Freetown Chronicles: Questions for the Nation-Womb

The womb huh? The force it is. Life producer, carrier of sacred knowledge, destroyer. The womb. The woman. Simone de Beauvoir may find a lot of my writing quite, well for a lack of better words that will lead me to use some text book academic jargon, hetero-normative. I find my own writing these days to be highly so, I won’t place blame, it simply derives from the society I find myself in. This post is going to be short. 

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I remember the first time I walked into an influential man’s office in freetown, hopeful and excited. Our conversation about my BIG DREAM left me enthralled by his understanding, only to discover that the gateway into my womb was the basis of his interest. Gateway into my womb via …well we are all adults here. Upon the launch of the MamaYe campaignwhich aims at improving maternal and newborn survival, the annual fistula awareness day/week happening today in Bo and the kick off Welbodi Week which will focus on health for women and children, I cannot help but think a lot of womanhood and womanness especially in my home country of Sierra Leone.

I was inspired by Val Tucker’s talk at TEDxFREETOWN a couple of week’s back. Val, the program manager at IPAS an organization that advocates for safe abortion sites, spoke of her own story of unsafe abortion. It was graphic, yet real, abortion is never an easy process for most. Her talk reminded me of the multitude of layers that women are required to penetrate and operate in. From health care issues, to social justice, to political activism and economic autonomy, the walls to liberation and freedom are thick and often times inaccessible.

I am never quite sure when our male ministers and even some female ministers speak about empowering women in Sierra Leone, whether they wholly and truly grasp the depth of what they are saying. To empower. We throw words like EMPOWER like confetti all the time, making declarations about women being the nation. The nation as synonymous to women and womanhood, yet the ‘she’ the ‘fe-male’ like the ‘nation’ is often relegated to the peripheries of society and utilized only upon demand or when required. How does one empower a woman and thus the nation when an abortion bill passed in 1862 is still a law limiting her sexual reproductive rights, when rape cannot be openly spoken about, when climbing the business ladder often times is rife with sexual exploitation, when 12 out of 65 community health facilities meet the requirement to facilitate safe deliveries, when we cannot even pass a 30% quota for female representation in parliament? The nation, thus the woman,  in effect is been sold short. 

I recognize that I am a privileged Sierra Leonean woman with enough time to pursue her dreams and work. Time, womanhood, the nation. Time is a grand privilege that most women are not afforded as we navigate our way through social political and economic spheres of self/national development.

I have no solutions, I do not speak for all women, I do not think it is a hope-less situation. I am merely observing injustice and wondering HOW DOES ONE BEGIN TO PROCESS THIS ALL…for the nation. For the womb.

Like I said,

This post is short.

Fambul dem this is how we do…