Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs, Angelina Teny, has said the country’s political system is set up in a manner that puts it at a crossroads where there is a denial of the existing struggle for democracy.
Speaking during the launch of the women’s leadership and advocacy initiative under the theme ‘‘Walai’’, in Juba on Wednesday, the minister called on women to watch out for available opportunities and pounce on them for representation.
“[We are] struggling with issues of governance that allow our people at the low levels to make their own decisions and govern themselves by a way of federalism, and yet they do not accept it,” she said.
“So, there are a lot of contradictions, and these are areas where we as women also need to look at our political systems which determine our political governance and our systems of governance,” the minister added. The event aims at raising women’s voices and giving women leadership in peace and political processes.
‘‘This is another area that creates an environment that prevents our participation and issues dealing with political and civic space,’’ she said, adding: “We can talk about political space, but if we do not restructure our security sector, we will always have these issues of political space, even if we make a political statement that the political space is there.’’
She said there is a ‘‘need to create security sector institutions with governance that allows for that political space.’’ “So these are all changes, they are not small issues [and] they don’t need us to just be having these workshops and talking about them; they need us to sit down and look at the whole system,” she emphasised.
The CIGP Jackeline Nasiwa explained how the eight-month project gives the women an opportunity to start thinking about how far they have come on the development of women in the country during the transitional period.
She urged the women not to only stop at the peace process. “It is true that South Sudan cannot rise without women, and women have to take the lead in raising South Sudan,” she said.
According to Nasiwa, the project has activities that include leadership strengthening through capacity building in local networks and also links women to men who will support the women’s course.
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