S. Sudan’s defense minister pushes for women inclusion in peace process

JUBA – South Sudan’s Minister of Defense and Veteran Affairs, Angelina Jany Teny called on peace parties to include women in the implementation of the peace and security agenda enshrined in the 2018 peace deal.

Minister Teny made this call during the national women leaders’ conference held in Juba on Tuesday.

“When you talk about women’s peace, security, and their participation, you do not just talk about physical security, it is social, and to know what happens to the society, it is cultural. You need to know how women are abused; one example that really stands out is earlier marriages that hinder girls to enter education. There is no way you can ignore women when you talk about security,” Teny said at the opening session of the two-day women conference in Juba.

She said although political violence is a setback to the goals of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda, it should instead be a motivating factor to a redoubled effort to push for the agenda’s full implementation.

“The political environment is over raging and very important for ensuring peace and security because most of the violence is a manifestation of political issues as a result of failure to resolve political disagreements, misunderstanding, and instability,” she said.

“Once political violence breakout, other violence like inter-communal conflict begins to manifest itself in ways that are different. We should not just stick to peacebuilding; peacebuilding does not happen until we ensure political stability,” she added.

She said the stressed the need for practical measures to increase women’s inclusion in peace processes.

“Across the party line, women fought to ensure the 35 percent participation, we are trying in so many ways to identify the priorities, and we make sure the affirmative action is implemented. When we come to the security sector to achieve participation and inclusion of at least 35 percent become a challenge, and although we have encouraged some women to join the mechanism,” she said.

Senior SPLM-IO official noted that women’s inclusion in the security sector remains a big challenge in the country.

“In the organized forces you do just wake up and become a major or a general in that matter, it is a process. The security sector has already been seen as a masculine sector and very few women had joined,” she said.