By: Aaron Kubahn
Monrovia – Sister Aid Liberia (SALI), a women-led non-governmental organization, has officially launched its 16 Days of Activism 2024 Documentary Series and Constituency Report titled, “Beyond Limits”, emphasizing the significance of more women political participation in national governance.
The historic event, which brought together former and current national women leaders, international partners, civil society actors, and the media, was held Tuesday, December 10, 2024 in Monrovia under the theme, “From talk to Action! Let’s join hands to end violence against women and girls to achieve Beijing +30”.
Giving an overview of the occasion, the acting Executive Director for SALI, Ms. Amelia Siah Siafa, stressed that the institution seeks to mobilize the national legislature to encourage women’s political participation in the 2029 presidential and legislative elections.
She believes that women have the abilities, intelligence, capacities, local and international connections, legal and political understanding of both private and public sectors to effectively run their affairs. “We, women can even do better than some of the men who are in national leadership. We only need their collaboration,” she added.
“Another reason we are here is to network. I believe that it is important to have a double every strong, courageous and forceful woman to change the status quo,” Amelia noted.
She stressed a need to bring a new generation of young leaders to take over the national space, emphasizing the significance of mentoring and leading potential young women and providing a space to hone their abilities, efficiency and effectiveness in the governance process of Liberia.
The acting Executive Director of SALI further lauded President Joseph Nyuma Boakai for demonstrating the political will through the appointment of many women in his government, terming his move as gender sensitive. She however urged the Liberian government to increase the number of women’s political participation.
In remarks, one of SALI’s donor partners, the Embassy of Ireland through its Ambassador, Gerard Considine stated that achieving gender quota in Liberia requires collective efforts, in particular leading a charge not just on attaining 30% but helping to achieve a target of 50/50% for women’s representation.
“Recent SCORE data shows that while both young women and young men show promising trends in perception of women’s basic rights, their perception of women’s leadership ability lags behind,” he said. Ambassador Considine noted that visible examples of women’s leadership and of men’s support to women’s leadership are vital to change said perception.
The foreign diplomat stressed out one important step towards achieving 50% women’s representation also relies on having aspiring role models to attract women to positions of leadership.
“It is my hope that men in leadership will reflect on their own ability and responsibility to ensure truly representative and including democracy by supporting efforts to increase gender equality in politics,” he added.
The event was marked by several speeches by local and international guests who were in attendance, committing to collectively achieve this milestone.
The Documentary Series and Constituency Report highlighted renowned women leaders in Liberia, including former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor, President Pro Tempore of the Liberian Senate, Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence, and Foreign Affairs Minister Sara Beysolow Nyanti among others.
Those national women leaders narrated their individual challenges faced while venturing into politics, their success stories, motivations to emerging young women and a call for gender equality in national governance across the country.
“If we are serious about electing women in this country, it will take the women and men who believe in us to make that happen,” Madam Copper, Political Advisor to President Boakai said. She also described Liberian women as goal getters, who never relent to get things done as they wish.
Also, Cllr. Charlyne M. Brumshine-Dennis, admonished women to never limit their thoughts and never feel intimidated by society. “They usually tell you that you don’t belong here and they did the same to me. I defied them and contested and so, you, too, can do more,” she stressed.
Key Findings in the 2024 Report
The 2024 Documentary Series and Constituency Report titled, “Beyond Limits” highlights potential challenges faced by women in the society, stressing an urgent need to address them.
According to the findings, Majority of the respondents likely perceived women candidates as people who did not have “financial strength”, were “weak-minded”, new to politics, poorly campaigned and engaged in the political process late.
“A slight majority of the participants said they preferred women candidates over men because women: “can help their friend women”, organize and coordinate well, represent women, have caring and careful nature, among others. On the other hand, electorates’ preference for male candidates were mainly because men have “served the county”, down to earth, involved/engaged people, visited people, and were strong and effortful,” the report said.
SALI found out that there appears to be no direct relationship between the gender preference of electorates and their actual voting choices, adding that participants voted for candidates who they said “we know”, “been living with us”, “can hear our cry” and “can talk for us”.
According to the findings, many women were perceived by the participants as lacking financial strength, being new to politics, coming late to the citizens, weak minded and poorly campaigning among others, thus sabotaging their chances and giving edge to their male counterparts.
SALI further reported that access to the media appears to not be a major barrier but fear for cyber violence held some women candidates back.
The findings also revealed that the majority, 52.89 percent, of participants said they did not know whether violence against women occurred. “Probing deeper, participants’ inability to recount incidence of violence was seemingly due to the lack of awareness of what violence against women in politics and elections is,” it stated.
Recommendations
SALI, among other things, proffered a five-count recommendation, including a repositioning of the Women Political Leadership Clinic as a stand-alone semi-autonomy flagship program under its watch and to expand its interventions.
It also called for the domestication and rolling out of UN Women’s transformative and political leadership training and learning materials, and implementing measures to ensure the safety and security of women candidates before, during, and after elections.
“Donor are encouraged to align the programming and funding cycle with Liberia’s electoral cycle and provide multi-year funding instead of short-cycled support to local NGOs,” the institution stressed.
SALI, with support from the Irish Embassy in Liberia and UN Women, implemented the “Strengthening Women’s Participation in Elections in Liberia” project in Liberia prior to the 2023 elections.
It also implemented a constituency research in the 15 counties, and further established a Leadership Clinic for the Political Leadership and Empowerment of Women under its Leadership and Capacity Building program. Notably, one of the direct products of the leadership clinic is the current Representative of Montserrado County Electoral District #5, Prescilla A. Cooper.
