Stop The Pity (Another Rant)
I think it’s safe to say that we live in a pretty misogynistic society. Where we pretend to be on the side of women, vying for their rights in the eye of the public simply because feminism is a force that can no longer be suppressed.
I speak from the perspective of an African female and the amount of pity people express because of what I am is simply disgusting. I don’t need no damn pity. If I wanted some damn pity, I would have gone to a damn church or something. Society must realise that feeling sorry and offering seemingly empathetic glances is not enough.
We need to emphasise then re-emphasise the importance of educating African females. Don’t you dare bring about this “females are the ones which are suffering the most due to the patriarchal environment they live in” argument only to be the same person benefiting from the suppression of female rights to education as well as this overall unspoken consensus that females are to receive our pity and nothing more. You wanna know why females are suffering? It sure as hell isn’t only because of the patriarchal environment we’re raised in. It’s simply because society consciously acknowledges the struggles of an African woman yet willingly fails to better their livelihoods. Governments need to stop hiding behind the phrase “We’re doing all we can…” because guess what? IT’S NOT ENOUGH!
WE DON’T NEED YOUR PITY! What we need is the same opportunities as the rest of the population, what we need is for the world to stop casting pitiful glances down our way like we cannot do and/or be better, what we need is for racial and gender barriers to be torn down, what we need is a voice.
Women’s education – The path to the Presidency in Malawi
BLANTYRE, (IPS) – On an elegant veranda adorned with a red carpet, Malawi’s Vice President Joyce Banda recalls how her childhood friend Chrissie Mtokoma was always top of their class and how she struggled to beat her. But now decades later Banda is a likely contender for the country’s presidency in 2014, while Mtokoma lives in poverty. “She went to school in the village and I went to school in the town,” begins the highest-ranking woman in Malawi politics. “I would get home Friday evening and Chrissie would be waiting for me by the roadside.” Banda tells parallel narratives contrasting her own upbringing with that of Mtokoma’s. “In the village school, Chrissie was first in her class, all the way to standard six (grade eight),” she tells IPS. “I was always number two or three, always fighting to beat her. But I couldn’t.”
Later, both girls were accepted into prestigious secondary schools. But after just three months, Mtokoma was forced to drop out. “Chrissie’s uncle couldn’t pay for a second semester,” Banda says. “That was it for Chrissie. She went back to the village and into a vicious cycle of poverty, ignorance, early marriage, and then early motherhood. By the time I finished school, she had maybe five children. And today, Chrissie is where I left her.” Banda maintaines she was only able to stay in school thanks to the middle-class income her father earned working as a policeman. “So I went on, finished, and now I am vice president of this land,” she tells IPS. “Chrissie, she is locked up in the village, in poverty. And that makes me angry. Why am I here and she is not?” As Banda entered adulthood, these childhood memories drew her attention to the benefits of education, and especially economic empowerment, to which she has dedicated much of her life.
Gossip's role in HIV Prevention in Malawi
Episode of @ThisAmericanLife can also be located here http://tal.fm/444
Submitted by @myworstthoughts.
Up to 40,000 children mine gold in Mali: rights group
Between 20,000 and 40,000 children work in artisanal gold minesin Mali, Africa’s third-largest producer of the precious metal,Human Rights Watch said in a report Tuesday.
In a statement, HRW said that “children as young as six dig mining shafts, work underground, pull up heavy weights of ore, and carry, crush, and pan ore.”
It also said that many children “work with mercury, a toxic substance, to separate the gold from the ore. Mercury attacks the central nervous system and is particularly harmful to children.”
HRW children’s rights researcher Juliane Kippenberg said children carried loads heavier than their own weight, climbed into unstable shafts, and touched and inhaled mercury, one of the most toxic substances on earth.
Children interviewed complained of regular pain in the back, head, neck, arms or joints, as well as coughing and respiratory diseases.
“One boy about six years old described the pain he felt when digging shafts with a pickaxe for hours on end. Another boy said that ‘everything hurts’ when he comes home after a day’s work underground.”
Many children worked alongside their parents to supplement meagre incomes, while others migrated to the mines by themselves and ended up exploited and abused by relatives or strangers who take their pay.
Some girls are sexually abused.
Children come to the mines from other parts of Mali, as well as Guinea, Burkina Faso and other neighbouring countries, HRW said.
Citing figures from Mali’s ministry of mines, it said the country exported about four metric tonnes of gold every year, worth about $218 million (more than 162 million euros) at November 2011 prices.
Most is exported to Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.
The rights group urged the government to implement existing strict laws on child labour and compulsory education, but added that “local officials often benefit from artisanal gold mining and have little interest in addressing child labour.”
It also urged businesses that have not yet done so, “to put in place procedures to ensure their gold has not been mined by children.”
(Source: , via notyetperfection)
