With hope to strengthen gender equality in military, some members of South Sudan Peoples Défense Forces (SSPDF) convened an educative conversation.
To address the biases that keep women and girls back, the group hosted a two-day validation workshop to examine assessment findings and formulate policy recommendations, which brought together men and women in uniform.
Maj-Gen Awour Awer Malual, commander of Nyanchigak Military Academy, stated that the workshop is an eye-opener to the requirements of women in uniform and women in general.
“The workshop is really very wonderful; it is educative, it has done a lot. It has educated us, because our women, or the female, in organized forces are actually disadvantaged most of them, they complain that their affairs are not well considered,” he said.
Gen Malual added that women in uniform complained about not being promoted and being given uniforms that were more appropriate for men.
“Some of them [women], have not been promoted for so long, [few] have stayed in one rank for a number of years, 10 to 20 years – and that one is a bit disadvantaged,” he stressed.
“They don’t get fair maternity leave, they are either given 45 days, which is not even enough. the maternity leave should also include the male, because the father and the mother are supposed to be included in that maternity leave,” he explained.
In a bid to make gender equality more than just a conversation, a national non-profit organization known as Hope Africa South Sudan (HASS) has taken the initiative to make it a reality.
Meanwhile, Col. Harriet Fozia Jinaba, who works ART centera condom champion in SSPDF, and the Executive Director for South Sudan Women Security Sector Network adrsswd the issue of maternity leave to gen women of forces.
“Another issue is, after maternity leave, we need child care in all security sectors, so that whenever the child is stayed for two months and the mother resumes the work, the child will be at a safe place and she will continue on doing her work,”
Brig-Gen James Dak Karlo, the director of Special Protection Unit and Child Affairs in the national police, indicated that his administration is working hard to ensure the presence of female investigators.
“Our main target is to train and to empower female officers for investigation. Because the international norm says the investigation against any vices, it has to be investigated by a female. An issue to do with male to be investigated by male,”
Mr. Chol Samuel, the head of programs at Hope Africa South Sudan said “we’re actually basically here because of a validation workshop to validate the findings of the research that was conducted by the consultants.”
He mentioned that some key findings is discrimination of women in leadership structure of security sectors.
“Well, there are lots of findings, and a few of them could be issues to do with women in leadership. And then a recommendation to that, is to maybe empower more women and then to make sure that they rise higher in leadership so that they can become part of the leadership and achieve that equality,” he explained.
He added that aim of the project is to make sure that women participate equally in nation building.
“We understand that women and men are like wings of a bird and so if one wing is not strengthened enough, the bird won’t be able to fly,”
Mr. Chol added that a final validation session will be held shortly, when findings and recommendations would be shared for inspection, validation, and action policy.
When asked why choosing to empower women, Chol said “we are in a patriarchal society. Where almost every single law in the country, traditional even they seem to be favouringmen. And men have much more better opportunities than women.”
He further called on leaders to empower women within their institutions so that they can come up also in leadership and be able to solve women issues as well as solving the issues of South Sudan.
