Farmington, Margibi County – The Deputy Country Representatives of the United Nations Women Office in Liberia has said there can be no complete peace if the rights of women and girls and the most marginalized are excluded and discriminated against.
Deputy Country Representative of UN Women, Sangeeta Thapa, making opening statements at the start of a retreat sponsored by The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Liberia Country Office and UN WOMEN for members of the House of Representatives of Liberia’s 54th National Legislature, Women Legislative Caucus that took place from February 21 to 24 in Margibi County. She pleaded with Liberian lawmakers to do something positive to help the country achieve sustainable development goals in protecting human rights.
The retreat held under the theme “The Role of the Parliament in Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Gender in Liberia” was attended by current members of the House of Representatives as well as former female members of the House of Representatives at the 53rd Legislature.
Sangeeta Thapa who also represented the UN Resident Coordinator in Liberia said “As we go through the discussions during the next few days, let us keep in mind that we cannot proudly talk about complete peace if the human rights of all Liberians especially women and girls and the most marginalized are excluded and discriminated against”.
The UN women official said although Liberia has signed and ratified the Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), yet it still needs to have law against domestic violence and a legal framework to support women’s participation in social economic and political spheres.
She noted that she hopes that discussions at the strategic retreat will set the agenda for improving the lives of women, men, boys and girls in Liberia and that the country is not far behind in meeting up to its international commitments.
The UN women official told the lawmakers to prioritize gender responsive planning and budgeting, a mechanism that brings together two issues that are not commonly associated with one another: gender equality and public financial management.
She wants gender equality principles to be incorporated into all stages of the budget process so that women, men, girls and boys equally benefit from budgets and public spending.
“The role of the Parliament is paramount in ensuring that budgets respond to the needs of most needed and to oversee the implementation of budgets. In this context, we would like to congratulate the government, Ministry of Finance and Development Planning for taking the initiative of crafting their GRPB policy and also setting up their Unit, thus according the priority that it requires “, she indicated
In his presentation on the work of OHCHR, Sonny Onyegbula, Human Rights Officer of OHCHR who represented the OHCHR Country Representatives said that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is a department of the Secretariat of the United Nations that works to promote and protect the human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. He added that the office provides technical support to governments on human rights issues and assists them integrate international human rights principles in their development programming, judicial and legislative processes.
He said peace and security, human rights and development are the three founding pillars of the United Nations, therefore issues bordering on human rights are at the core of the work of the world body.
“When you look at the root causes of wars it is a result of abuse of human rights. From World War I to II and civil wars in many countries. So, the UN looks at Human rights as one of the three pillars of the work of the United Nations”, he added.
OHCHR, he disclosed was established in Liberia to provides technical assistance to the INCHR and other government partners to promote human rights agenda and on a wide range of human rights issues in Liberia. It also provides capacity building for Liberian Civil Society Organizations.
Liberia yet to ratify key Human rights Protocol-says OHCHR officer
Another OHCHR Human Rights Officer, Francis Igiriogu, in presenting overview of the retreat said the House of Representatives has essential role in promoting human rights in Liberia. He cited Article 34 (f) of the Liberian Constitution that empowers the legislature to approve treaties and conventions entered by Liberian Government.
He said the law makers should see the human rights and gender retreat as a dialogue and exchange of ideas on issues of human rights and gender which will enhance collaboration between INCHR and the Legislature.
Francis said that OHCHR expects to see at end of the retreat that the legislator’s capacity to apply Human Rights Based Approach is enhanced especially in law making processes, oversight assignments and budgeting, putting into consideration principles of equality, non-discrimination and participation by those affected.
He also said Liberia is yet to ratify the protocol establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, something he said is very important for the country.
“That protocol has not been ratified by Liberia. We will talk about the importance of this protocol to Liberia, OHCHR expects that after this retreat, there will be discussions between the Legislature and Executive on how to ratify the protocol of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights’
During the interactive session, the controversial issue of War Crime Court was raised by several lawmakers but Human Rights Officer Sonny Onyegbula of OHCHR said the issue of war crimes court is for the Liberians to decide.
“It is for Liberians to decide how they want to proceed on it. The OHCHR is here to guide that anything Liberians decides should be human rights compliant.” he said. According to him, the Liberian people will be ones to decide what kind of accountability mechanism they want to address their past.
Representative Rustolyn S. Dennis, Chair of the House Joint Committee on Claims & Petitions, Judiciary, Good Governance, Peace and Reconciliation and Ways, Means and Finance described the retreat as a first step for the lawmakers to achieve the goal of more engagements with international partners, civil society as well as the Liberian people on issues of human rights. Representative Dennis who is also the Chair of House of Representatives Joint Committee on Issues of Past Human Rights Violation said that after several meetings and calls by many Liberians for the establishment of war crimes Court, the body has agreed to deepen discussions with Liberians on how to go about establishing the said court. She emphasized that no such past human rights violation should go unpunished.
The retreat is part of series of activities being undertaken by OHCHR to create the platform for public dialogue on issues of human rights. OHCHR has over last several months being conducting such dialogue for stakeholders including different government agencies civil society, human rights activists amongst others.
About OHCHR Liberia Office
The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Liberia signed its host country agreement with the Government of Liberia on 4 August 2017 with a mandate to promote and protect human rights through different strategies including; technical cooperation arrangements, capacity building, training, awareness raising, technical assistance, human rights monitoring, investigations, documentation and report to strengthen strategic evidenced based advocacy with government authorities and other oversight and institutional mechanism to demand for accountability, prevent impunity and promote respect for human rights and Rule of Law.
Following the departure of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) in March 2018, OHCHR Liberia country Office was established to contribute to consolidation of achievements made after UNMIL and to ensure sustained peace, reconciliation and conflict prevention.
The Government of Liberia has elaborated a Strategic Roadmap for National Healing, Peacebuilding & Reconciliation to provide overall policy guidance to deepen peace and reconciliation efforts in Liberia. OHCHR brings its human rights technical expertise to provide technical support to the Government of Liberia and relevant interlocutors to strengthen requisite capacities of national interlocutors and institutional mechanism. It adopts rights based, victim centered and gender sensitive approaches to strengthen ongoing initiatives aimed at contributing to long term sustainable peace and reconciliation through ensuring that human rights of victims to effective remedies, recognition of harms suffered, gender sensitive reparations and other forms of restitution are guaranteed.