{"id":16795,"date":"2023-04-14T23:53:19","date_gmt":"2023-04-14T23:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/?p=16795"},"modified":"2023-04-15T04:38:16","modified_gmt":"2023-04-15T04:38:16","slug":"malawi-catholic-women-in-malawi-ready-to-protect-children-from-violent-conflicts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/2023\/04\/14\/malawi-catholic-women-in-malawi-ready-to-protect-children-from-violent-conflicts\/","title":{"rendered":"MALAWI: Catholic Women in Malawi Ready to Protect Children from Violent Conflicts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Members of the Catholic Women Organization CWO) in Malawi have promised to take lead in the prevention of violent conflicts on children upon the realization that amidst the freedom of religious diversity in the country, there are \u201cboth positive and negative aspects of violence against children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">CWO is an association of Catholic women whose mission is<em>\u00a0\u201cto bring the Kingdom of God to all through the promotion of unity and integral development of all Catholic women in Malawi,\u201d in order to fulfil their mandate <\/em>of evangelization and to work for human development.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In a statement shared with <em>AMECEA Online<\/em> after a week-long meeting held at Malawi Institute of Management (MIM) in Lilongwe, the women in collaboration with the Catholic Men Organization (CMO) and Catholic Youth Council in Malawi (CYCM), discussed issues which continue to contribute to violent conflicts that are affecting children in the country.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The women noted that the country continues to increasingly experience negative religious ideological extremism and that cases of religious and cultural practices area also exposing children and t youth to violence.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">If immediate action to address violent conflicts on children is not taken, the women said in their message signed by the CWO national leadership on Thursday, March 30, \u201cThe country is likely to miss the Global United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and its national agenda on children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The women who are inspired by the Church\u2019s teachings from the Gospel of Mathew the Apostle that \u201clet the little children come to me\u2026,\u201d commit to undertake their role on \u201ccapacity building on Church doctrines, parenting and respect of human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The forum that was held under the theme, \u201cThe role of women in preventing children from violent conflicts in Malawi,\u201d was convened by the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) after recognizing the important role that women are playing in the Church and African society. It brought together Catholic Women Organization leadership from all the eight dioceses of the Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM).<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16767 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/IMG_7880-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/IMG_7880-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/IMG_7880-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/IMG_7880-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/IMG_7880-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/IMG_7880-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For the successful realization of the thematic areas of concern, the CWO in Malawi intend to involve different actors in carrying out various activities towards prevention of violent conflicts on children.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">To members of ECM, the women organization who in December this year will mark 50 years of their existence promise to \u201clobby for continued support from the bishops, the clergy and the Religious in advancing issues of child protection and safeguarding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Among other activities with ECM, the Catholic women hope to \u201cundertake meaningful coordination with all the commissions under the conference and other Church groups in implementing various programs on emerging issues of violence against children,\u201d and conduct capacity building trainings for Catholic Women on the Church teachings on how to work with other Churches and religious groups.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Additionally, the women intend to \u201cenhance pastoral care, continuous accompaniment and conscience formation of the young people, pay special attention to violence meted on children with special needs and facilitate dissemination of the conferences child protection policy at all levels within the CWO and other groups in the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">To members of CMO, the Catholic women commit to build a strong working relationship towards protection of children, and besides capacity building among the membership, the women will take active role in advocating for conducive family environments for children.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">On their promise of activities with the Catholic youths, members of CWO intend to promote the culture of breaking silence against various abuses and violence faced by children and young people, enhance awareness creation and carry out campaigns within the learning institutions on the role and responsibilities of young people in eradicating violence against children.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">To the government of Malawi, the Catholic women promise to facilitate conversations with Religious leaders in examining laws and policies that target eradication of violence against children and strengthen all mechanisms that target child protection.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Members of CWO appreciated the efforts made so far by ECM, ecumenical and religious organizations in the prevention of violence against children and the Government for putting in place laws and policies regarding protection of children.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The forum was organized with support from Aid to Church in Need (ACN) an international Catholic charity organization based in Germany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA Members of the Catholic Women Organization CWO) in Malawi have&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amecea-news","category-malawi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16795"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16806,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16795\/revisions\/16806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}