The Director of the Legon Center for International Affairs and Diplomacy (LECIAD), Professor Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu, has called for the full involvement of women in peacekeeping missions around the African continent.
She said the regulations on peacekeeping missions requires that women are fully represented to bring their expertise and knowledge on board, but observed that has been lost on the continent.
She said it is unlawful for male security personnel to search properties of women on peacekeeping operations and its related fields, hence the need for female personnel to be employed to indulge in such acts.
Professor Mensah-Bonsu made the call when she addressed participants at a workshop organised by the African Peace-building Network (APN) and LECIAD in Accra Monday.
The essence of the workshop is to bring educational researchers from the African continent together to devise measures to address the challenges facing the continent.
Security recruitment
The director appealed to security institutions around the country to ensure the recruitment of more females into their fold.
According to her, most institutions around the globe have less women working in the services, for which reason she called on the Ghana’s security authorities to lead the crusade to rectify the issue.
“Female persons are recruited into the services to engage in operations like typing, cooking, and nursing. This is not the best since it discourages brave women who are willing to fight for peace from taking the step,” she said.
She further explained that the move would clamp down on abuses and injustices against women, adding “female victims would be more willing to open up to female security personnel than their male counterparts”
Speaking on ways to address the challenges confronting security on the continent, she appealed to African leaders to provide finances and incentives to support educational researches on the continent.
She explained that most of the major problems facing the continent have already been researched into, but a lack of support hinders the implementation of the findings to address them.
Emmanuel Forson|3news.com|Ghana
