Hi, my name is Willet Debrah, and I’ve been working alongside Water To Thrive this summer. My blog is based on a documentary on childhood marriage in Africa. This poem may be triggering to some people as it expresses  violence and/or assault. I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to explore the challenges faced in African communities, which I am no stranger to, spending my childhood in Ghana. I hope to illuminate the reality of oppression that women often face being raised through this poem especially the lack of education for younger girls and childhood marriage:

An African Girl 

The first thing an African girl is taught 

Is not that she is beautiful,

Is not that she is capable,

Is not that she is brave,

Is not that she can be the best she could possibly be 

But rather, 

She is taught that she is not her own

She is taught to clean while the boys play,

She is taught to take care of a home, for no man will marry her if she can’t, 

She is taught to be a slave for her man 

So from the day she is born, she has been learning how to serve a man,

How to pleasure him,

How to give him a child,

Her beauty is measured by her bride price

30 cows

15 goats

10 bags of yams and cassavas 

5 chickens 

Objects that are incomparable to a human life

But this is her price

This is her childhood sold to a man three times her age

To a man old enough to be her father

To a man she once called uncle 

To a man who forces himself on her every night 

This is the tragic story of many African girls 

This is sometimes mistaken as culture 

This is unimaginable 

This is child abuse

This is not culture

This is slavery 

This is rape

This is a 15 year old girl who marries a 50 year old man

This was her childhood 

This was her only education

This is the source of her death

This is the story of thousands of African girls.