“VOF Week 2: (My Motivation To Be The Voice Of Our Future)”

One day morning a woman goes to the river to fetch water. When she came back she was welcomed by screams of her 6 months old baby girl. She ran into the house only to find the husband raping the baby. The baby passes on before reaching the hospital. Shocking news but to whom???????

One evening a 12 year old girl walks home from school. Little does she know that is her last day in school because the visitors her father had been preparing for were actually her suitors. A 72 year old man was going to be her husband. She has no choice and say apart from being drugged to her marital home amid sobs. This is yet another usual news cast.

A woman gets married to the love of her life. He convinces the wife to resign from her job claiming that it pays peanuts while he earns good money and can take care of them. Several months later her life becomes miserable. She becomes a prisoner. She is locked in the house with little or no food. She is battered until her face is disfigured. She has a broken arm and is missing some teeth. The once pretty and lovable lady becomes rugged and old.

These and many stories are what we get to hear and even witness in our day to day’s news broadcast. They really touch me as l watch with disgust amid sobs and wonder. Why our fellow women and daughters are being subjected to this animalism. Initially l would try and reason with men “assume that it is your mother-in-law, grandmother, daughter, wife being subjected to this”. But this does not matter because they have even gone to the extend of raping their own infants.

I get so bitter and even go personal which leaves everyone amazed at why l react so strongly. Some even as “were you once a victim” and l wonder what happened to the human part of everybody. Am l the only one sane one out here. “Do you have to fall from the top of the mountain to how it feels”.

While all this unfold l sit back and l am like someone needs to do something. It is actually dawning on me that that someone is me. It starts from you as an individual. If we all sit back and watch who do we expect to stand up and talk for us. We are the once failing ourselves and our fellow women are the victims. I know that l can be the voice of our women. I can stand up and challenge the laws that go against women and don’t recognize them as equal partners to the men. I have the confidence that l can stand up and for women, talk for them, be there with them through all this and bring change. Change for the betterment of girl child. Change to give us back our dignity and freedom. I am the Voice of our Future.