This is it. I have had it up to here. I am tired. I feel drained. I feel like screaming on top my voice, but then, my voice is already hoarse because I have been screaming these past weeks and it seems nobody is listening. I have no energy left in me. I feel like I have said all that I needed to say. I have screamed, whispered, written and cried, marched but none of this has been heeded. What is there left to do now?
Wouldn’t you feel exhausted and numb if you heard that an old man has defiled a five-month old? Wouldn’t you feel hopeless if you heard that a 13-year-old girl has been impregnated by her stepfather who later chased her away from home? Just as she thought she would find peace and a home at her uncle’s place, the uncle demands to have sex with her and when she refuses, she is chased away again. She is now eight months pregnant, homeless and destitute.
It is mind-boggling and shocking to hear of a father demanding sex from his biological daughter. Why this moral decay? What has happened to this so-called “God fearing” country? These are just a few of cases that are reported. There are still many more that go unreported.
Every day we wake up to stories of babies, girls and women being sexually assaulted. It is becoming scary to even leave a girl child with her father. This is disturbing. It shouldn’t be like this. This country’s moral fabric has collapsed. It will take all of us playing a role to stop this moral decay. We cannot sit on the side and watch as women and girls are sexually assaulted, their innocence taken away and their future shattered.
As Malawi joins the international community in observing the 16 Days of Activism, one can only hope that authorities will not give these issues the usual lukewarm attention.
It is quite exhausting to be saying the same thing over and over again, without seeing change. I fear for myself as a woman. I fear for my sisters. I am afraid some man will sexually hurt that newly born baby. The thought of not being safe even in one’s home is very distressing. We need to put a stop to the rape culture.
