Two Girls – Two Stories
June 18, 2021
The above girl is lovely, right? The beads look pretty on her long, elegant neck. She is quite a beauty.
The beads on her neck unfortunately spell doom for her. Beading in the Masai and Pokot culture means a whole lot of things. To the untrained eye, they are just ornaments of beauty. Beneath the surface, however, the beads across her neck and shoulders means there is one Masai warrior (known as a Moran) who is publicly known to have sex with her. She sleeps in a different hut from everyone else at her home. Because she is not truly married, other Moran’s have access to her, and she cannot say no.
The Moran and other Morans in the neighborhood are allowed to visit her for sex. Worse still is that if she conceives, she will either be forced to procure an abortion or the village elders will wait for her to give birth.
The elders will then put tobacco in the nose of the child and block the mouth until the child dies. None of the men will take responsibility for marrying the girl. This is molestation and rape, and it goes unreported. Thus are the ways of the culture.
The girl’s parents will build a hut for her, so they will not be an impediment to the Morans who visit the girl at night. Beading starts at the age of 9 upwards.
And so the question begs the answer: ‘Who in their right mind would allow their child to go through this?? Suffer the African girl-child….
The above girl is an excellent student. Extremely intelligent, she has a bright future ahead of her. She excelled at the just concluded examinations. She not only topped the charts at her school, she had the highest marks in her county.
Unlike the Masai girl who is in danger of FGM beading and being tossed away as a sex slave, the student above is in danger of early marriage if she does not get into a Secondary School. Her mother is struggling to feed her and her other 3 siblings; this girl has already lost an older brother due to neglect and hunger.
This student needs funding, so she can go to a boarding school. She will then have the opportunity to better her life and afterwards, help her mother take care of her siblings. She is willing to learn, and any opportunity given to her will be a welcome relief. Her mother who is a casual laborer does not have the capability to take her to school, and so a brilliant young mind is going to waste.
When she asked her mother about the chances of her getting the funding, the mother said she has tried everything and failed. She told her daughter she should just wait for God to come and take her home. When such words are uttered by a parent to a child, it is heartbreaking and completely devastating. The mother is truly depressed, and she is taking her daughter down with her.
Examples such as this are the reason we are appealing for donations to help save other such of girls. There are countless cases of girls in need of support. We would like to help as many girls as possible, but we are limited due to finances.
The Pokot girls who we supported through Secondary school and into college were all saved from beading, female genital mutilation (FGM) and early marriages. The girls all finished college and received jobs as teachers back home in their communities. Those that got married chose their own partners; they were not forced to marry old men because these girls were educated and knew their rights.
As we work through the Choice Club mentorship program at the schools, we pray for continued funding in order that our work to assist the many needy and urgent cases may continue on.