Post by SAMURAI36 on Jul 22, 2005 9:05:22 GMT -5
All Female Village in Kenya
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A Place Where Women Rule:
All-Female Village in Kenya Is a Sign Of Burgeoning Feminism Across Africa
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 9, 2005; Page A01
UMOJA, Kenya -- Seated cross-legged on tan sisal mats in the shade, Rebecca Lolosoli, matriarch of a village for women only, took the hand of a frightened 13-year-old girl. The child was expected to wed a man nearly three times her age, and Lolosoli told her she didn't have to.
The man was Lolosoli's brother, but that didn't matter. This is a patch of Africa where women rule.
"You are a small girl. He is an old man," said Lolosoli, who gives haven to young girls running from forced marriages. "Women don't have to put up with this nonsense anymore."
Ten years ago, a group of women established the village of Umoja, which means unity in Swahili, on an unwanted field of dry grasslands. The women said they had been raped and, as a result, abandoned by their husbands, who claimed they had shamed their community...
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy..._print/asection
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Place Where Women Rule:
All-Female Village in Kenya Is a Sign Of Burgeoning Feminism Across Africa
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 9, 2005; Page A01
UMOJA, Kenya -- Seated cross-legged on tan sisal mats in the shade, Rebecca Lolosoli, matriarch of a village for women only, took the hand of a frightened 13-year-old girl. The child was expected to wed a man nearly three times her age, and Lolosoli told her she didn't have to.
The man was Lolosoli's brother, but that didn't matter. This is a patch of Africa where women rule.
"You are a small girl. He is an old man," said Lolosoli, who gives haven to young girls running from forced marriages. "Women don't have to put up with this nonsense anymore."
Ten years ago, a group of women established the village of Umoja, which means unity in Swahili, on an unwanted field of dry grasslands. The women said they had been raped and, as a result, abandoned by their husbands, who claimed they had shamed their community...
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy..._print/asection
