Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development Iyom Josephine Anenih said women are being excluded from conflict prevention and gender-based early warning indicators are largely ignored.
She said this at the commemoration of the 2010 International Women's Day for Peace and Disarmament in Abuja over the weekend.
The minister said that greater women's participation in programming humanitarian assistance and their access to decision-making capacity-building and employment would make humanitarian responses more effective.
She said although a lot is being done by the UN in the area of women, peace and security, women's effective and systematic representation in formal peace processes still remain weak. While commending the Federal Government's Amnesty Programme in the Niger-Delta, she said the ministry has zero tolerance for proliferation of small and light arms, incessant killings as witnessed in Jos, Plateau State, violence in the Niger-Delta and senseless conflicts that have brought untold hardship to women and children as main victims of these conflicts.
Chairman Governing Council of National Centre for Women Development (NCWS) Hajia Habibat Saidu said meaningful progress and development are achieved only through peace, adding that peace is also the tool that lightens the burden on women.The minister called for attention to be directed to the activities of ethnic militia who under the facade of vigilante groups perpetuate violence on both defenceless civilians, individuals and groups through their possession of unregulated and extrajudicial use of small and light fire arms.
