By Sulaiman Jalloh
The Female Caucus of the Republic of Sierra Leone Parliament has launched orange day on Wednesday, March 6, 2024 at committee room one Parliament building Freetown.
Hon. Veronica Kadie Sesay one of the oldest serving female MPs in Sierra Leone delivered the welcome remarks and highlighted the importance and significant role the media plays specially in writing about women in Parliament, noting if the media did not write anything about them nobody will know about their work and they as parliamentarians. “If nothing is written about us nobody will know about us”, she articulated, asking the press to continue to push their case regardless of what the public might see.
“Sometimes people complain about bad pressing but we cannot leave without them” she re-counted. She however informed the gathering that she has been elected as the president of the female caucus in west Africa, noting her ascendancy to that level of representation happiness due to the collective efforts of her members of parliament in Sierra Leone and thanked president Bio for providing what she called political leadership.
Delivering the keynote address the president of the Sierra Leone Female Parliament Caucus Hon. Nenneh Lebbie said orange day celebration is something worth discussing and to let the Country know about, noting as female MPs they don’t want the International women’s day celebration to without letting the people know about the orange celebration, adding the parliament of Sierra Leone in partnership with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), Petro JETTY and DePREP to commemorate international women’s day 2024. She added that the event will be held on March 14, 2024 at parliament of Sierra Leone.
“I will tell you the purpose of this event, the event aims to create a platform for the parliamentary female caucus to engage citizens and stakeholders showcase its commitment to transforming a viable and result oriented organization of female legislative” she informed the attendees of the launching, noting the event will highlight the achievement and aspirations of the female caucus and seek the development goals for the parliament of Sierra Leone.
According to her, the caucus is going through a transformative process and the event will serve as a catalyst to bring to light some of the aspirations to enhance visibility and provide evidence for its increase representation to parliament, noting gender equality is fundamental to building peaceful, prosperous and sustainable societies.
“In Sierra Leone, despite the significant progress, gender disparities persist particularly in political representation,” Hon. Nenneh Lebbie proclaimed, remarking there has been an increase female representation in the parliament of the African Country with forty-two female MPs currently in the parliamentary female caucus and the organization’s leadership has commitment to ensure the improvement their participation. She added there is an ambition to transform the caucus into a result-oriented organization and they will celebrate the international women’s day together with the orange day, saying their objectives includes is to increase knowledge and interaction among current female lawmakers, brooding the understanding of the role of parliament and opportunities to increase their participation among others objectives.
Hon. Nenneh Lebbie noted that the orange day celebration will attract people from all works of lives and female MPs will have the opportunity to showcase their work, adding the event aims to enhance, foster partnership and build confidence within the female caucus and to advance women political participation in Sierra Leone.
Other speakers during the launching and partners to the female caucus are, Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) represented by its director Rev. Alusine Diamond-Suma, Petro JETTY represented by its Fahmeeda Rahman and DePREP represented by its country director both of them made a statement and commit to support the Female caucus of Sierra Leone. Mr. Gilbert Nhabay the director of DePREP said Sierra Leone has made strides in terms of female representation in parliament, with regional figure 18.4% of female representation Sierra Leone is in the lead with 28% above Ghana and his organization with other partners will support the caucus achieve their goal.
Copyright –Published in Expo Times News on Wednesday, March 13th , 2024 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)
