A female volunteer at the Movement for the Promotion of Gender Equality in Liberia, (MOPGEL), a nonprofit organization, is encouraging women and girls to be part of sustainable advocacy to effect a change in their respective communities.
Ms. Seyti Tarley, a volunteer Program Assistant at MOPGEL, said she was born in Sinoe County, one of Liberia’s fifteen political sub divisions located in the South East and hailed from the sapo ethnic group—a traditional driven tribe.
Ms. Tarley said the ethnic group along with other ethnic groups believes that women and girls shouldn’t be educated but rather get married and be in the kitchen cooking, cleaning up and above all, engage with farming work with their respective husbands.
According to her, traditional and cultural practices during the past four decades had deprived many women and girls’ education; and training. Something she narrated had made those women who in years passed married without education and training living in poverty and depressions.
Ms. Tarley who was addressing the Advocacy Lens in house story tell forum, said, the situation makes more Liberian aging women and children more vulnerable, especially those in rural communities. She indicated that, despite the fact that Liberia elected the first female President in Africa, traditional and cultural practices that deprived women and girl’s opportunities such as education, training, political affiliations still exist.
She however frowns on men who still subscribed to those traditional practices to come to denounce and join other men who had joined the Gender Equality movement to improve those traditional practices to engender a society of competition between women and men.
She illustrated a story of a video she watched about a class room via social media. In that video, she disclosed that, the teacher single out a female student to leave his class—indicating that he doesn’t want to see her anymore in his class without any reason.
The student’s classmates look on without a word to stop him. The teacher asked if he was unfair to their classmate. He remarked, “Yes! I was unfair to her”, but nobody stop me, pointing out that, “If you don’t help to stop injustice, the same injustice will one day come to you”.
This story she stressed, clearly points to situations women, girls, those with disabilities and children are facing in Liberia—indicating, that the most affected are in rural communities while those of us in the urban areas think it’s fine since it doesn’t affect us. Every woman, girl wherever you find yourself today must stand up for a sustainable advocacy to stop injustices in Liberia.
“Gender inequality in Liberia no doubt hasn’t changed eighteen years ever since Liberia elected former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as the first female President in Africa. The status of women and girls in religion, politics and above all, in traditional settings remain uncertain”, she lamented.
Ms. Tarley who inspires the advocacy lens story telling forum to priority rural areas to get first hand information, said in most Liberian communities, men are regarded as the breadwinners while girls are held back waiting for their breadwinners to come and married them. She indicated that, it’s sad to know that in the 21th century, women and girls are still deprived of landownership in some tribes and above all, they’re pre-arranged for marriage.
She told TAL that in her teen age, she considered herself the blessed among her peers when she started elementary education in rural Juazon district in Balabokre city, Sinoe County. “I attended the juarzon Elementary and junior high school, and later relocated to Monrovia to my oldest brother who fears that tradition will hold me down”, she said. “When I came to Monrovia, I was surprised to see the enrollment of more girls in school as compared to rural communities”, she mourns.
“Harboring the fear that I could be taken back to rural Liberia, my brother sent me to Sierra Leone to enroll in that Country educational system. I attend Hartford secondary school for Girls in moyamba in Sierra Leone. When I got promoted to the 10th grade, I returned back to Liberia because of illness”, she revealed.
While in Liberia, she attended the Booker T. Washington Institute (B W I) until the civil war came. During the civil war in Liberia she fled to the Ivory Coast 1990, but the French langue became problem that she returned to Liberia and enrolled at the R.C Lawson Institute in Congo town, where she obtain a high school diploma.
After her graduation, she enrolled at the Zion Community College studying Accounting until the 1996 war in Monrovia that destroyed properties and human lives erupted. With the goal to venture out of Liberia, she traveled to Nigeria with a friend but encountered difficult given that it was her first time to travel out of Liberia. Ms. Tarley informed TAL that she briefly stayed with a friend who accommodated her for few months before moving to the refugee camp in Nigeria.
At the refugee camp she experienced the real life of refugees, hosted by a Liberian lady taking care of four children, making them six in a room. “Six of us were sharing one single bed and to obtain food, safe drinking water, and other household supplies was a challenge”, she indicated.
The situation was unbearable to the effect that she almost give up in life—but a friend like sister introduced her to a church. While worshiping with the Church, they gave her a home and another friend helped her to get a job in a super market. After two years of employment in the super market, she was informed that her mother was found in Ghana at the Buduburam Refugee camp. Exited by the news, she left for Ghana and met her mother who was reported missing during the civil war.
Encouraging women and girls, she indicated that life challenges can be overcome when we have faith in God Almighty—stressing it was God’s divine interventions that have me here today.
In Ghana she went to the Accra Teacher Training School and obtained a C certificate. “As a refugee, it was challenging to achieve this goal, but after my graduation, I got an assignment to teach the Mazart Academy a Ghanaian school”, she stressed. She thought in the school for three years and joined the Movement for the Promotion of Gender Equality in Liberia MOPGEL as a volunteer, for two years before moving back to Liberia.
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