Women in Politics in Solidarity with Women
Friday 1st June 2007

By Theresa J. Kanjia

Sierra Leonean women in politics and Good Governance in the Gambia have sent a solidarity message to Sierra Leonean women living in Sierra Leone and the Diaspora as their presidential election approaches and to other women in Africa in a bid to supporting women empowerment.

Christiana Fattu Kamara, president of Women in Health and Education, an NGO based in The Gambia has raised her voice in good governance in their country in Sierra Leone. She said the equality between women and men were a matter of human rights and a condition for social justice and should not be seen in isolation as women’s issue. She said women were the only way to building a sustainable, just and develop society. “Empowerment of women and equality between men and women are prerequisites for achieving political, social, economic, cultural and environmental security among all peoples”

African women, she said constitute about 55% of the population in Africa. She therefore suggested that women should be involved in peace building, leadership and decision making in all aspects of life. She said Kwame Nkrumah once said that the degree of a people or country’s revolutionary awareness can be measured by the political maturity of its women.

Christiana advised her fellow women to avoid the backward tradition and religious beliefs that hinder their progress. She said women play a significant role towards peace building and in the promotion of good governance, “we are the backbone of our success.” She quoted the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights saying women should have the right to participate in any political life of their countries in all elections. Because women were equal to men in the maintenance of peace and good governance she admonished her fellow women to participate in the promotion of peace in programmes of education for peace and culture.

Christiana Fattu Kamara said the issues affecting women in Sierra Leone were affecting women across Africa particularly concerning health, productivity, capability, education, leadership and decision making opportunities that hinder full and complete empowerment essential for Africa to strive as it could. She wondered how discrimination in government and society at local, national and regional levels could be eradicated.

Equal opportunity cannot not only be a slogan that phislosophises good deeds, it must become part but to be part of Sierra Leone’s objectives. Women she said have largely excluded from public life for various reasons including, cultural and religious beliefs which restrict women from public life, low level of education, poor awareness of their rights to participate in politics and public life activities, religion which sees women as weak, and politics as a game of power that demands only a male participation, while seeing women’s place as the kitchen. They believe women should concentrate on domestic responsibilities like child bearing and rearing, and general home management.

Let us take a look at the local communities, women are the most uneducated, therefore interpretation of legislative laws become a problem. Even when the rights are provided by ACTS they still cannot interpret them to help them push forward their desires from their communities therefore it is important for women to understand policies that are put in place to encourage the t participate in public life activities in their communities in order to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG).

Women in Sierra Leone and Africa need to develop themselves through education, conferences that can be implemented, seminars and work shops that would enhance their leadership abilities and prove them with relevant information about the role of women in governance and decision making. And not to be taken as an opportunity for eating and drinking and demanding for transport allowances.

Christiana Fattu Kamara therefore calls on all peace loving Sierra Leonean women out there to come out and express their rights a women of our beloved country Sierra Leone, not to leave the country in the hands of men, take a good look around you and see other women. 

Christiana F. Kamara urged all Sierra Leonean women to emulate Mama Ellen Johnson Sirlif of Liberia. She said Women in Health and Education in The Gambia will always identify herself in the struggle of the African woman for full equality and emancipation and to free the African woman thus developing their continent. Without land there is no cultivation, so also without women there will be no society. “No nation is free if its women are not free.” Christiana said.