INSIDE THE LIFE OF SOME AVERAGE VILLAGE GIRL IN A MALAWIAN COMMUNITY
By: Zione Kamtambe
Tags: Rape, Injustice, Girls Education, Girl Child, Rural Area

Photo by Stephanie Braconnier on Unsplash

INSIDE THE LIFE OF SOME AVERAGE VILLAGE GIRL IN MALAWIAN COMMUNITY

A young girl in one of Malawi's rural communities is forced to stay out of school to support her family which is facing abject poverty.

There is no food to eat at home or proper clothes to wear at school. She has no choice but to go out and do piece works to support her family.

Society norms which favor male child, lack of sex education, early marriages, illiteracy, rape, and other challenges, all form a web that traps a girl child in the endless circle of poverty in her childhood and adulthood.

The favored male child who is given an opportunity to go to school who is taken as a savior of the family may become addicted to drugs and alcohol, and waste parents' resources or he might destroy the future of our girls and walk away freely.

When in school and he happens to impregnate a girl child, he continues studying while our girl child drops out of school and start her journey towards endless problems while this male child goes further with education, feels that this girl is not good enough for him and dump her together with the child.

The girl will marry another man and before she knows it, she has 5 children before reaching 30 years and 4 or 5 ex-husbands who provide little or no support to the children causing the woman to even fall into a deep state of despair.

The increased population means little or no land for farming which sadly is the full-time income source of about 80% of Malawi’s population.

Little or no land means prolonged hours of hunger, longer hours of piece work in other people's farmland, abject poverty, and increased vulnerability to diseases like HIV and AIDS, early marriages, prostitution, and gender-based violence later in life.

Even some of those who go further with education are still facing some challenges including being exploited by teachers for examinations grades, and/or bosses at work for a job offer or promotion.

Everywhere our girl child is not safe yet as a nation we believe that educating a girl means educating a whole nation.

Instead of progressing, Every day, our nation is being plagued by poverty and preventable diseases like malaria while at the same time witnessing our societies decaying evidenced by increased crime and violence rates and rape.

Something must be done quickly and we can start by answering the following questions which can help us develop action plans to bring back our lost glory.

What will it take to create a good environment where our girls are promised safety, protection, and opportunity to become who they want and achieve what they want?

What should we do as a nation to help our girl child achieve their fullest potential personally and professionally?

How can we empower our women to protect themselves from exploitation and break the vicious cycle of poverty and abuse?

How to change the mind of our men so that they can start putting a face over every girl child they see and see her as their own sister, daughter, or mother?

Your opinion on these matters will be extremely valuable!