By Michael Adeyinka
A call has gone to women to brace up for more active roles in maintaining peace and security.
The call was made by the Lagos State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Mrs Lola Akande while speaking at a conference tagged Women, Peace and Security held on Thursday at Alausa, Ikeja.
The Commissioner stated that her Ministry organised the conference in compliance with the expectations of the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development for all States of the Federation to hold sensitisation and enlightenment programmes.
The programme aimed to implement the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 passed in October 2000, which reaffirms the importance of equal participation and involvement of women in all processes of peace building, peace keeping as well as conflict resolution.
This according to her is in order to allow women play their roles within the national and international armed conflict resolution management mechanisms since it has been shown in history that women and children are usually the most vulnerable in conflict of any kind as they suffer abuses in human rights violations.
Akande said that the assumption that women are not as critical to achieving great results in peace and conflict resolution need to be debunked, since women are most often at the receiving end whenever there is breakdown of law and order in any community as they suffer the agonizing experience of suddenly becoming widows or being sexually assaulted and dehumanized, leaving them with traumatic experience they sometimes never come out of.
Speaking on the efforts of her Ministry in combating domestic violence, the commissioner stated that the Lagos State Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, through its domestic violence unit embarks on periodic sensitisation and enlightenment campaign through which it has continued to raise the consciousness of women to the fact that they can seek redress anytime violence or dehumanising treatment is meted out to them by their male counterparts.
She also added that on the other hand, members of the general public, especially men are now more aware of the consequences of violence against women, which invariably is responsible for the drop in the number of cases of domestic violence reported from 1097 in year 2017 to 659 so far recorded in 2018 by the Ministry.
The conference was attended by representatives of several security agencies and paramilitary organisation such as the Nigeria Navy, Customs, Airforce, NSCDC, Federal Road Safety Corp and Lagos State Traffic Management Authority among others.
Participants included women from all the 57 Local Governments and LCDAs in Lagos, while some of the topics discussed include Participation and Representation of Women in Conflict Resolution and Management; Disaster Prevention and Preparedness for Women, and Women Protection and Prosecution of Rights Violators.