A Pro-female nongovernmental organization, the Girls Alliance for Future Leadership, has launched a fund drive aimed at supporting female candidates to secure balance representation in the House of Representatives and the Liberian Senate come 2023 presidential and legislative elections in Liberia. The alliance Advocacy Officer, Kadiatu Bah, said the drive is necessary in order to have more females in the national legislation so that they enact laws violating the rights of girls in the country.
Miss Bah made the disclosure during a dinner organized by the Girls Alliance for Future Leadership for heads of diplomatic missions and international nongovernmental organizations in Monrovia during the weekend.
According to her, some of the challenges facing girls in Liberia are female genital mutilation, rape, sexual abuse of minors, and ritualistic killings of which some of the victims are girls without access to justice.
“Added to that is the Liberian government’s refusal to end the practice of female genital mutilations, a cultural menace that remains the most existential danger to every girl child in Liberia. Not only that it is harmful to the physical body of girls, but it is also a legal window for child bribed and sexual violence against women and girls”.
Miss Bah claimed it is a legal window because lawmakers at the Capitol Building have capped female genital mutilation as a sacred cultural rite of their traditional leaders.
“Everyone in Liberia knows that perpetrators of FGM recruit minor females as young as nine-year-old and most of these girls are whisked into marriage immediately after their initiation”.
Remarking at the dinner, the Secretary General of Girl Alliance for Future Leadership, Patricia Davies, appealed to stakeholders to tap into the talents of the Liberian girl children to help build a new Liberia that will ensure gender balance in the three branches of the Liberian government.
According to Miss Davies, women are disproportionately outnumbered by their male counterparts in the three branches of the government.
“To have a wholesome functioning democracy, we need gender balance within the governing structure of the state.”
Reported by: Augustine Octavius
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