WOMANKIND Worldwide is guided by what women in different countries say they need to feel able to speak up and change life in their own homes and communities. Here’s one example of how £5 a month can provide courageous girls and women with the practical support and protection they need.
Protect one girl and you protect hundreds more13 year old Aberash is fighting harmful traditions in Ethiopia – female genital mutilation (FGM), and forcing girls to marry men against their will.
She trembles as she tells her story to village meetings and at events attended by journalists and MPs. Circumcised at three, married off at 12 to a man who repeatedly anally raped and beat her. Injured internally. Forced again and again to return to her husband by her family. Then eventually found by WOMANKIND Worldwide’s local partner and given protection and legal help to get a divorce.
Aberash is now determined that other girls should not have to go through what she has, in the name of family honour. So she is courageously speaking out, helped by WOMANKIND. And her words, and those of other girls like her, are having an amazing impact. They are changing attitudes and changing laws.
FGM has now been abandoned by the people in one area of Ethiopia. In January 2005 the law was changed to ban female genital mutilation and ‘marriage by abduction’ where girls are snatched and raped and then forced to marry the rapist. Our challenge now is to tell girls and women about their new legal rights, and to help them to use them.
The safety net your £5 a month could buyQuite simply, your help could make the difference between two girls a year in Ethiopia being able to speak out safely or not.
It means knowing that even if they are shunned by their family for doing so, and even if they face threats and anger from vested interests in their community, they have the means to stay safe and survive.
For another girl like Aberash, this is the safety net that your monthly donation can buy:
When a girl forced into a violent marriage is trying to get a divorce, her husband’s beatings could kill her. Her family may shun her. We can give her somewhere safe to live.
Even if a girl or woman has a legal right to divorce, because she has been forced to marry a man who raped her to save family honour, she may have no way of using that right because she can’t read or write, and has no money. We can provide her with legal aid and support.
To be able to survive independently, without her family behind her, a woman needs to be able to read and write. We can teach her, and train her in new skills to earn a living.
Change comes one woman at a time. We can put courageous women in touch with others also trying to change things so they can combine their strength and find emotional support.
When you’re going round to meetings, speaking out against a harmful practice, it can be frightening. We can provide safe transport and someone with status in the community to accompany you.
Our partners on the ground come together, with the help of donations, to push for change at the national level to get laws passed to protect women’s human rights. And then they go out and make sure women and men know about these rights.
