By Dr. Williette PRO James and Hassan Osman Kargbo

Each year International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8. This date is set aside to celebrate the social, political and economic achievements of women in our society. The first International Women’s Day was held in 1911 and it’s more than a century now since the World have been celebrating the hard-work and resilience of Women and Sierra Leoneans Women’s are not an exception.

In Sierra Leone, it’s not a secret that there is still much more things to be done in ensuring that our Women’s achieve a better life in our society. They deserves to be celebrated in every phases of life because they have gone through a lot ringing from the 11 year brutal civil War in Sierra Leone where we saw young girls, children and women suffered a lot of ill-treatments in the country, also during the Ebola crisis we saw a lot of women and children experiencing the worst of their lives. Corona Varus was also something else for our women and children doubles with the Hardship situations in the country. All these issue cannot be overemphasized, and as a result, they deserve to be celebrated because they have fought so many negative battles just to stand tall despite all the odds.

Moreover, our women’s need to be celebrated because they have fought series of Hardship and other related activities. Recently, we saw an online scheme that revenge the country and the must people who were involved were women. Women were the most victims of Super Advertis. Mariatu Fofanah, a single mother of two children found herself standing in the apex of a promising future after the sudden deaths of her husband. She had strived to succeed in life singlehandedly; She had faced with lots of challenges but had moved on with full of potential and ready to face the opportunities ahead of her. She started working at the Hamilton quarry, toiling and extracting stones to support her children, she had managed to raise a substantial sum of NLe 7,000.00 (Old Leones), solely dedicated to pay her rent and do other stuffs in the next couple of months. However, fate had a different plan in store for Mariatau. Eventually, a new online fraudulent investment platform emerged, and in less than three weeks a mass of people had thoroughly saturated in it. Unfortunately for Mariatau and other thousands of women who were with the conviction that super Advertis could bring more good to them end up to be at their own detriment.

Super Advertis, a Ponzi scheme, emerged as an online riches and Mariatau wasted no time but to invest her NLe 7,000 she had already gathered in her toiling of stones. Her money was freezing and a sum total of 3.4 billion (Old Leones) from the public​ was freezing according to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the statistics also stated that block of the people who involved are women. Mariatau story represent thousands if not millions of Sierra Leoneans Women who fought so hard to bring food to the table. And March 8 every year, is set aside for our women to be celebrated and they deserves to be celebrated.

In addition, despite all the odds faced by Sierra Leoneans woman, there’s still something to be celebrated because most homes, women have been the forerunners to run the home. Without them, nothing absolutely could happen.

Subsequently, we saw the world recognized the challenges that women have been facing around the world. In Sierra Leone, there are lot of civil society groups that Champion the campaigning of Women and girls, yet there are lot of gender base violence in the society. However, we still celebrate our Women on 8 March because of their strong and resilience lives they live.

Furthermore, it’s important to remember that international women’s day is not just about celebrating women, but also it’s about raising awareness of the issues that women face and taking action to address them. There are things they faced in Sierra Leone that need urgent actions, This includes issues such as violence against women, discrimination in the workplace, lack of access to Education, and issues of salary

We must work together to create a world where women are safe, respected, and have equal opportunities for all, because they deserves its. We must respect our women’s irrespective of their status in life because they deserves to be celebrated.

Additionally, International women’s day is about more than just a day to celebrate our women. It is about the ongoing fight for equality and justice for our beloved women in the society. We need to remind ourselves that we need to commit ourselves in fighting for the betterment of our hard-working women in our society because they deserve to be celebrated.

Like millions around the World, I want to join the globe to celebrate our women and let them know we are grateful to them for impacting so many lives in not only the society, but also Sierra Leone as a whole in feeding, sheltering and educating most of our country men. Our Women deserve to be celebrated in not only March 8 every year but also they need to be celebrated almost always in Sierra Leone because of what they faced in the society.

We are delighted to congratulate all women journalists this March 8 as we celebrate, globally, the existence and impact of women in our societies. We use this day to ponder on many issues that women are confronted with; those that they handle with ease or otherwise. Women are endowed with great innate potential, and how they maximize those qualities every year must be recognized. For women journalists practicing in Sierra Leone, this day is a day that we must use to reflect on how well we utilize our talents to enhance the journalism profession in the country for the common good.

We have come a long way, from the days when we could not speak in meetings because of our inability to make meaningful contributions, to now when we have a lot more women who have the capacity and a lot more to bring to the table.

SLAJ has made a significant gender-related stride that is worth mentioning. For far too long, women journalists had been crying for a gender policy as a framework to alleviate their plight in Sierra Leone’s male-dominated media. Quite recently, the President of SLAJ, Ahmed Sahid Nasralla, yielded to this cry by constituting a Gender Advisory Panel that produced the SLAJ Gender Equality Policy for the media in Sierra Leone (https://slaj.sl/slaj-gender-equality-policy/ ) with support from the Embassy of Ireland, being probably the first journalism union in West Africa to compile and adopt this sort of document  While this move is laudable, it can amount to nothing if the policy is not fully implemented. By and large, resources are key to achieving full implementation. For this, we call on our partners to come to our aid, and we ask the SLAJ President and his Executive to ensure the provision of the required facilities for full implementation of the Policy.

Pondering the theme for this year’s celebration; ‘Invest in Women, Accelerate Progress’, investing in women is indeed a worthy cause. Women are natural incubators who have the potential to keep, nurture, grow, reproduce, and expand ideals passed on to them. Capacity building and mentorship programs for our women journalists are crucial to their journalistic output and eventual emancipation. Women journalists should be given access to all forms of training that will equip them to churn out standard content regularly. Opportunities for cross-fertilization with other media institutions overseas must be sought to enhance their exposure. When all this is taken into consideration and acted on, the pace of growth acceleration in women journalists in Sierra Leone will be accelerated. Already, we note the increase in the number of women proprietors of media institutions and women journalists with university degrees who have succeeded in eroding the laissez-faire notion attributed to women journalists. Though the growth pace of the forgoing is minimal, it is worth mentioning.

As we continue our March 8 celebration, let us commit ourselves to our ideals as captured in our gender policy:

1. We commit to taking proactive steps to integrate gender equality and women’s empowerment in line with the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Act 2022.

2. We commit to ensuring that gender issues are addressed equitably, transparently, and professionally.

3. We work towards removing all obstacles to equal opportunities within SLAJ and its affiliates.

4. We encourage every journalist to practice the profession with the utmost sensitivity to gender.

On this International Women’s Day, we proudly reaffirm our commitment to fostering a media landscape in Sierra Leone where the safety and security of our female colleagues are paramount. We stand united in our determination to create an environment that safeguards women journalists online and offline, ensuring their voices are heard and respected within our newsrooms. Together, we strive to build a culture of inclusivity and empowerment, where every woman can thrive without fear, contributing to a more equitable and just society.

Happy Women’s Day to all the incredible women who inspire and shape our Association. Let us continue to work to make our Association more responsive to the needs and aspirations of our female colleagues.