THE IMPACT OF WOMEN ASSOCIATION ON PEACE BUILDING IN PLATEAU STATE

Abstract

Peace-building has become increasingly important as a means of preventing continuing hostilities among previously warring factions. However, peace-building strategies or designs have not fully recognised the particular needs of women and have not acknowledged the significance of women's contributions to peace-building in war torn communities. Despite women's collective contribution to building peace at home and at community level, they are most often victims of male's subordination to their essentialisation, thereby frequently under¬ utilized when it comes to contributing their perspective of peace-building. Where they are allowed to make inputs, further actions are not taken to implement those inputs thereby constituting a deficit to peace-building initiative. Hence the study examines the role of women associations in Plateau State as they impact on peace-building. It argues that, Despite, growing awareness of the role of women in conflict prevention and peace-building, resistance to their inclusion is still widespread. Using both primary and secondary data, the secondary data were drawn from published and unpublished materials relevant to the study¬ in books, Journals, magazines, conference papers, seminar papers and dailies. While the primary data was generated using key informants' interviews with focus group discussions. The interviews and the focus group discussions were conducted in Jos-North, and Jos-south, LG.As of Plateau State. The study uses content analysis in analyzing the data. Thereafter, recommend that women's groups need to identify their common priorities and develop a strong, unified agenda. This can only be achieved through coalition building that extends beyond ethnic, political and religious alliances. Keywords: ,