By Hou Akot Hou
More than 25 young women attended a 5-day workshop in Aweil, Northern Bahr el Ghazal State to learn mediation and negotiation skills aimed at resolving local conflicts.
The training was organized by the International Center for Peace and Human Rights Development (IPHRD) in collaboration with the National NGO, Hope Africa South Sudan (HASS).
The workshop was conducted in response to increasing reports of feuds within families and communities, including issues of domestic violence and disagreements among residents.
It was further meant to equip young women leaders with effective mediation and negotiation skills to help establish peaceful coexistence in their communities.
Executive director for IPHRD, MS. Susan Wamalwa said that they are not only doing capacity strengthening across the region among young women leaders but also advocating for UN security resolutions on Women’s emancipation.
She said the young women are youth and they are leaders who need to steer others in the communities though they are deprived of their rights.
“Young women and girls are not always being considered in the conflict resolution issues. During conflict, they are the ones being affected and during negotiation mediation, the young women are not being brought to the negotiation and mediation processes only older women and men are given the space,” said Susan.
“Young women are not always being given space and that is why we give the capacity to enable them be able to reach out to their communities and help mediate and negotiate things in the communities,” she stressed.
Wamalwa said that during the interactions, participants have expressed the need to have views of the conflicting parties or those at loggerheads to be brought together and have qualities of resolving the conflict.
She said processes include being more understanding, having a friendly environment created to have dialogue and having skills.
“The dialogue requires skills to have listening ability, conflict analysis skill, understand the issues and needs or interest of the parties involved in the conflict to come up with the resolution as a mediator in the communities” she noted.
Wamalwa said that stereotypes like what people say that women can’t help resolve issues is an outdated view.
“We need to have young women to relate with strong men in the communities so that they raise their voices and champion for the issues. Young women need to work hand in hand with males who are vocal and invite them to talk during the meeting to tell people about the importance of dialogue and mediation of conflict in the communities,” she continued.
She said they would go ahead with the training in the counties though they are having budget constrained.
Cases similar to suicide have sparked debate in Aweil West, where a man killed himself after arguing with his spouse over selling a rooster.
One of the participants, Ms. Maria Aluel Bak refutes claims that young women cannot help resolve cases through dialogue.
“Find a place where people can sit under a tree and find out the issue for example if people quarrel or fight over Biir (well) in the house and people fight at water points, then listen carefully, then investigate and then let the anger cool down and when they are still hot allow them to get calm and bring them to convince and never take sides as children just fight and forget easily so be neutral,” said Aluel
Maria said that the issue of Aweil West where a man killed himself is more unprecedented and that it could be due to a lack of communication or sharing information with relatives to help him dialogue.
“I and the rest were shocked on hearing the news. We don’t have enough information about this, there can be a reason behind it. The reason for that suicide might be the lack of a mediator, and if I were there as a mediator and get information, as people don’t quarrel in a silent way, if you hear your neighbour having a problem then step in as a mediator and understand the context of everything and get to the resolution for both parties after hearing them out. The case of the man is shocking otherwise if he had told people what itches or faces him, he could have regretted it now, as mediation would have taken place,” she concluded.
The young women in training stated that exacerbating local issues could lead to conflicts within the community, potentially disrupting social cohesion in the state.
They expressed concerns about various inadequacies, including education, health, and infrastructure development. Additionally, they anticipate that conflicts may arise due to issues such as land disputes caused by flood displacement, potentially leading to disputes over resettlement areas.