The Centre for the Promotion of Sexual and Reproductive Health Education (CePSRHE), in collaboration with the ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs, has held a day’s legal literacy seminar for women leaders on the Gender Acts at the Sierra Leone News Agency in Kenema.
The theme of the seminar was “fostering local acceptance to instill sense of ownership, promoting Implementation of the Gender Acts”.
Participants were drawn from the 16 chiefdoms in the Kenema district; leaders of six women’s groups in Kenema; women leaders of religious groups, the head of the Family Support Unit and female councillors.
Giving the overview of the workshop the national coordinator of CePSRHE, Marian Sarmu, thanked all participants for responding to their invitation and encouraged them all to put into practice the knowledge they would gain from the seminar.
She explained that the women of this nation cried to the government to see reasons and pass the Acts in parliament to guarantee their right. She said they all gathered to “discuss the Gender Act, Domestic Violence Act and the Devolution of Estates Act”.
Marian Sarmu said there was the need for them to come down to the grassroots and explained the Acts to their colleagues because they had some legal terms that needed to be understood by all.
She disclosed that at the end of the seminar women’s networks on GBV would be formed to ensure implementation of the Gender Acts.
In her contribution the chairperson of the ceremony, Nyaibor Ngombu the HIV/AIDS programme specialist of the Mano River Union, said before this time women were nothing but since the laws had been passed in parliament in 2007 women were regaining their rights.
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