‘Stop the Bickering’; Cllr. Scott Cautions Women

Participants at the forum

The women of Liberia have been urged to take a break from back-biting that a crab mentality fosters:  ‘if it is not me, it can’t be anyone else’---forging, instead, a united front by getting involved in the constitution review process currently ongoing.

Cllr. Gloria Musu Scott expects that women leaders of Liberia will shelf their differences and consolidate their strengths to help their peers and other vulnerable persons have a say in the ongoing constitutional debate to guarantee the realignment of the nation’s peoples.

Addressing a gathering of more than 100 women drawn from all of Liberia’s 15 counties, Cllr. Scott observed that disunity and bickering among the women will result in distractions and the opportunity to guarantee women’s rights will come and go without any benefit to the women of this country.

The women are currently convening in Monrovia for a two-day constitutional review process that kicked off yesterday at a local resort. The Liberian Women Consultative Forum is being held under the theme “seizing the moment for constitutional reform”.

The Constitution Review Committee (CRC) takes this opportunity to remind women leaders throughout the country that this opportunity to balance the scale of equal participation and representation, equal access and benefit to national assets and economic opportunities, if squandered, will be lost forever, Cllr. Scott warned.

She added that the exercise is aimed at ensuring that Liberian women effectively participate in the process to generate gender-sensitive prepositions and/or amendments to the Constitution.

“The key to optimum success in achieving constitutional guarantees to women’s rights is a unity of purpose amongst themselves in partnership with the men of Liberia. The CRC would like to remind the women to speak up. Let your voice be heard. We are not urging you to make noise – empty noise. We are urging you to articulate your interests. Take advantage of the opportunity to review the Constitution and ensure that the document is gender-sensitive and protects the rights of women and vulnerable people,” she told the gathering.

Also addressing the forum was the executive director of the Women’s NGO Secretariat, Marpue Speare. She refreshed the minds of the women thus: “you cannot stand up for anything that you do not know or understand. So the need to understand this Constitution as women is very important.

“Let us seize this moment and take it as an opportunity. Let us keep in mind that the Constitution concerns us: our rights, our welfare and our protection. We need to stand up as women. Let us consolidate what we are doing. Let us rise up and make the difference.”

For her part, the chairperson of the Women’s Legislative Caucus, Representative Josephine Francis believes that if the women got fully involved with the review exercise, they would find the time and opportunity to participate in the political leadership of this country.