By Lekereni Chinkhota

Salima, June 17, Mana: Senior Chief Makanjira has underscored the importance of having traditional leaders who are conversant with issues to do with human rights and gender related laws to promote development, inclusion, education and protection of people.

Speaking during a two-day training session of Traditional Leaders on Human Rights and Gender related laws in Salima district, he said knowledge in these rights and laws was essential to the promotion of good leadership skills, protection of people and leading them in various developments.

"I am excited by this initiative for it will transform my area to have people who know and respect issues of human rights. Being an area located along the lake, our children were not attending school because they were much interested in fishing," Makanjira said.

He added that, "At first we were not considering this as a problem until we have been told that these children have rights to education. We want our children to know their rights and how to respect them."

Makanjira said that the knowledge gap on human rights and gender related laws contributed to challenges that affected women and children.

 "Knowledge on human rights promote development because people can be responsible on how best they can contribute or take care of different developments in our areas. If people do not know about their rights it is easy to misuse or misinterpret these rights and do what they want which will ruin development," he said.

Senior Chief Makanjira assured that the traditional leaders would take the information and tell their subjects on the importance of protecting the rights of women and children who are prone to human rights violations.

District Community Development Officer for Salima, Samuel Chimwaza said chiefs, being custodians of the people, they need to be equipped with information on human rights so that they could protect their people.

"We need to collaborate and coordinate with stakeholders so that no one is ignorant about their rights or in case of violations they should know where to seek justice," he said.

Chimwaza called upon traditional leaders not to disregard human rights as they are undertaking their different duties, so that they should be upholding human rights.

A Community member from Nyambalo Village, Stefano Malola said that knowledge in human rights makes implementation of developmental activities easier because people contribute willingly.

"Our area has been lacking behind in terms of knowing and respecting human rights. Many people were neglecting these rights that led to the violation of these rights particularly to children and women. But I am sure that from now on, everybody will be aware of what to do in order to exercise their rights to the maximum," he said.

The Training was facilitated by Women Legal Resources Centre (WOLREC) through a WE EFFECT funded project, under a theme: "promoting gender transformative approaches (CIVSAM) programme for the improvement of women's lives" being implemented in Senior Chief Makanjira.