A consultation meeting for the Central region on the participation of women in the process of peace and national reconciliation was held in Beira City from 5 to 6 June.
The motto of the meeting was: "Women's participation and its influence in the construction of social peace and national reconciliation in Mozambique."
This event was organized by the Community Development Foundation (FDC) and its partners, namely the Multiparty Democracy Institute (IMD) and The African Center for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD). The meeting aimed to create a forum for dialogue between women in the central region so that they could actively contribute to the definition of a national agenda for effective peace, reconciliation and social cohesion.
At the meeting, women had the opportunity to address issues that, in their view, provoke social tensions, such as the problems that unite and divide them, but also proposed solutions to overcome these problems.
The meeting is a follow-up to several others that took place in the northern and southern parts of the country and brought together women from their respective regions, with the participation of women from all the provinces in the central region, as well as representatives from the north and south representing political parties, religious confessions, associations of traditional doctors, members of provincial and municipal assemblies, among others.
Graca Machel, activist and President of FDC, urged women to forget their differences and to be in solidarity with each other, regardless of their party affiliations, geographic, social extract because, according to her, those who suffer the most when there is a war are the women who have the burden of caring for their wounded children and bury the dead. She said that each of the women should be the mother of all Mozambicans and that the country should never return to war.
In turn, the Embassy’s Program Officer, João Jussar, highlighted the problems of social inequality, particularly between men and women: "They are as old as humanity itself and Sweden also faced them, but soon discovered that the only way to development and social equity was to wage a struggle for equality among all, so that a harmonious and just development could be achieved. "
Jussar also touched on aspects related to the Feminist Foreign Policy that the Swedish Government launched three years ago and the fight for men and women to enjoy the same rights, have the same representation and resources. And, in this perspective, a feminist government guarantees a gender equality perspective in the formulation of policies, both nationally and internationally.
Jussar enden by appealing to the need and importance of increasing or includinf women in the discussions for an effective peace, so that a sustainable peace process and conditions for stable and legally secure institutions to promote social, economic and political development for all can be established.
