Women’s

rights

Growing up in Malawi as a girl child is the most difficult experience. You face a lot of abuses such as sexual, social, emotional and economical violence. All of that because of this negative culture that has been placed on you.

Right from childhood, you really don’t have a choice. Your parents have already foreseen what you will become. As a girl, it’s hard to manoeuvre. Your life is centered on really preparing for marriage. It is the overall goal. A boy is more preferred than a girl. So parents would rather not invest in the girl child nor her education.

Here people are so poor, the family looks at you as a capital. You will be sold out to the man who has more money. A girl is actually used as a revenue. She is regarder as an object. Never a subject.

When you start your mensturations, you have to go to the camp to learn more about growing up and about the traditions. And on a specific day the community hires a man who goes to the camp and rapes the girls. It’s the traditional rite of passage into womanhood. And, they are 11 or 12. After that, they are devastated. And they are not allowed to talk about it.

As a woman or mother even if it hurts you, you wouldn’t mind if your daughter goes through it because it’s a needful thing. Because if you want to get married, a man will look for a woman who has gone through the initiation camps.

When these girls go back into their communities, if they go to the hospital and ask for a birth control pill, they’re told ‘ you’re too young to get this’ or are considered as prostitute. So young people go back and they experiment and then, pregnancy happens.

If you don’t go to the camp, you are regarded as a child for your whole life. That actually forces many girls to go there. And at the same time, they scare you saying that if you don’t go, your mum or someone close to you is going to die. So it’s about controlling women at a tender age.

When a girl actually is being married off, it means she is dropping out of school. Such girl will be living in absolute poverty. And at the same time the circle of poverty keeps on going: she dropped out of school, how would she educate her children ? If she is married at 12 or before 18, it’s likely that she is going to marry off her child before the age of 18 and then the child will do the same, so it will keep on. Girls are never educated. And Malawi is one of the poorest country in the world.

Here, as soon as you’re able to walk, you’re done with your parents. Like you’re out there, walk and you have nothing to do with them except for some meals. That’s why you never see parents around. The kids are wandering around on their own. It’s like they are raising themselves. If you are a kid giving birth to a kid, it’s most likely that that kid is gonna give birth to a kid. Here, half of the population is less than 16-year-old.

Culture makes you who we are. My everyday work is to let the girls know that they are more than that and they can be able to say no to child marriage. Girls have to be empowered to have the guts to actually stand up for themselves, in front of their parents and say no to child marriage, which is basically saying no to be an object of commodity.

You have to win the hearts of the parents. At the same time, you have to rally your fellow young people. Changing the law doesn’t just start from the high level. It is mobilizing people from the community, mobilizing the traditional leaders and at national level, the members of parliament. And then, convincing the president.

No matter how much advanced the country is they’ll still look at the male figure as the head of the house. The patriarchy culture is actually not letting go. It’s all about power. Women continue being the subject and they are trained to be submissive. Everywhere.

For us to win this fight, we need boys to be a part of if and to help us speak strongly against such malpractices. I trust boys to be best ambassadors of this. So it’s up to our adolescent boys to actually understand that you don’t have to prove to this society that you are the dominant figure by undermining the woman. That there is no harm in actually sharing power at all.

"In this initiation camp, girls have to learn how to sexually satisfy a man."
Her sister got pregnant, had to drop out of school and get married at the age of 11. Since then, Memory Banda has fought tirelessly for the rights of women in her country, Malawi. This is her story.