To Make Sierra Leone Great...Remove the Handicap
Last week Save The Children Sierra Leone Girl Ambassador Vickie Remoe was interviewed on the Muslim Poet Show. In the interview with host Ali Kamara, Remoe shared some insights on the state of girls and women in Sierra Leone and the need for gender equality. Remoe made insightful remarks on the state of girls and women. Remoe said that the gaps in access to education and economic opportunities between men and women is handicap to national development. Watch the full interview above and check the best quotes from that interview below.
Quotes on Gender Equality and Economic Development
“If you’re in Sierra Leone and you’re not aware and angry at the state of girls in Sierra Leone then you probably have your priorities out of whack.”
“Every Sierra Leonean needs to acknowledge that protecting girls and women is not about feminism. It is about national development. We should all be invested.”
“If you look at the world today the biggest players are the ones where all citizens can actively participate in the economy as producers. If we are not raising girls to be producers, employers, creators, innovators, scientists, and mathematicians. Who’s gonna employ everybody?”
Quotes On The Burdens of Girlhood & Womanhood
“Up until recently there wasn’t really a lot of conversation around sexual harassment, we didn’t even know as women that we had the right in Sierra Leone to reject men in that way because there was a lot of fear.”
“From a very young age, girls have been manipulated to think their solemn role as women is to get married and that having husbands is the big prize of womanhood. So therefore men and women from an early stage have been conditioned through a patriarchal lens of patriarchal traditional gender framing.”
“1 in every 3 women in Sierra Leone has been a victim of intimate partner abuse. Women in relationships have been either beaten by their boyfriends or husbands. A lot of men don’t see women as their equals so they don’t treat them as adults.”
“Look at the relationship that your parents have, look at how your father speaks to your mother, treats your mother. Listen to the things that your mother had to endure, sisters endured, and aunties have endured. Then you’ll begin to understand the burden of being called a Sierra Leonean woman. Men have privileges that we don’t.”
Education is Key to the emancipation of girls and boys, men and women
“Men and women should be free to make their own decisions and to have ample choices. Without education, you can’t truly be free.”
“Education is so important for girls and boys in Sierra Leone because it ignites you and opens you to the world, it enhances the way you think, the way you process and gives you true freedom.”
The Muslim Poet Show is an entertainment program hosted by Ali Kamara, he interviews people from all walks of life ranging from authors to parliamentarians. The show is hosted on Revive Fm 94.0, a community radio station based in London.
