scattered landscape of newly dysfunctional societies left by crisis, wars and violence. In those spaces, they have been able to piece societies together by picking pieces to produce some order out of chaos”.
The Symposium for the International Day of Peace has the theme; The Role of Women as Mediators in Peace Building and Reconciliation.
Dominica Nwabufo
