PEACE AND SECURITY IS A RIGHT.

\"Women arise and let's be crusaders of Peace and Security to guarantee a better future\"

- Peace and security should start from within, to the homes, to the family, to the country to the world. if all these is taken into consideration, our Future is secured.

- In July 1997, I got married to my husband who had a son out of wedlock. I came in when this child was three years old and was still with his mother. I had my first Son a year later, and two years later, I had a daughter who was my second child. My husband brought this child to me when he was seven years old. and was in primary two. I brought up this child up till now that he is 24 years old.

- I was bringing up this child not knowing he was going to be a torn to my flesh in the future. I tried my best to bring up this child with no discrimination along with my children. But he was highly influenced by Bad friends who gradually exposed him to bad things in the world, and he no longer respects or take to my advice. All my efforts to keep him away from such bad friends were in vain.

- Since he started school, he was not serious with his book work. he was never attending classes in school but was instead involved in gambling with his friends, and by form three, he refused to continue going to school. despite all my efforts and that of his teachers to talk to him, he never listened. all our efforts yielded no fruits and he became a school dropout. He then proposed doing business claiming that it will be best for him. with no hesitation, we opened up a provision store and off license for him. he started up well with the business but gambling did not let him go on well with the business. we later notice that, he abandons the store and go around gambling with his friends with little money he has struggle to sell that day. this made the business not to prosper and later crumbled.

- his father was angry and proposed that we should send him back to the mother, but I opposed that knowing gradually he will get on the right track with a little more effort.  The situation instead got worse day by day as he was not listening to my advice. My husband later died and I was left alone to struggle with him and my other kids. his mother did not even care about the child. as he grew older, i knew he will begin reasoning well and think of himself. I later put in him in a garage to learn mechanics and he also learned driving, he went on well with that for some time but was still being influenced by bad friends making him to be arrogant and disrespectful. he no longer has respect for me and anybody else who tries to talk to him.

- I believe this is not a strange story to women who take responsibility of such bad children or has such bad children in their homes. I keep asking myself many questions like:

- why did I accepted the child in the first place?

- why did I not listen to my husband advise of sending the child back to his mother?

- why did I spend money on sending him to school? and so on.

I know many women have their own stories to share on bringing up children born out of wedlock.

- I have evaluated myself time and again to see where I went wrong in the upbringing of this child, I listened to his proposal of not going to school and did many others for him but yet he took me for granted.

- this is one of the things that bring in security to our homes and the world today.

- For peace and security to remain in our homes and the world, the voice of women must be heard. I say this because I am a victim. women are faced with many aspects of insecurity such as domestic violence, rape, unwanted pregnancy, political crises and climate change.

-  We are by this advocacy for peace and security raising our voices together begging for the authorities in place to see into the problems of women, and find ways of solving them. so that we can be able to talk and be respected in the society. so that our voices can be heard in the society.