In response to the growing insecurity across the South-East, grassroots women in Imo State are stepping forward to take on a role long overlooked in peacebuilding: local surveillance, early warning, and community mobilisation.
On July 29, the Non-Governmental Organisation Alliances for Africa (AfA) convened a consultative meeting in Owerri with over 50 women from across rural communities in the state. The meeting aimed to deepen local understanding of insecurity and build women-led strategies for early response and long-term peace.
Although insecurity in the South-East is often framed in terms of insurgency or political unrest, participants at the forum pointed to the everyday impacts on women: disrupted farming, restricted movement, and growing fear in households as drivers of silent trauma and underreported harm.
“Our farms are no longer safe, women are afraid to go to markets, and our children miss school because of fear,” said Hon. Chioma Amadi, one of the participants. “But today’s session was not about complaints. It was about preparation and taking action.”
AfA’s Local Peace Agenda
AfA, a women-led organisation working across Nigeria since 1998, focuses on human rights, peacebuilding, and gender justice. In the past five years, it has coordinated responses to election-related violence, promoted legal rights awareness among rural women, and facilitated community-based security dialogues.
This latest engagement in Imo State is part of its broader Women, Peace and Security (WPS) programme, aligned with United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, which Nigeria adopted in 2013. Despite this policy framework, women’s participation in local and national peacebuilding processes remains limited, especially in rural areas.
However, in Owerri, Imo State, the tone was different. Women not only shared their experiences with violence, conflict and insecurity but also presented local strategies for resilience. One of the key outcomes was the proposed formation of a community-based women-led monitoring group to report security threats in real-time and improve response mechanisms at the grassroots level.
Action Beyond Dialogue
During the meeting AfA also urged the women to integrate peace and security conversations into the forthcoming August Women’s Meetings, a traditional annual gathering of Igbo women which serves as platforms to raise awareness, educate, and coordinate interventions at the community level.
“We will take this knowledge to rural women who may not fully understand how insecurity affects their economy and families,” said Chief Oge Aririatu, President General of Amaukwu Obollo in Isiala Mbano. “We must not only protect ourselves but also identify the loopholes that enable insecurity in our communities.”
Mrs Aririatu, a teacher and community leader, noted that implementing community-level peace strategies would require collaboration between women, traditional leaders, youth groups, and local security personnel.
Local Capacity, National Impact
Women in other parts of Nigeria have previously demonstrated the effectiveness of local peace initiatives. In Plateau State, women’s peace groups played a key role in mediating religious tensions during the 2010 Jos crisis. In Borno, the Women Peace and Security Network engaged in early-warning activities at the height of Boko Haram’s rise, offering intelligence that contributed to military and humanitarian responses.
Speaking at Press time, AfA Project Officer, Ifeoma Obinwa said that women need to be agents of peace and conflict resolutions. “What we’re doing now is equipping them with frameworks to document, report, and protect during time of insecurity”
Participants at the Imo meeting also raised concerns about the dismissive attitudes of local security operatives towards women’s reports and called for better training on gender-sensitive security protocols. Other recommendations included supporting local vigilante groups with incentives, introducing basic self-defence training for girls and women, and improving economic empowerment to reduce vulnerabilities linked to poverty.
Some participants suggested discreet intelligence-sharing systems where women can safely report suspicious activity without retaliation.
Looking Ahead
The Owerri meeting is one of several State-level dialogues AfA is convening in the State, as for days, the organization has been on community training for rural women in the State to enlighten them on peace building.
The organisation said the objective is not only to increase women’s participation in peacebuilding but also to ensure that national security policies reflect grassroots realities.
“Security does not start with armed forces, it starts with information, with vigilance, with women who know when something is not right in their communities,” the facilitator said.
Recall that on 28 July, Alliances for Africa inaugurated the Women, Peace and Conflict Committee to develop an action plan for Imo State.
With Nigeria’s ongoing struggle to contain communal violence, kidnappings, and political unrest, the push to recognise and resource women as peace actors may prove not only timely but essential.
