NTLA Misleads Women Groups - Gender Minister Expresses Frustrations

December 23, 2004 - (The Analyst - Monrovia) The Minister of Gender and Development, Mrs. Vabah Gayflor, has expressed frustrations over the NTLA refusal to include gender issues in the recent endorsed electoral reform bill.

Speaking at the year end press briefing yesterday, Minister Gayflor stressed that the issue of gender is a right and not an appeal.

According to her, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in Accra, Ghana, some 16 months ago, partially acknowledged the critical role of gender equity the peace accord itself was not tailored to reflect reality.

The Minister noted that gender mainstreaming is a key concept in development and they are cardinal to peace-building and reconstructing what she called "terribly battered society." "Unfortunately, the critical role of gender, although superficially acknowledged by the CPA was left to be interpreted as a matter of appeasement or propitiation or propitiation. Either the farmers and facilitators of the CPA might not have noticed the strong links between gender and peace," she said.

By not realizing the role gender, she said it could that the framers of the CPA were not familiar with UN Resolution 1325 which was adopted to be applied in conflict situations in Liberia.

Still expressing frustrations, the Gender and Development Minister noted, "the difficulties of engendering the entire transitional process, as envisioned in the Results Focus Transitional Framework (RFTF) can be further demonstrated by the recent passage of the Electoral Reform Bill in exclusion of an affirmative action for women which could be in consonance with resolution 1325." However, she noted it appeared that the most virulent opponents of affirmative action are those who still do not understand that gender disparities and other forms of social injustice help to perpetuate societal ills.

According to the strong gender equality advocate, the critics and opponents of gender equality (women empowerment) are still "fairly detached from the reality of truth and at times shifting under immense pressure.

Madam Gayflor however said the critical tool that "all of us need to refill our arsenals in order to be prepared for an all-out onslaught on those flagrant violations against fundamental human rights, which include depriving women of access to opportunities, resources and power." Madam Gayflor disabused the minds of those who think that gender equality is a foreign concept.

"It is necessary to first reject the erroneous perception that gender is a foreign idea and an imported concept which does not deserve wide currency," she said.

From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200412230380.html