Josephine

Sierra Leone

“I have found my voice… it has always been in me, but it was just looking for the right opportunity to come out. A lot of people just think – oh, girls don’t have a voice. And that’s why I hate people that say – we work for the voiceless. Who told you they’re voiceless? We’re coming to empower the voiceless people. They always have a voice; it just needs to come out. Right now, my resistance is more powerful. It’s the kind of resistance where I make people stop and stare. I go into offices and people are like – we heard you on the radio, this issue you’re dealing with is very controversial, but we think it’s worth fighting for. I think it’s power now. It’s fire.”

Josephine’s Story

Josephine is a girl advocate, environmental activist and communications professional from Sierra Leone. She is one of the founders of Women of Wonders SL, a young women’s club that promotes girls’ education and well-being, including that of female Ebola orphans. Josephine is committed to leaving a legacy of cultivating a community of educated girls throughout Africa.

Through the two-part conversation curated by Eyala, Josephine centres her experience of gender-based violence as a girl, and how these experiences have fuelled her resistance, which she now continues in her work.

Trigger warning

This conversation contains mentions of violence and abuse which may be triggering for readers. Kindly take a moment to decide if you want to keep reading.

This is a summary of the conversation.

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Hello Josephine! Thank you for participating in this series. To start, tell me a bit about yourself. How would you describe yourself as a girl?

I think I like to think about myself as someone who is playful. But in reality, I was just this very tame girl. I can’t say I enjoyed girlhood. When I was young, I was constantly abused by my uncle at home. And I couldn’t talk about it, because my mom and my grandma were never going to believe me. This was my aunt’s boyfriend. He was a respectable man in the family who could bring home food – that was important at that time just after the war in Sierra Leone, as many families were struggling.

And he would tell me if I told anyone about it, nobody would believe me. And I said to myself, well, I guess he’s right then. Nobody will believe me.

How old were you when this started?

I was around eight years old, and it lasted for a long time. For many years, I grew up hating myself. I blamed myself for what happened because I couldn’t stop it. And I’m in a family who never believes in a girl. They always trust the words of the men and the boys. I was the only girl in my family. Most of the time when you say you’re the only girl, people think oh, so you are the princess. But when you’re the girl, you do all the house chores. After school, you have to go to the market and help your mom. While the boys were playing, I was at home cooking, or at the market helping my mom. I really needed reasons to go out, because any time I would stay home after school, my nightmare was Mr Mohamed. So, I was always happy to go do extra activities. I volunteered for everything in school. Tell me about how you resisted as a girl – how you pushed back against everything you were observing and experiencing. What was your first act of resistance?

My first act of resistance was deciding to become a member of the Children’s Forum Network, which was led by this young man called Chernor Bah. I was a small girl in primary school, but I knew I wanted to be part of that network. I would see these children speaking on TV programs and leading campaigns, and I wanted to be part of that. Those children marched the streets of Freetown. They went to parliament; they went to the president and said, this is what we want, this is what is going to make the children of this nation safer. They set the stepping stone for this new generation of people who are resisting the system. And I did! We felt as if we were part of something great. We were changing the world for children. That is a big act of resistance for a little girl!

What was it about your life that made you want to or need to push back?

People I grew up with, my parents, like my mom and my grandma. I love them, but I said to myself, I am never going to be them. Now, they can accept things the way they are, but I was not going to accept it. I was going to school. I was going to complete school. I was going to college. I was going to complete college, and I was going to make something sustainable, something wonderful out of my life. And another thing is the experience with the men who abused me. I said to myself that I’m going to have power and voice and no man is going to take advantage of me.