Lilongwe, November 25: Minister of Gender, Children, Disability and Social welfare Patricia Kaliati on Tuesday, emphasized on the need for women in Malawi to be economically and self-empowered.
Kaliati made the remarks, when she officially opened the 2015 National Gender Conference (NGC) in Lilongwe.
The conference’s which is scheduled for 24-25 November, is aimed at highlighting substantive issues driving the gender agenda and Enhancing multi-sectoral and innovative dialogue around addressing gender inequalities in Malawi.
Kaliati said, the conference is an opportunity for women to take stock of the things that have been done in the gender sector and what been done now and also propose ways of improving gender equality in Malawi.
“All the 17 Sustainable Development Goals are targeting women in one way or the other, because for instance; issues of poverty, the ones who are mostly affected are women; issues of education the ones who are affected when they are not educated are the women.
“So we need to empower women, because these are the ones who take care of the children so if they are empowered that they can also advice, take care and empower their children,” said Kaliati.
She also revealed that the ministry of gender now has a lawyer specifically for women and young women who are victimized and that need support, the lawyer is there to support, assist women freely to make sure that justice prevails.
Kaliati further called upon women to support one another in issues of business, by lending each other start-up capitals for businesses and also emphasize that those who borrow should be faithful to give back the money, in order to create trust among the women.
Among the issues under discussion were, women and health, Agriculture, Education, Disability, Religion, Police and others.
The conference is aimed at defining key priorities and joint actions for the coming year as a follow up to NGC 2014.
