Her Voice Liberia, a human rights group, continues to champion the advocacy campaign to ensure that the rights of women and girls are protected, as well as empowering them for future national tasks.
Women over the period in Liberia have been marginalized in all spheres, however as the paradigm is gradually shifting Her Voice Liberia continues to be in the vanguard to ensure that the voices of women are heard loudly and clearly, especially in areas of access to justice, rule of law, equal opportunities and empowerment respectively.
As the group’s quest is to increase awareness and advocacy in this direction, it is leaving no stone unturned in reaching out to rural communities to spread the message for the betterment of the society.
In southeastern Liberia, residents of Rivercess and Grand Gedeh counties are currently benefiting from one of Her Voice Liberia projects.
Designed and crafted as one of the project components, focusing on challenging harmful norms and practices, with emphasis on access to justice for women and girls, Her Voice Liberia conducted the dialogue with the rural residents on the effect as well as the danger of harmful traditional norms and practices, including using the legal means through access to justice in order to find remedy to this age-old and daily challenge.
As an eye opener, the dialogue further enlightens the participants, mainly rural dwellers, on the issue, with the hope of helping to make an impact in their respective communities.
The dialogue, held in the two southeastern counties, brought together two major families and communities, sharing experiences and actively engaging the issues, especially from the dialogue perspective, on women and human rights.
Additionally, the dialogue also looks at how to prevent gender-based violence and the rights of marginalized groups.
Speaking briefly at the opening, the Executive Director of Her Voice Liberia, Evangeline Sirleaf, encouraged the participants to seize every advocacy opportunity on the issue in order to make a change in the society.
“Remain focus, believe in yourselves and make the move in order for us to break the barrier,” she challenged them.
The dialogue activities in southeastern Liberia is under The ENOUGH project. ENOUGH, for short, is an EU-funded project aimed at empowering women, girls, boys and men to take positive action in ending sexual gender0-based violence in Ghana, Liberia and Mali.
It is also being implemented by a consortium of Oxfam IBIS (consortium lead), Oxfam in Ghana, Oxfam in Liberia, Foundation for community Initiatives, WiLdaf/Ghana and WILDAF/Mali.