By Septimus Senessie in Kono
Some grassroots women from 17 communities in 5 chiefdoms in the eastern Kono district have ended a peaceful protest match, calling for land rights and equal justice with their male folks.
The processions were climaxed by public meetings which targeted traditional leaders, paralegals, local court officials, civil society organisations, media and women's leaders or Mammy Queens in the chiefdoms of Tankoro, Fiama, Nimiyama, Kamara and Gbense.
The project was funded by the UN development programme and implemented by Coopi International through its “women’s rights to land and property and making rights a reality” initiative.
The leader of the weeklong community-to-community match pasts told Politico that they were on the streets “to demand for our rights to land, inheritance from our deceased husbands and equality before the law as enshrined in the Three Gender Acts of Sierra Leone including the Devolution of Estates Acts.”
Femusu Nyama Saquee, Mammy Queen of Tankoro chiefdom, said women in the five major mining chiefdoms of the district were being denied their rights to land, which she said would accord them the opportunity to involve in commercial activities and take care of their children just like the men.
She attributed the impoverished conditions of women in the district to their outright denial by men of land and property rights. She cited the recent land saga between the people of Nimiyama chiefdom and the traditional authorities as a typical example, alleging that the majority of those who had lost their land to the Chinese Rubber Plantation company in the chiefdom were women.
Madam Saquee expressed disgust at the judiciary “for compromising most of those matters when taken to courts for redress” attributing that to the women not having money to bribe the officials.
Town chief of Taidu in the Kamara chiefdom, Aiah James, welcomed the move by the women describing it as "a recipe for development". He pledged his support to women’s rights to land, property and equal rights in his chiefdom.
The paralegal officer of the local rights group, Network Movement for Justice and Development in Tankoro chiefdom thanked the government for passing into law the Devolution of Estate Acts and the Three Gender Acts. Finda Komba said the laws provided maximum protection for grassroots women "who are directly at the mercy of cruel men in the country", adding that cases of violence against women in the district were still on the upsurge.
The district coordinator of Coopi, Mariama Kabba-Kamanda, said though their project was fading out they had provided enough capacity building trainings for grassroots community women who would be championing the state of affairs of women in the district.
She said they had also hired the services of a lawyer to provide legal assistance to women in courts, and warned her fellow women to exercise maximum respect for traditional authorities in the district.
(C) Politico 22/07/14
