By Mukakamanzi Esther

In the above video, I talk with girls about the problems they face and why they don’t stand up to say anything about it. When I was doing research, I found out that women and girls who face the problem of gender-based violence are often between the ages of 8 and 18. This is because they are raised by people who tell them that they are inferior to the boys. They tell them what to do and how to be instead of accepting how they are. All this builds a wall of the gender bias. I realized that most girls don’t understand the problems they are facing, because when you see something over and over it, just seems normal.

The problems I see include: 

• Girls not reaching their goals academically, because we are told that our next step after high school is getting married.

• Girls in school are not allowed to do certain activities. For example, if we see a mango in a tree, we cannot go get it because if someone sees us climbing a tree, we will seem boyish and no one will wish to marry us. This sort of issue is present in many activities, such as sports and music.

• Girls don’t want to be that successful because if you are more successful than the boys around you, no one will wish to marry you. In my country and neighboring countries, a girl getting married is what will make parents proud, so this controls everything we do as young girls. 

• And the biggest problem with gender is that it tells us how we should be rather than recognizing how we are.

I want to encourages self-empowerment and action to overcome these problems. I do not want people from the outside trying to change our culture, because I know we can maintain our culture and have gender equality.