The women of the villages endure many hardships throughout their lives. They are slaves to their society and their culture. When they are only small girls, they are made to work in the fields. Education is still thought to be more important for boys. The girls can be sent to live with relatives, where instead of going to school, they are treated like servants. They cook, clean, and help the wives look after the babies.
The women have no control over who they marry. They are often subject to verbal, physical and sexual abuse from their husbands. Many of the villagers are from the Muslim and traditional cultures in the area which allow the husband to take on more than one wife. In these instances, one wife will usually be treated worse than the other. The husband is not obligated to give the women money for food or for the well-being of the children. This means that in addition to cooking, cleaning, sewing, and caring for the children, the women have to work on the farms and sell petty wares and produce at the market.
It does not matter if they are sick or hungry, they still have to work. They will go into debt to take their child to the doctor, if they are lucky enough to find someone to loan them the money. If the mothers cannot work, the children cannot eat. If the mothers have no money, the children have no money.
Faustina Hawa was taken to the Ivory Coast when she was a teenager with her father to farm.
“One day, a young man came to ask for my hand in marriage. I didn’t know him, but I agreed to the proposal anyway. We courted for awhile, and I soon realized I was engaged to a monster. He would beat me regularly and severely. I was frightened and young. I changed my mind. I didn’t want to spend my life with that man. I told my family, ‘I won’t marry him. He hits me.’
My mother supported me. But my father was angry. He wanted me to keep the commitment. My parents fought and fought for weeks over my future, but eventually my father demanded I marry him. So I was forced into the arrangement.
Those years were terrible. He would leave me for months at a time and leave me no money with which to eat or feed our two baby girls. When he was home, he would beat me and deny me and our children food and money. Our neighbors and landlord took care of us so we wouldn’t starve. One day, when my husband had been gone a long time, I got a job and worked very hard. I made enough money for my transportation to Ghana. I couldn’t bring my daughters then, it wasn’t safe. I left them in the care of my landlord, promising I’d be back .For two years; I worked very hard, saving nearly everything I earned. I tried to open a canteen, but after awhile I realized I was only going into debt. So I worked on the farms as a laborer, doing weeding. Then I returned for my daughters. It’s been eight years now, and my husband has never tried to find us. We live in the village peacefully.
Life is very hard for me. I have to work very hard and still take care of my children. I have to borrow money if they get sick to pay for the medicine. I make 15,000 cedis a day ($1.50 U.S.). I am always in debt. I had to send my youngest daughter away to live with my family in Takoradi. My daughter, Patience, still lives with me and is very bright and beautiful.”
In the villages, many people die from preventable illness. Children as young as 3 years old walk for over four miles through unguarded rain forest. They go to school at the age of 3. They come in tattered clothes, looking malnourished and spiritless. They come because it’s the only way to get away from laborious work and inhumane treatment from parents and guardians who feel they have no choice but to put their children to work on the farm, if they are to get enough food and money to take care of them Children are the cheapest form of labor and these poor peasant farmers cannot afford to engage the services of laborers.
Child-rearing, the upbringing of children into adulthood in a manner that is acceptable to society and beneficial to the child, has always remained the headache of some parents. Most parents dread child upbringing and some even at times regret having had children altogether due to socio-economic factors. Most parents, unfortunately, think that their children are lucky not to be going through the painful experiences that they might have gone through in their own childhood. At the slightest opportunity, therefore, they try to let their children taste their own negative past experiences. They do not realize that those experiences might have had a telling effect on their own achievement and that different people respond differently to different situations.
Children die from malnutrition and avoidable infections and diseases that are spread through contaminated water. Their lack of education means that they have few opportunities to learn skills which could help them find meaningful and long-term employment. As a result, the children at a very early age feel hopeless and give up hope for a better future.
“I taught Mariama in class 3,” said Rachel Bates, who came from the USA to volunteer in 2006. “She is a bright, strong girl who often gets in trouble for talking and hitting the other students. She always has big wounds on her legs. When I interviewed her, it was the only time I’ve ever seen her cry. And, it was the only time I cried when the interview was over.”
“I am twelve-years-old,” said Mariama. “I live with my auntie. She came and got me from my father’s village when I was three. I don’t like staying with her. I want to go back to my father. I am always late for school because my auntie makes me fetch water, cook, wash, and bathe her little girl before I can go. I get into trouble for being late at school. My auntie told me I should stop going to school because I have to watch the house. If I go to school, no one watches the house. Her other children are not late for school. On Saturdays I fetch water in the morning, and then I go to weed on the farm. After I farm, I cook, and fetch water again. Here, every day I do chores.”
The African Union (AU), formerly the organization of African Unity (OAU), adopted guidelines relating to the rights and welfare of children in July 1990, but corruption and a lack of political will means many of these legal documents never see the light of day and the people that are supposed to be protected do not even know that they exist.
So here we are: It has now been more than 50 years after the world embraced the Universal declaration of human rights; more than 25 years after the United Nations “Year of the Woman”; more than 20 years after the convention on the elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women; more than 16 years after the United Nations adopted the “Convention on the Rights of the Child” and more than 14 years after the African Union charter “On the Rights and Welfare of the Child.”
Yet despite the years that have gone past, despite speeches, the conferences, the legislation and commitments that have been made, children and women’s human rights are far from being fulfilled.
Yes, it is the year 2007 and still your mothers, your wives, sisters brothers, cousins are been assaulted and denied equal and unhindered access to education. It is 2007 and still women are beaten to death in their homes by husbands and fathers, still battered and abused as part of our daily live.
As the school was about to break for the Easter holidays, the school organized a speech and prize-giving day for Kramokrom Primary, which here in Ghana meant the greatest day of entertainment the village has seen for years and a great deal of pride for a community struggling against the odds. Theatrical comedy had the audience laughing, clowns took the stage, costumed children paraded in cultural dance, a great stereo system pumped out beats for everybody to boogie. We had an enthusiastic MC to keep up our spirits and we had the most amazing fundraising I’ve ever seen, whereby parents got to their feet, compelled by the beauty of their children, to shower them with money.
There were times I felt like showering the children with money too. They were so striking in their green and yellow outfits performing cultural dance, so bold and confident when they came to the microphone to recite poetry, so talented when it came to the theatre which held the audience in rapture. I thought back to the many hours and many mornings I spent teaching these children at the village. In that time, I got to know their unique personalities, their abilities and the passion for learning that some of them share. I used to love watching a little girl’s face light up when she would get back her jotter filled with neat sentences and perfect grammar and read ‘10/10 Excellent.’ I loved the children’s enthusiasm, the hands that shoot up in the air for every question, the children who come back after school to copy down their homework. I played games with these kids, taught them songs and football skills, explained geography and gave them an idea of the size of our universe. Now, at speech and prize-giving day, the children come to the glorious light of a crowded square where all the dignitaries, elders, teachers and parents watch them, amazed to see the brilliance of the children I know so well and am so very proud of
But it wasn’t just the children I was proud of, it was everybody. The community has been there every week mixing cement and making mud bricks for the school. The teachers have been in the classrooms so many days, suffering with insufficient wages, doing their best so the children can learn. The government brought teachers, textbooks and supplies. Parents saw the future in education and encouraged their children to go to school early and gave time for their children to do homework.
Most of all I was proud of the organization and all the volunteers. Franziska from Germany, Amber from Canada, Fernando from Spain, Rohan from Australia, Margaret Mass from USA, Marni and Doctor Joe from USA all came to the village through Young Peace Brigades. Most people would be touched by what they saw, feel sorry that children work on their parents’ farms without opportunity or learning, despair that so many rural areas in the world suffer such a fate without teachers, healthcare or resources, then go back to the city. But not volunteers from Young Peace Brigades. They didn’t just feel sorry, they didn’t just despair they looked around. They said to themselves, “Let’s make things better, let’s stop what we are doing, let’s put all of our time all of our energy all of our thoughts into making a change.” Do you think it’s easy for two young people with nothing but their ideals to build a school? They started with nothing but a blackboard propped against a tree, a box of chalk and a couple of benches just teaching the children what they could because they believed in a better future.
Now, two years later, there are real classrooms with real teachers and over a hundred children come to school every day. Other people heard of struggle and came to volunteer, bringing materials and funds and labor. It was the volunteers who brought the very materials given out as prizes yesterday, the volunteers who raised funds from abroad to allow the prize-giving ceremony to take place.
The most special thing about prize giving yesterday was that it might never have happened.
I was proud of everybody and I believe there is hope yet for the children.
Go to www.youngpeacebrigade.org to find out more about dedicated Ghanaian and international volunteers who are sharing skills and changing lives across rural remote villages in Ghana. Your time with us is worth more than your donation you give us.
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