I Am a Girl from Africa Read online

  On this early evening I am deep in conversation with Chilu, one of the few women invited from a local community to join this gathering of high-level dignitaries for the launch event. As our voices bounce back and forth over the soulful African music playing softly in the background, she says, “Aaaa, my sister, God did not forget us. Me, I almost died with all of my pregnancies, like so many women in my village. So, eeee, us, we thought God had forgotten us. But, today, my sister, today I know that God did not forget us.” Tears glisten in her eyes.

  I can feel myself tearing up as well. “God never forgets us, Chilu. He never forgets us.” I place my hand on her shoulder.

  Up above our heads the sky is slowly turning bright orange as the sun races toward the horizon, creating an enchanting, colorful dusk that reminds me of Goromonzi. I let go of Chilu’s shoulder, look up, and lose myself in the beauty of the sky. I think of the power of ubuntu, that when we uplift one person, we are all uplifted, that every person’s life has value. I feel truly humbled to have been part of uplifting Chilu’s community and bringing lifesaving access to healthcare across Zambia. Still, I know I must do more.

  How else can I create more impact for other women and girls across Africa and globally? I want to search for more impactful solutions, and I resolve to do just that. To persevere in my work with passion and persistence. What I don’t know in this moment is that ten years later, the maternal mortality initiative that I was part of championing in Africa will have eventually impacted 10.2 million women globally, creating the necessary conditions to experience healthy pregnancies and safe deliveries across forty-eight countries, the majority of which are in Africa, my beloved home.

  Now that Gogo is gone, I place my hand on my heart and speak to her for answers. I feel the soft weight of her hand against my chest, I feel again her big-as-the-sky love for me that has sustained me for all these years.

  Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable.

  —Kenyan proverb

  11

  My heart is pounding wildly as I enter the room. “It is such an incredible honor to meet you, Your Excellency,” I say, and I mean this wholeheartedly as I extend my trembling hand to a stately African woman in her late fifties. She wears a bright pink tailored jacket with large pink and yellow buttons and a blue, yellow, and pink African print head scarf that perfectly frames her round face and bright brown eyes. When she takes my hand, her handshake is firm, her demeanor friendly, and I immediately feel my anxiety subside.

  We sit down and she gets right to the point: “We must liberate women from gender inequality. It is unjust that half of the world’s population continues to face inequalities at all levels of society.”

  I nod enthusiastically. I’m struck by her choice to use the word “liberate,” which Gogo also used when she talked about Zimbabwe’s independence from colonialism.

  “This is the greatest injustice of our time. One in three women and girls globally will experience some form of violence in their lifetime.” The powerful conviction in her voice tells me she is determined to do something about it.

  Injustice? Yet another revolutionary word. I am transfixed, mesmerized by her fierce determination, the kind I have only ever seen in Gogo’s eyes in quite the same way.

  I think of how I have looked up to this woman for so long, since she was a freedom fighter in the anti-apartheid movement in her home country of South Africa. I vividly remember the first time I heard her name—Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka—when I was still a young girl.

  * * *

  I am in Epworth for the weekend, sitting on my favorite branch in the mango tree, watching over Osi and the children as they play soccer in the yard, waiting for customers to come to the vegetable stand. Suddenly, a tall white man charges into the yard, rounds up all the children in the community, and shouts “ACTION!” at the top of his lungs. He does not explain anything or seek permission. I hide up in the tree, behind the mango leaves, watching as the confused and frightened-looking children scatter wildly in all directions, while two other white men holding large cameras on their shoulders charge toward them. What exactly is going on?

  Back in Harare, Uncle Sam explains that I have just witnessed the making of an upcoming film—Cry Freedom—about Steve Biko, a student activist who died fighting to end apartheid in our neighboring country of South Africa. I don’t know what apartheid is, so Uncle Sam explains: “It is racial segregation imposed by white South Africans against black South Africans, forcing them to avoid contact with white South Africans, forcing them to live in separate areas and to use separate public facilities.” I am deeply perplexed and upset by this explanation, which doesn’t feel like an explanation at all.

  “But the country belongs to black South Africans, no? So, how can they be discriminated against because of the color of their skin, they are Africans in Africa? Where are they supposed to go live, exactly?” I am bewildered.

  The next day, Uncle Sam buys me the book I Write What I Like by Steve Biko, a chronicle of his efforts fighting apartheid. The story grips me totally, and I become instantly fascinated with all the stories of South Africa’s anti-apartheid freedom fighters. I think of Gogo and the ambuyas and sekurus who fought for freedom in Zimbabwe, liberating our people and finally bringing an end to colonialism. I feel connected to this South African story in a deep and lasting way.

  Several years later, in 1990, another freedom fighter, Nelson Mandela, is released from prison following twenty-seven years of incarceration by the white South African oppressors. Instead of retaliating against those who mistreated and oppressed him, Mandela forgives them in the spirit of ubuntu, becoming South Africa’s first black president and bringing an end to apartheid: a landmark moment for the African continent. Among President Mandela’s handpicked cabinet members is a female freedom fighter called Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who fought alongside him in the anti-apartheid movement.

  This is the first time I learn of Phumzile and all she has done and fought for. Just like Gogo, she stood up for what was right, liberating her people and restoring their dignity. In that moment, Phumzile becomes my role model, and I carefully follow her trailblazing career full of “firsts” for women as covered by the media: first, she is an integral part of President Nelson Mandela’s cabinet; and then she is elected as the deputy president to Mandela’s successor in 2005, becoming the highest ranking woman in the history of South Africa.

  * * *

  Now I am meeting Phumzile for the first time. Six months ago, she was appointed as the United Nations under-secretary-general and executive director of UN Women. She now leads the United Nations entity in charge of advancing gender equality and women’s rights globally. She’s still fighting for freedom, only now in a different way.

  Phumzile pauses, looks at me, and says, “You must come work for us. You must join the fight.” I could lift off my chair, I’m so alive with excitement. I am thrilled by the opportunity to work for my role model of so many years, and even more humbled to play my part in globally empowering and uplifting women and girls, many of whom live in the developing world and come from humble backgrounds similar to mine.

  I accept the job offer with a full and grateful heart, and join UN Women in late 2013, as Phumzile’s senior advisor in charge of building strategic partnerships with communities, governments, and public and private sector partners, to develop, fund, and implement initiatives to advance equality and women’s rights around the world. I am now based in New York City, living in a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Manhattan. I hit the ground running, traveling from country to country, crossing the globe as part of my responsibilities. In rural villages, cities, community halls, and classrooms, I speak directly with women and girls who share with me their experiences and challenges.

  “People keep saying that women should be more confident, more vocal, more assertive, but the reality is that there is only so much we can do when power systems and structures are set up against us. It’s hard for women business owners to get seed funding from invest
ors, because investors expect us to fail.” This is Molly, an impassioned women’s rights activist in Sydney, Australia.

  “I don’t know what to tell you. The whole thing is just fricking crazy. When I got pregnant, I had to beg my male colleagues to donate their sick leave to me so that I could go on maternity leave. You bust your ass to work for one of the most innovative companies, but then you decide to start a family, and you are suddenly seen as an inconvenience, a burden, because the company doesn’t have a maternity leave policy.” This is Laura, a senior engineer at the headquarters of a large technology company in California, in the United States, the only country in the developed world that does not provide national paid maternity or parental leave.

  When I travel to other parts of Asia and Africa, I hear stories marked by similar frustrations: “Women here in Japan are still expected to conform to traditional societal roles. When I decided to go back to school to pursue a degree in medicine, my husband left me with two young children. He said I had brought shame to his family, because there is still this general belief that women should stay at home and raise children.” This is Akiko, a medical student at a leading Japanese university.

  “Hawu wena—hey you. Us, we grow up in charge of everything in our homes, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children. But then one day when we say we want to lead our countries, we are told that we’re not useful or capable, yet we have been leading all this time in our homes. Is that fair?” This is Nkosi, a young political activist from South Africa who shares her perspectives with me over a plate of piping hot French fries doused with malt vinegar in a trendy café in Johannesburg.

  Nkosi is right: it’s not fair, and neither is the painfully slow march of change.

  The stories are vastly different, but share a common thread: regardless of nationality, race, physical ability, color, or culture, women and girls everywhere continue to face some of the greatest inequalities in the world, simply because of their gender. I am moved by the collective resilience and determination of the women and girls I meet, and their agonizing stories fuel my passion to create more impact, to improve the circumstances of more lives, and to do it more quickly. I search for solutions and answers, because I am, as I have always been, full of questions. Why is it that despite all the progress made by the women’s rights movement, no country or company or institution in the world can yet claim to have achieved gender equality?

  * * *

  This question leads me to the realization that many issues of gender inequality are ultimately about power: who has it, how they use it, and for whose benefit. Currently, men still make the majority of decisions across all levels of society, often with less regard for the impact of those decisions on women and girls. In my small village of Goromonzi, the sekurus make all the important decisions, even though the ambuyas and sisis do the bulk of the work. The sekurus decide who goes to school, and it is often the boys. Sekurus decide who owns land, property, and livestock (usually the men), while ambuyas are left with no security or wealth of their own. I observed similar gender dimensions in my humanitarian work. In the field of HIV/AIDS prevention and care, it was often the husband who made decisions about whether his wife would get tested or receive treatment. In some communities impacted by river blindness, women community distributors needed the men’s permission to serve their communities. It becomes clear to me that if we are to achieve gender equality, we need to have more women in positions of leadership, making decisions that will benefit women and girls now and far into the future.

  * * *

  In my office, and during meetings and conference calls with colleagues and external partners, I can’t stop thinking and strategizing about how to enable more women to lead. So I head to the country that has modeled female leadership in an exemplary—and truly extraordinary—way. I travel to the African country of Rwanda.

  Despite having experienced almost unimaginable violence and suffering in the 1990s caused by genocide, in 2003 the government of Rwanda accomplished what at the outset appeared an impossible task: they elected women to 48.8 percent of the seats in parliament, making it the biggest such accomplishment of any country in the entire world.

  Now, eleven years later, Rwanda continues to have the world’s highest number of women in parliament, with 61 percent representation. In my meetings with the minister of gender and the female members of parliament, I learn about their journey to success, how women rallied together in villages and cities to ensure that more citizens saw them as viable candidates.

  “It was not easy; these positions were not just handed to us. We worked hard. We educated ourselves not only academically and intellectually, but also socially, spending months and years in communities, listening to the various issues women face so that we could properly advocate for them,” one woman explains to me. “Yes, in the beginning it all seemed impossible. There was the bias that politics was a ‘man’s job.’ In fact, even some women were not convinced. You will be in a community and you ask women if they agree with your policies, and they say yes. But then you ask them if they will vote for you, they surprise you by saying, ‘Eeee, I am not sure. I think maybe the male candidate will do a better job.’ We had to prove ourselves, and thankfully we did, with the support of our fellow female activists and, of course, our families.” Another woman chimes in, saying, “But first we had to overcome the intimidation, the violence, the sexism, and the personal attacks. Some men wanted us to stop, but we said no and showed them that us women, when we stand together, we are unbreakable. In 2006 we showed them what we are capable of achieving, when our country passed a landmark bill to address gender-based violence. In this bill, us, female members of parliament, we were able to categorize rape as a punishable crime for the first time in our country. Prior to that, perpetrators went unpunished.”

  Their fortitude is palpable—a tangible force in the room. It is, I think, truly uplifting. This is ubuntu in action! And what an extraordinary feeling, to be surrounded by women leaders who listen, take charge, and are enabled, by the power of law, to make transformative changes in the lives of women and girls.

  As I visit communities in Rwanda over the next few days, it is easy to see the results of these female leaders. Women-owned businesses are thriving. Schools are educating young boys about the importance of respecting girls, and how to show this respect through action and thought. More girls are in school, with a greater percentage studying Science and Technology, a field traditionally dominated by boys. There are more women landowners and property owners actively contributing to their country’s economic growth. Women making decisions that empower other women and uplift their communities: this is indeed incredible progress, and a working paradigm for what is possible on a global scale.

  I leave Rwanda elated and full of hope. It is truly exciting to see a country from my home continent lead in such a pioneering way, on such a vital issue. This African country is a role model for every country in the world. If Rwanda, a country that went through one of its darkest periods in the 1990s, was able to rebuild with so many women in leadership roles, then surely other countries can do the same. We can do this globally, I tell myself.

  However, the reality in other countries is sobering. When I travel to Mongolia, a county with only 4 percent female representation in the national parliament, women share with me their hesitation to get into politics, or even consider it: “It is too expensive, too time-consuming, too risky,” they say. Their hesitation echoes that of women from many other parts of the world. In India, women observe that “it is demoralizing to be held to different standards than our male opponents. To be judged by the way that we dress, or talk, or walk. To be called ‘shrill’ or ‘too emotional’ for expressing our views.” They risk not being taken seriously, and sometimes, they risk their lives or the lives of their families.

  “Eeee, when I announced my political campaign, the following evening two men came to my house past midnight,” a female candidate from Zimbabwe shares with me in a pained voice. “My h
usband answered the door and they said to him, ‘You better put your dog on a leash unless you want trouble,’ referring to me. Huhhh, the next day, me, I dropped out of the race to protect my family.”

  In the United States, in Tennessee, a female candidate shares her terrifying experience with me. “Well, the male candidate I was runnin’ against called me to his office one day. He’d been runnin’ a smear campaign against me, sayin’ all kinds of terrible things, and I’d asked to meet with him to resolve things. Well, when I arrived in his office, he closed the door, pushed me up against the wall, and threaten’d to rape me if I didn’t stop my campaign. Of course, I refused to give up. But he still won; he threw money at it and bought the whole darn election.”

  * * *

  The work is intense but exhilarating, and I can almost hear Uncle Sam say to me, You must learn to find balance in life, Elizabeth. You can’t live to work like your aunt Jane. You must also live. Yet there is so much more work to be done! I continue to live on planes and in hotel rooms, moving from one country to the next to meet with communities and policy makers and advocate for laws that will accelerate progress toward gender equality.

  On the rare occasions when I am back in New York City, I catch up with my friends from the African diaspora community over long lunches after Sunday church services. In bustling restaurants in Harlem, a neighborhood rich with black history, we share stories from back home and celebrate all that is great about our African continent: how it now has the largest mobile phone market in the world; how communities in Kenya pioneered the development of financial technology (fintech), which is now used for mobile banking globally, including in the US; how our remittances, the money that we members of the African diaspora send back home to support our families, continue to be greater every year than the total amount of aid money our continent receives from all Western donors combined, a fact that is rarely ever reported. We remind ourselves of our ubuntu, and that before we are Nigerian or Zimbabwean, or Senegalese or Moroccan or anything else, we are first and foremost Africans. We reminisce with gratitude over the mukanas given to us by our families to be here, remembering our African values—“to whom so much is given, so much is expected”—as we remind each other of our responsibility to uplift not just our individual countries, but our entire continent.