THE WORTH OF A GIRL

I am copying here a new letter I sent out when I wrote this drama. I am attaching a PDF to this page of the article I refer to. Just GOOGLE “wives in slavery DRC” and you will get lots of links to research on DRC. And you know this is in lots of places besides DRC.

NEWS LETTER

What do you do when you get mad?

Well, I write a drama. This week I was getting angry about the 250 plus girls who were abducted in Nigeria. I am sure you have been hearing about it, even in America. The international outrage has been deafening.

Then I came across a research paper by a group here in Congo. It is called “Wives in Slavery”. It is about forced marriages which are very common. We are talking about THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of girls. No one is shouting about them. Because it is happening in small increments and because it fits the culture, no one pays attention.

There are four ways this happens:

• Marriage by sale

• Marriage by rape—a girl is raped and then forced to marry her rapist.

• Marriage by kidnapping

• Child brides

My simmer came to a boil. I wrote. My response is usually to address what I believe is the root cause of the problem. The things I can do are write and te ach.

The drama is being critiqued by various individuals who give me feedback. One of them happens to be someone with a lot of political and social influence. He is saying these kinds of dramas need to have a wider audience. His suggestions are: opinion leaders, churches, parent associations, boys and girls clubs, traditional leaders etc. We know this will take funds to get the messages out. Now, you pray for direction and wisdom how to do this.

Rachel