1 minute read
Delivering a Common Future: Transforming Gender Equality
FOCUSonEXCELLENCE
Advertisement
CHOGM2022: RWANDA’S FIRST LADY WANTS WOMEN TO ASSUME ROLE OF DEFENDERS OF PEACE, INSTEAD OF VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE: FIRST LADY JEANNETTE KAGAME HAS ISSUED A RALLYING CALL TO WOMEN AND GIRLS TO EMBRACE A NEW ROLE AS FRONTLINE DEFENDERS OF LASTING PEACE, INSTEAD OF VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE.
“Pushing for the recognition of women in leadership
she said this on Monday whilst addressing the 12th Commonwealth Women’s Forum in Kigali, one of the events that marked the start of the 2022 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
More than 500 delegates attended the forum, which explored ways to meet the challenges affecting women and girls across the Commonwealth and to ensure member countries have robust policies and programmes to meet gender equality targets by 2030.
Kagame took the audience down memory lane on Rwanda’s path in reconstruction, after the 1994 Genocide, was littered with the pain of fragmented families, of wounded and traumatised women, yet the nation now leads as a champion of womenempowerment.
“The 2022 Kigali CHOGM Women’s Forum does not just occur in a country that consistently pushes for the emergence and recognition of women in leadership,” she said.
She added: “It occurs in a country where rape was used barely three decades ago as a weapon of war. Today, Rwanda is ranked by the WorldEconomicForum as the seventh country in the world for closing the gendergap.”
She said Rwanda considers peace and security a condition for the attainment of sustainable development and that the lessons learned can combat existing challenges affecting women and girls.
The Forum, which took place in Africa for the first time, is running under the theme, “Delivering a Common Future: Transforming Gender Equality”.
