Women call for inclusion in Constitutional Review
Friday, 20 July 2012 08:51 Mabior Mach South Sudan >>> . Women in Lakes State are calling on the national Constitution Review Commission to ensure that gender equality is clearly stated in the next constitution. This followed a three day women's conference that concluded in Rumbek on Thursday. The conference was organized by UN Women and the South Sudan Women's Empowerment Network (SSWEN). Mary Kuei, a local government adminstrator in Lakes State, said women should be well represented in the constitution review commission to guarentee women rights. "Serious offences should be dealt with at the High Court and simple offences can be dealt with in the local court in regard to women's human rights violations. A clear and defined marriageable age of minimum 18 years in the Constitution and forced marriages should be abolished," said Kuei. The conference also focused on the rights of children and equal rights between a wife and husband in case of divorce. The Director of SSWEN, Lilian Rizig, said many widows in the country have not been given their rights. "We talk about widows inheritance. There is huge prominence in Rumbek that a lot of widows were not given their rights in term of property that were left by husbands. We had about half of the workshop were all widows. They were complaining about how family of the deceased took everything, and they were left with nothing and we want to explain that in the Transitional Constitution there are some provisions that give them these rights. Widow has rights to inherit property; is very clearly spelt out in the Transitional Constitution. So it is very important for them to know that they have this right, but up to the law makers to enact this law; these things into law so that it can protect the rights of widowers," Lilian said. "We also talked about the early marriage [which] is everywhere we went, we will find incidents of a girl getting married at a very early age and mothers they are helpless, they don't know what to do, what can they do to prevent this," she added . The group also called on the government to adopt relevant key international and regional conventions on the rights of women. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
