d'mensions/the d'youville college Journal summer 2oo6

get married as soon as possible so that you get cows for your
family. Whoever marries her will give you money for the
family. So in that sense, the girl is actually a property, not a
human being.
“Or, let’s say I have a girl who is maybe five years old and you
have cows and I need cows right now so I can sell them for
money, what I’ll do is sell you this baby girl and that is how
it works. This is life.
“This baby girl, she is yours once she is grown up, but you
give me cows now or the money I need now, so then the
relationship between you and me will be because of your
property that I am keeping in my house. So, after this property
of yours grows up, you take it, it’s yours. Then this girl will go
with you: that is what is called marriage. Maybe you mistreat
her, but she can’t leave because she has no means to live on
her own. She can’t come back to me because I have nothing:
the money you gave me is gone a long time ago; your cows
are gone. Since I have nothing to give back to you, you can do
anything you want to that property.”
Sr. Suzanna then described another tragic example. “It goes
so far as some older women, beyond childbearing age,
‘marrying’ young girls in order to bear children in their name.
In this practice they are exchanged for cows/cash and remain
under the power of the woman, serving in the household and
bearing children for the woman by a man, or men, of their
choice or that of the woman. There are many young women
who have run away from these situations into towns to try
to find some kind of freedom. A good number of them turn
to prostitution as a means of supporting themselves. As a
consequence, HIV/AIDS infections have crept in since the
seventies and now have damaged the health environment very
heavily around the area.”
In exasperation, Dr. Paulino blurted out, “Now you can see the
HIV/AIDS colony throughout that area. If we do not address
the essence of the problem we will give a Band Aid solution.
The girl doesn’t have a right, a human right, and that’s the
essence behind all this. This school is supposed to free these girls
who are no human being because they have no human rights.
They are the property of somebody else, so we are talking, on
a legal level, about property law in a market economy; we are
talking about exchange of a product that happens to be similar
to a human being, but is not a human being.”
The following week, Dr. Paulino started working with the
sisters, teaching them how they can deal with their society,
how they can open their eyes, how they can see the world
and how they can change it. “It was amazing,” Sr. Theresina
recalled. “It was six hours and this was October last year. It
On the
brink of
womanhood,
this mature
girl appears
pensive about
her future.
For her,
education is
the sole route
to gender
equity.
She is one
of a handful
whose
secondaryschool
tuition
is being
subsidized
by a DYC
faculty.
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