The executive director and Co-founder of Centre for inclusive governance and Justice Jackline Nasiwa is calling on South Sudanese leaders to make deliberate action to ensure women remain in key decision making position in the country as the world celebrates the International Women’s Day.
She adds, there should be a checklist to ensure that women are in the list of appointments before it is taken for final approval to the President.
Ms. Nasiwa stresses that lately the 35% affirmative Action has been shrinking because many women who were appointed in the various positions were relived and replaced by men.
“The 35% is a minimal threshold; women can go higher than that because that is what is written in our constitution and Bill of rights, in terms of implementation there is a big challenge, since the implementation of the peace agreement started the percentage of women is about 28% this was a tally from the different mechanisms and institution of the government but the 28% has now decreased to 20%,” Nasiwa explains
She reiterates that since the implementation process of the Peace Accord started the country had only 8 women instead of 12 in the ministerial position and from that 8 they kept on dropping and being replaced by men.
Jackline mentions that recently the Minister of Defence was also removed from her position by the president.
She recalled that the president recently during the International Women’s conference made commitment to ensure that women representation is increased to 50% but the percentage is dropping drastically.
The Executive Director explains that when the president had appointed the first female Defense Minister it was an inspiration to many women in South Sudan and it motivated many women to join the security sector.
However her removal from the position is very disappointing and it shows that women can only be in certain position and cannot progress further.
“We want to see that another woman is put in a key decision making position. We want to see that the peace agreement is engendered and the entire security sector. There is no mechanism in the agreement that says the positions are only for men.” Says Jackline
Nasiwa encourages women who are in position of power to stand strong and make sure their voices are heard.
“Women have been doing a lot of engagement and advocacy to ensure that they are selected in the key decision making processes but the results that come out of these advocacies are not what the women expects,” adds the activist.
Cultural barriers and early and forced marriage is a big issue facing women in South Sudan, this hinders women’s progress in other developmental activities.
This year’s global theme for the commemoration of the international women’s day is DigitALL Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality.
The activist was sharing her views about the participation of women on the implementation of the Revitalised Peace Agreement for the Resolution of Conflicts in South Sudan as the world commemorates the International Women’s Day.
