EXPOSING OURSELVES FOR JOB: NOT US DECLARES NEP LADIES

BY ADOW JUBAT

For fear of stigmatization has forced women from Garissa County in North-Eastern region to give a wide berth the going recruitment drive into the National Youth Service a senior recruiting officer have said.

Speaking to the Standard at the recruitment ground at Garissa Show ground, Mrs. Shamsa Mohamud Jama the NYS inspector in charge of Garissa County said ladies from the region generally stayed away from joining the ongoing recruitment due to the culture fears of being seen as arrogant to participant in exercise seen by many locals as designated for men only.

She said “Out of the thirty slots required to be taken up by female candidates in the enlisting program from the three sub-counties that we have so far covered (Balambala, Dadaab, Modogashe and Garissa) will managed to get one lady who was brave enough to come out and join us”,.

“We were targeting to enlist twenty recruit from each sub-county out of the seven sub-counties that made up of Garissa County. Twenty male and 10 female recruits, unfortunately out of the three sub-Counties we have conduct the exercise so far ladies were not turning to take their slots while young men have come out overwhelmingly”, She added.

Mrs. Fatuma said despite many jobless girls were willing to enlist into the service to gain life skill training to help themselves and family they were concern more about how the community particularly the parents and immediate family members will perceive them. 

 She said that girls from the county whose population are predominately Somali community kept away from the recruitment centers for fear of stigmatization by the local community, which abhors ladies from doing some jobs such as joining discipline forces, which involves a lot of physical drills and mingling with opposite sexes (men).

“Am from Garissa and a Muslim, I join NYS and I found that its good because you get a lot of life skill training by doing many courses that will be the recruits in facing the challenges of live and unemployment. I would encourage my fellow ladies to come out in large and take up their chances,” Mrs. Jama said.

“Girls from this area are not taking up National Youth Service and guess the reason is more of culture stereotypes, but we hope that in our remaining areas such as Ijara, Fafi and Hulugho they will come out and take their preserved slots,” she noted.

Mrs. Jama said in all the centers they have so far carried out the recruitment drive young men were turning up in big numbers making the exercise competitive in comparison to previous years, when few youth were willing to join NYS. However, ladies are conspicuously absent from the recruitment venues as candidates.

Girls in the area normally shy away from forces because of cultural and religious teachings that prohibit women from exposing any part of their bodies and wearing of tight and Islamic women dresses such as trousers and exposing tops.

The nationwide recruitment for National Youth Service started countrywide on Monday and is expected to come to a close on Friday this week.