A Minute of Silence

"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." -Maya Angelou

Mathilde CRETIER _ Illustrations for the Virginie agency

I think of these women a lot. Some nights I end up tossing and turning for at least an hour thinking about these women.
‘Would it be my turn soon?’ I ask myself, as I try to shove the gruesome thoughts away.

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She was only nineteen. All she wanted was to find a place to sleep for the night. After protesting for days against the brutality of racial injustice, she ended up being raped and killed by one of the people she tirelessly tried to protect. A monster by the name of Aaron Glee Jr. decided to strangle the life out of her after repeatedly raping her. ‘Who did she offend?’ ‘Did she deserve to die in this way?’ ‘How did she feel when she saw her life flash before her eyes?’ Those are the questions that I know I will never find answers to no matter how many times I ask. This is the story of a woman found at the back of his house covered in leaves. This is the story of Oluwatoyin Salau. Will it be my story too?

She was only fourteen. She pleaded not to be returned to her home after being found by the police in an attempt to elope with her thirty-five year old boyfriend(more like man-friend). She was told it’d be alright. Everything would be fine once she got home. She laid her weary head to rest at night, and her father decapitated it with a sickle. It was all over. The life of an Iranian girl was cut short(literally) in the name of her family’s honour. This is the story of fourteen year-old Romina Ashrafi. Will it be my story too?

She was only sixteen. She was like me in some ways. She would have sat for her WASSCE in a few months if not for the fatal gunshot of a drunk policeman on the streets of Lagos. She wore a low cut like I do. She was dark-skinned like me. She had dreams like I do.But now I talk about her in the past tense. I watched a video of people screaming her name after she was shot. ‘Tina! Tina! Ahhhh Tina!’ but Tina is no more. Tina is gone. This is the story of Tina Ezekwe. Will this be my story too?

She was only twenty-two. All she wanted to do was read her books in a quiet place. She had lofty dreams like some of us do. But her life was cut short by a brutal attack. One Wednesday she was found dead, lying half-naked in a pool of blood at the church where she had been a member of the choir for many years. According to a church official, “That she was murdered where she always found peace is just devastating."
This is the story of Uwaila vera Omozua. Will it be my story too?

She was only twenty-five when she was bound by her partner who sealed her mouth and shaved her hair. She was stabbed multiple times with different knives on the head and eyes.The woman was found lying in the pool of her blood with deep cuts on her head. The man's mouth was foaming with a whitish substance. Two blood stained kitchen knives, two empty bottles of the poisonous substances, three empty cans of red bull energy drink and a plier were recovered from the gruesome scene. She was tortured to death by her partner. She left three toddlers behind. This is the story of Olamide Alli. Will it be my story too?

How many others have died like them? We hear their stories and are immediately shook. Our innate fear grows in us as we walk down the streets alone, as we sleep, as we visit friends, or as we bow our heads in prayer. These women had so much ahead of them. These women are the faces of sisters, mothers, friends, aunties and nieces crying out for help.We are like these women and these women were like us. We are all bound by fear.
Is this the kind of world we want to live in?
Did we come to earth to be slaughtered like animals?
Are we doomed to live in fear?
Were we born merely to become another hashtag on Twitter or Instagram for a few days?

We must not let these women die in vain for they did not just come to this earth to see and be conquered.Their deaths remind us once again, that there is still so much left to do in order to stamp out gender-based violence and police brutality. Their deaths cause us to ask ourselves, ‘Where do we go from here?’ and ‘How long are we going to live in fear of violence?'

So I put this question out to you now, ‘What are the practical solutions we can employ to eliminate violence against women?’ Even if our generation doesn’t provide all the answers, we have to improve the situation at hand. 

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We cannot continue to be consumed by fear! Our lives do not only have to matter after we have been stabbed, beaten, shot or raped to death. Our lives should matter when we are alive. Women and girls around the world deserve to be 'Les Femmes Libres,' who do not merely exist on earth as creatures but rather,as people who live free from fear and are therefore able to live their lives to the fullest.

'Women are not just victims of a broken world;they can be architects of a better one.'

                                                                   -Melinda Gates