By Yiep Joseph<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Chairlady of the Terekeka County Women\u2019s Association, Asunta Paul, has called on the government and partner organizations to intensify efforts to eradicate gender-based violence, particularly at the grassroots level.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Asunta stated that most girls continue to suffer early and forced marriages at the grassroots, stating that the prevalence is alarming.<\/p>\n She said that serious rules and orders should be put in place to ensure that cases of early marriages are punishable.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you have a beautiful lady, you just take it to the cattle camp in order to be given to someone who has a lot of cattle sometime, If she does not want that person, she will be forced and beaten, and also the mother is beaten. That is what is happening to us as the Mundari community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She mentioned that for the government to stop such acts, there is a need to create more awareness and those involved in forced marriages be punished by law.<\/p>\n Asunta said that at the county level, most boys are enrolled in schools to study, while some of the girls are seen as the source of wealth.<\/p>\n \u201cThey will not take some girls to school so that they study, girls are seen as wealth when you have a girl you are already comfortable that you have wealth,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She added that to change the narrative, the government and partners should ensure that local people are empowered to have sources of wealth.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to change our community because the community has put in their mind that girls are sources of wealth,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The women leader added that regardless of the free primary education that was declared by the President, some parents continue to take only boys to school, neglecting girls, as they intend to exchange them for wealth.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you see boys and girls there is discrimination, our community will take the boy to school and the girl will not be taken to school when you have a beautiful lady you just take it to the cattle camp in order to be given to someone for marriage,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She said that with little support from the partners, the women’s Association at the grassroots tried to carry out awareness to change the narrative.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need changes as women’s unions; we tell them (parents) to take girls to school,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are telling men not to beat women and also inform them when they are making decisions in the family.\u201d<\/p>\n She said that in most cases, men at the grassroots treat women like their property, not like family members.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have seen it sometimes when there are resources like goats; they are taken from the house without informing the woman,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She called on the Central Equatoria government and the national government to initiate an immediate empowerment project to strengthen women.<\/p>\n Asunta urged non-governmental organizations to increase efforts in raising awareness and promoting women’s empowerment.<\/p>\n She also called on the government to provide financial support and agricultural tools for women.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Yiep Joseph Chairlady of the Terekeka County Women\u2019s Association, Asunta Paul, has called on the government and partner organizations to intensify efforts to eradicate gender-based violence, particularly at the grassroots level. Asunta stated that most girls continue to suffer early and forced marriages at the grassroots, stating that[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":29277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[110,80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-equatoria-state","category-national","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Asunta-Paul-Chairlady-of-Terekeka-County-Women-Association-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29275"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29302,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29275\/revisions\/29302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}