A lot of people just think girls don't have a voice. I hate when people say we work for the voiceless... They always have a voice, it just needs to come out. Right now, my resistance is more powerful... I go into offices and people are like, ‘We heard you on the radio! This issue you're dealing with, it's very controversial, but we think it's worth fighting for.’ Now, my resistance is power. It is fire.

JosephineSierra Leone

That’s the story of many immigrants’ children; your parents tell you about this country, this “El Dorado” that you don’t know, and that is a bit fantasised about. It’s a country where everything’s beautiful, where everything will be alright, and when we’re back, you’ll see that.… and then you discover that the country isn’t as rosy as you were told...

FatiNiger

To me, there are plenty of people who think like us. It's just that we need to be able to talk about them to discover them. What I mean is that collective empowerment is possible. But it's fostered by someone stepping up to the plate to be a bit of a leader. And being a leader is just opening the door and starting, it's taking the first step so that others can follow.

TchontéCôte d’Ivoire

West Africa

From Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria to Sierra Leone, the West Africa series documents 13 stories of resistance across region.

From Burkina Faso to Sierra Leone, we bring you powerful stories of girls’ resistance in West Africa, in the series #GirlsResistWA: Documenting and Amplifying Stories of Girls’ Resistance in West Africa.

Curated by Eyala founder Françoise Moudouthe, and produced with support from a team of African feminists, the series of 13 stories showcases an honest, girl-centered picture of the lives of adolescent girls in the region, what resistance means to them, and how they resist patriarchal violence.

With themes of resistance against abuse, violence, gender norms, religious indoctrination, forced identities, patriarchal violence and much more, the stories offer an opportunity to explore resistance in its multiple forms and engage in deep reflection on what this means about power in girls’ lives.

By amplifying these voices, we hope to harness the power of personal storytelling to influence change in the way West African adolescent girls think about themselves and their role in society. We also look forward to much-needed shifts in the way the world – communities, civil society, governments and donors – engages with adolescent girls in the region.

Storytellers

Adam

Mali

Aissa

Niger

Anonymous

West Africa

Clementine

Burkina Faso

Eite

Nigeria

Emma

Côte d’Ivoire

Fati

Niger

Gwendolyn

Liberia

Josephine

Sierra Leone

Kadiatou

Guinea

Musu

The Gambia

Rachel

Cameroon

Tchonté

Côte d’Ivoire

Acknowledgements

The West Africa stories of resistance was curated by Eyala founder Françoise Moudouthe. And, produced in partnership with Aissatou Bah as an interviewer; Nadia Ahidjo, Jama Jack, Edwige Dro, Chanceline Mevowanou, and Nana Bruce-Amanquah as editors; Marie Kéïta and Edwige Dro as translators; illustrated by Sarah Bozon; and with creative support from 2Heads. Eyala is a platform by, for and about African feminists. Eyala is a bilingual (French-English) platform that centres and amplifies the voices and lived experiences of African girls, women and LBTQI people who dare disrupt patriarchal norms across the continent and in diaspora communities. Eyala supports African feminists in using their voices as a rallying cry against patriarchal oppression. They create spaces where African feminists can connect in ways that are political and intimate and seek to intentionally foster sisterhood as a core principle for feminist movement-building.