Girl Rising Page #6

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thing in Sierra Leone.

Almost everyone listens to it.

On the radio show I'm able

to talk to lots of girls

all over the country and help them.

Every week we discuss a problem.

I don't mean a physics problem,

I mean real stuff.

One time a girl named

Esatu called in.

She lived with her

aunt who used her

to run errands instead of

letting her go to school.

Even worse her aunt's boyfriend had

a really bad wandering hand problem.

Poor Esatu didn't know what

to do so she called the show.

I thought about what I would do.

I told her to tel her Mom

everything, to not be afraid.

She wasn't doing anything wrong

and that she should be going to school.

A few weeks later she called to

say she was back at home

living with her Mom and going to school.

She said I helped her

solve her problem.

When I'm older my plan is

to have my own TV show

solving the greatest

misteries in the world.

Welcome to Dr. Mariama's

Miracle Mistery Show

in which I, Mariama, find

solutions to the planet's

most vexing problems.

Filmed here in Freetown in

front of live studio audience.

My big dream is to go to outer space,

to be the first African in space.

But the truth is, I've never

been on an aeroplane.

Actually, I've never even

been to another country.

But I'm not afraid to dream big.

While I was busy dreaming, Papa

was having some problems of his own.

He was being criticized by

other people in my town

about me hosting the radio show

and staying out at night with

my friends from the radio station.

One night when I was out

he found out where I was

and stormed in.

I've never seen him so angry.

Papa refused to let me host the show.

I tried to talk my way out of it, which

is something I can almost always do

but he didn't wanna listen.

That night I didn't sleep.

I told you my parents never

went to school, right?

Well what I didn't tell you

was what Hava told me.

That people in those

days thought kids

who went to school lost

respect for their parents.

I worry that maybe my father thought

I'd lost respect for him by

having a job at a radio station.

For the first time I had a

problem I couldn't solve.

I thought - what would Isaac Newton do?

For every action there is an

equal and opposite reaction.

Newton's third law.

I needed to find a force

equal to my father.

Someone my father would listen to.

Maybe Hava could be my force.

So I borrowed a radio

and turn it to Eagle 91.3

I hated to hear the show

going on without me.

Hava really listened.

She liked what she heard.

She told Papa that he

might have made a mistake.

He agreed to hear me out.

I told him all the good things

the radio show is doing

like the way I was able to help

Esatu go back to her mother.

By being on the radio I could

help even more girls like her.

Hava said I should

have another chance.

Finally Papa agreed to let me

carry on with the show.

Only if I promised to come

straight home afterwards

and always let him or

my Moms know where I was.

I was back on the air.

Now everything is cool again.

So you out there, watch

this space because one day

you're gonna see Dr. Mariama's

Miracle Mistery Show.

Now there's nothing to stop me.

Nothing in the world.

Nothing in the universe.

Because I am the lucky one.

Girls are not the problem.

They're problem solvers.

You want to slow

the spread of the heat?

Educate a girl.

You want to grow the global economy?

Educate a girl.

So what exactly changes

when the 600 million girls

in the developing world

get a good education?

Everything.

If my husband heard these

words he might kill me.

So might my father or my brother.

Or anyone of thousands of my countrymen.

Killed because I want to learn.

Killed because I want to read.

For? my own truth.

Because I am a girl.

Now that I am no longer a child

I cannot show you my face.

I must wear the shroud

of blue. A shell.

I am a girl masked and muted.

So what can you truly know of me?

AMINA,

Afghanistan

But I will speak.

I will not be silenced.

My story is like thousands

of others. Millions.

No one bothered to record

the date of my birth.

As a girl I was considered

unworthy of a record.

I am told my mother burst into

tears when she learned my sex.

Set me aside in a dirt.

She already had one son

but wanted another.

Wanted a status of being

a bearer of boys.

My mother never learned to read or write.

She's never opened a book,

never written in a diary.

Can't even decide for the

scribbles on the bag of rice.

From the age of 3 years old

I spent my days working.

My hands and face were

chapped from carrying

icy mountain water to wash men's hands.

I woke before dawn,

cleaned the house,

washed the clothes, the dishes.

I carried my siblings on my back

until they were old enough to walk.

I learned early to serve.

I learned early that this is the way

things were always intended to be

for the women of my family.

A lifetime of servitude.

My happiest times were the

few short years of my education.

I learned to read and write

on an old blackboard

fixed to a crumbling stone wall.

Girls in other parts of my country

where the Taliban were in tight control

weren't allowed to go

to school at all.

Weren't allowed to step

outside their homes,

so I was always aware of my privilege.

I was 11 years old when my father

arranged for me to be married.

My mind was of little value,

but my body could settle

a dispute, pay a debt.

My body is a resource which can

be spent for men's pleasure

or profit.

Who will care that I have

been married against my will

for 250000 afghanis,

roughly 5000 dollars?

For that price my father

offered me in marriage to a cousin.

My empty-head mother

approved the match.

When the transaction was complete

they spent the money to

buy a used car for my brother.

I'm an Afghan woman

and I know from history

that it hasn't always been this way.

On my wedding day I tried to

think about all the many

strong Afghan women before me.

I've heard about Malalai,

Rabea Balkhi, Zarghuna Ana.

Women who lived a hundred years ago.

They could read and write.

They spoke their own minds and

were heroes for my country.

But now I'm imprisoned in marriage.

Only allowed outside in this cover.

There's no opening for

my mouth to talk.

My eyes are hidden beneath

this embroidered cage.

The first night of my marriage

my new husband barely spoke.

And the seed he planted was

not only the son he wanted,

but the anger that has

grown in me ever since.

I vowed that night I would find

a way not only to endure,

but to prevail.

The midwife who delivered

my son without complications

said I was one of the lucky ones.

More women die giving birth in Afghanistan

than in any other place in the world.

When I birth the baby,

prays Allah, a boy

I behaved dutifully.

As I suckled his innocence at my breast,

cupped his tiny feet in my hands,

all I felt was impatience.

Impatience because we are poor,

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