Bensonville Township –“Just to demand for what is rightfully ours, we had to take risk by signing documents that if we die, nobody will be held responsible; just because we wanted to climb the tallest peak in Africa to be heard.
We are hoping and praying that President Sirleaf, during her one year in office, will do something to ensure women’s rights to land rights issues are addressed,” said Saineh Omeze, Executive Director for National Empowerment program for women.
Speaking over the weekend at a petition ceremony in Bensonville, Mrs. Omeze said the Kilimanjaro Initiative which was established in 2012, came about when over 400 rural women farmers and civil society women agreed to raise their voices to demand their rights to land in Africa.
The women petitioned the President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to ensure that women’s rights to land would be solidified before she leaves office.
“We hope President Sirleaf will do something about women’s rights to land, because after her regime, men will revenge on women in that they are already saying women will never rule in Liberia again. “
“Even our own husbands would challenge us because we are not in power again. So she needs to leave that legacy behind to protect us as women so that when she leaves, we will still be protected,” she said.
Marching along with the rural women to present their position statement, Mrs. Omeze and the women held fresh farm produce such as: vegetables and greens, pepper, garden eggs, cassava, potatoes and eddoes.
Presenting the position statement to Montserrado County Superintendent Mrs. Florence Brandy, Mrs. Omeze said she believes that women have made achievements on the ownership of land for women have but there was still much to be desired.
“On behalf of the rural women of Liberia, we present to you this petition that was drafted in Tanzania, to add your voice to our many voices, because whenever it comes to decision making for concession companies to occupy some of our land, the women are still left out.
We hope that something would be done so that the women who climbed the Mountain for their voices to be heard, efforts would not go in vein or else we will go back up the Mountain again and stay there until our demands are met,” Mrs. Omeze asserted.
Supt. Brandy who received the petition statement thanked Marie Clarke who joined other African women to climb the Mt. Kilimanjaro for their voices to be heard and assured the women that she will take it to the Ministry of Gender, since the minister is a champion for women.
“I can assure you that whatever you have asked for in this petition will be granted, even if it is not done 100 percent, it will be done 60 percent, because when I take it to the Gender Minister, she will then take it to the President,” she said.
Marie Clarke, member of the Rural Women from Gbapolu who reached apex of Mount Kilimanjaro said, on October 10, 2016, 29 women climbed the Mount Kilimanjaro to allow their voices to be heard.
“Because we wanted our voices to be heard, we even signed risk forms that if anything happened to us, the Tanzanian government was not to be held responsible.”
“We even went out of oxygen at a point along the way because of the altitude.
We were 32 women who started, but only 29 made it up to the top, because some women could not stand the tension and had to come down,” she said.
Speaking on behalf of ActionAid Liberia, Interim Country Director, Ms. Lakshmi Moore, acknowledged the women’s initiative.
“Do not thank ActionAid because when you climbed the Mountain to demand your rights to land, it was not Actionaid who did it for you.
So the power is in your hands, but whatever rights you are fighting for, Actionaid will be by your side as the song says side by side,” she said.
