Without
doubt, education, freedom to choose a lifestyle, and merely freedom to choose life
can no longer be denied women and girls in the 21st century. CNN’s Girl Rising, which premiered Sunday
evening in the U.S., addressed many of these issues faced every day by women
and girls throughout the world. In developing nations, girls still suffer the
indignities of human trafficking, sold by families into sex slavery, and in
some places infant girls put to death as one too many mouths to feed. Poor
families need male children to carry on the family name and traditions with the
underlying theme that girl children must no longer suffer shame, illiteracy, or
abandonment.
Girl Rising stepped up to
bring these problems to national and international attention. Voices of the
rich and famous lent their star power to this effort, writers from native
countries contributed personal stories to the CNN presentation directed by
Richard Robbins. But, unfortunately, the strength of the programme seemed to
lack the necessary “oomph” for the seriousness of the problem involved. The
Cinderella, fairytale quality was never far from the surface of each of these
tales.
For example, the Nepalese
story demonstrated the tragedy of selling a child to a master because the
family could not afford to keep her. But
throughout the account, the girl was able to write songs for survival, she
dreamt of returning home to family, a family she knew cared for her but in
desperation followed the family tradition of selling a member out to masters. Eventually,
although suffering hardships, working pre-dawn to dark, and eating scraps, her
third master allowed her to be educated in night school. This is wonderful, but
does it really address the situation of the untold Nepalese girls unable to be
sent to school or return to a family never to be sold again?
In Sierra Leone, the
young heroine, not without difficulties, maneuvered her way to a talk radio
program, giving advice to girls and women on a variety of concerns facing Sierra
Leone women. How is this done in the
normal course of life in sub-Saharan Africa?
As a former resident in the Middle East, meeting many women and girls
from countries like Sudan, Sierra Leone, and the Republic of Congo, I know that
one must have “wasta” (influence) in order to even approach the idea of
speaking on radio or television. This girl not only had a family, but there had
to be a great deal of influence for her to become a radio host. Not only education, but influence is
necessary.
The authors of Half the Sky delved deeply into the
problems confronting the women of sub-Saharan Africa. True, many of their
stories had satisfactory endings, but not without years of overcoming prejudice
and struggles which those of us in the developed world can barely imagine. The
crises of FGM, hymen reconstruction in Middle Eastern countries, and the
continued sex-trafficking, alongside the magnitude of education for women and
girls must also receive continued global attention. Girl
Rising circumvented and sugar-coated many of the realities of girls with no
hope of ever receiving an education and living in the darkness of ignorance and
illiteracy. No village chieftain will
sit in front of television watching a western programme advising him that he
must allow girls and women education.
Neither will members of the Taliban, those who shot and nearly killed
young Mulala Youseffsai, subscribe to the importance of educating girls and women.
Those who watched, those who spoke, those who gave time and money know
education for girls is vital. How do we
reach those who don’t watch, won’t listen, and won’t accept the importance of
girls and women in society as other than baby-making machines?
The Egyptian story written by Mona
El Tahawy emphasizes this point. I have personally worked with the street
girls, the homeless, helpless, and certainly illiterate girls in Egypt. If the basic premise behind Girl Rising is to expose the dearth of education
in developing countries, then the Egyptian tale erased many of these benefits. Yasmin,
the young Egyptian girl, revealed that she was literate, had a family, and came
from a neighborhood that boasted at least one or possibly more televisions. Why?
She was familiar with superheroes; the bookshops which sit on virtually every
Cairo street corner sell Marvel comics in Arabic showing the superhero. Egyptian
television is filled with cartoons, in Arabic, about superheroes. No young Egyptian girl, certainly not one
wearing an hijab, would speak to a policeman without fear, about being a
superhero, even with her mother beside her.
Yasmin’s family life is
questionable. Her mother brought her in
to a police station to report a rape. Would this happen in reality? Admitting
to the police that her husband was in jail, trusting the police with an
accusation of rape against a fairly prosperous man, and then Yasmin telling the
police she was not afraid of anything, she was a superhero, just would not
happen in Cairo…even if Yasmin’s family was wealthy. Rape is not a crime which is brought to
police attention. The recent demonstrations and ill treatment by the police and
military of female protesters show the reality of announcing rape to the
Egyptian world. It’s such a disquieting circumstance that the one young woman
raped by police during the demonstration, though bravely bringing this to
national attention by suing the police in court, knew she might be outcast by her
own people for doing this. That she was not outcast was due in part because of
the international attention she received, the prominence of her family, and the
impending political elections.
Yasmin’s education and ability to
be educated was not brought in to question. State schools are available to all
children who have families, family names, even if the father is in prison. That
Yasmin’s mother brought her to the police station is unrealistic; also, the
information that the writer of the Egyptian story now claims to have lost track
of both mother and daughter is not quite believable. Cairo, though a city of 20
million, is made up of neighborhoods, and everyone always knows someone. It’s
not a city in which it’s easy to hide.
Finally, Yasmin’s violent
reaction against being called a street girl brings the hideous matter of a
devastating problem facing Cairenes. Street children, in particular street
girls, abandoned, raped, imprisoned, beaten, raped, and illiterate live
desperate existences with no hope or end in sight. These girls and the
thousands like them have deeply moving stories to tell.
These girls, or in Arabic, Il Binait Dol, are the ones we need to
hear about. They, too, would like to be considered as real humans, members of a
planet not too proud to recognize and correct the shame being perpetrated on
them every day. They, too, deserve a place among Girl Rising.
The photos above are just a few of the young girls in one of Cairo’s Islahayas.
Gwenn Meredith, Ph.D.
Founder & President
Middle East Connections Consultancy
