South Sudan organization promotes women's rights

Every day in Juba is a new challenge for South Sudanese women.

Women continue to struggle for a place in society, despite the giant leap made with the country’s independence in 2011.

Today, more and more voices are being raised to promote women participation.

Rejab Mohandis is Executive Director of South Sudanese Network for Democracy and Elections

‘‘We calls on the societies to understand that we have an equal rights citizenship and so that women have a key potential to contribute to the societies – they have skills – they have expertise in various fields – they are engineers – they are doctors – they are lawyers, economists and they can equally contribute to the development of the nations’‘, Mohandis told Deng Machol, our Juba-based correspondent.

To break down barriers, women in South Sudan have launched a campaign dubbed “Born to Lead”, to make their voices heard.

‘‘Born to lead is campaign, is here to remind everyone, especially our leaders that South Sudanese women and girls are born to lead and that we have a power – we have a capacity and we have an ability to lead. This campaign also is to break stereotypes of gender roles of some jobs are done better by men and women cannot do them’‘, Riya William, Executive Director for Crown of Women said.

In September 2018, a peace deal signed made provisions for adequate gender parity.

35 percent of public appointments were to be allocated to women. But this deal has yet to translate into safety for women and girls in South Sudan.