Africa-Press – Liberia. Kvinna till Kvinna, a women’s rights organization working in over 20 conflict-affected countries, has concluded a two-day training session on women’s rights and the Prevention of gender-based violence.
The workshop which brought together participants from several social groups and government ministries was geared at culminating all forms of social norms, including domestic violence against women.
Speaking at the two-day event in Monrovia, the group’s Network Corrolonadro of its Swedish Program in Liberia, Aisha M. Lai said, the exercise was intended to adequately inform participants about the important role each partner play in a relationship.
The forum was sponsored with technical support from its Liberia Country office, in partnership with the United Nations Human Rights office of the High Commissioner, working with both genders in telling them to put a complete end to all forms of abuse, sexual gender, and domestic violence.
“We hope that at the end of this workshop, participants will learn how to engage each other in a relation, where each partner will understand their roles, and at the same time help to end domestic violence, which is mostly perpetrated by men,” Lai averred.
Madam Lai lauded participants for their excitement and willingness to share their individual experiences while promising to practice the knowledge acquired for the betterment of their lives.
She said though the majority of the participants blamed the increased wave of attacks against women’s rights in the country on men’s inability to exercise restraint in relationships, with the knowledge gained, male counterparts admitted to the reality of sometimes committing the act either knowingly or unknowingly.
Also speaking, participants thanked organizers for organizing the event and promised to use the knowledge acquired for positive change.
For their part participants, following the training, said, the exercise has helped them realize various mistakes in their individual CSO groups and they are now willing to learn from them to become better partners in moving the country forward.
Since 2018, RFSU and Kvinna till Kvinna ve worked in collaboration with its Liberian partner organizations, towards the promotion and acceptance of Universal Periodic Review and put forth progressive recommendations for advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) in Liberia.
Liberia has received a significant number of recommendations and has accepted the majority of them.
This should be considered as an overall positive outcome from the UPR of Liberia (adopted in March 2021), as well as an entry-point for continued advocacy at the national level towards the implementation and follow-up of current and new national policies of relevance for Liberian Civil Society’s activity and programs (including those supported by RFSU).
Based on the latter, a workshop for assessing the UPR outcome and strategizing around effective activities for following-up this process with state and non-state stakeholders at the national level.
The UPR is a significant innovation of the Human Rights Council which is based on equal treatment for all countries.
It provides an opportunity for all States (Liberia included) to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to overcome challenges to the enjoyment of human rights.
The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a unique mechanism of the Human Rights Council (HRC) aimed at improving the human rights situation on the ground of each of the 193 Unite the d Nations (UN) Member States.
Under this mechanism, the human rights situation of all UN Member States is reviewed every five years.
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