WWS Letter

This is one of my letters to Mr Coghlans 7th and 8th grade class as a part of the World Wise Schools Program. Mr Coghlan did delete some of the more controversial material about FGM before distributing the letter to his students.

Hello!

I hope all is well in Florida and that you are all getting ready for a great summer. This will probably be my last note to you all for this school year, as I will be on vacation for the next month. My parents and sister are coming here on May 11th, and then we will spend a few days at my site before heading out to Morocco for a week and then I will go home with them, to England where my parents are living right now. So I won’t be back until June 4th and I assume that you guys will be enjoying your first days of summer vacation. For those of you going onto Nease or whatever high school they send you guys to now, feel free to contact me if you ever do projects on Mali or Sub Saharan Africa. I would love to help and give you first hand information and pictures on whatever topic you’re studying. My email is epalbert9@gmail.com, and if you lose that, Mr. Coghlan has my contact information as well.

I wanted my last note to be a bit of a shocker so that Mali will stay in your mind and so that your ears will perk up if you ever hear it mentioned on the news or in conversation. I went through my Gender and Development Hand Book for this and took out some of the statistics. Peace Corps does a lot of work to help women become equal members of society in rural villages and learn to respect their own word as much as the word of a man. These statistics and the many others seem unreal especially when compared to those of America.

First I will start by discussing the female role in the government. Currently, there are only 15 women in the 147 member National Assembly. Accordingly, there are six women in the 29 seat cabinet, five women on the 33 member Supreme Court, and three women on the nine member Constitutional Court. In my village, all power positions are held by men. The mayor and all his employees are men, as is my village chief and all the people he invites to meetings to discuss important matters. In general, women do not hold powerful positions in the government or in the public sector. Women constitute only 15% of the national labor force. In the US, women account for 46.8% of the work force.

As I told you in a previous letter, it is not uncommon to see men beating their wives or to see people beating children. Domestic abuse is a crime, but not illegal. Police are reluctant to intervene as this is a ‘private family matter’ and Malian culture sees a very distinct line between private and public issues. Women are not very likely to report abuse because that could just make it worse, by provoking their husband or angering the police. They fear that this would be grounds for divorce and in that case, they would be unable to support themselves and their children.

During the 2006/2007 school year, 58% of Malian children attended primary school (51% of girls and 66% of boys). 99% of men and women in the US over age 15 can read and write, but in Mali only 53% of men can and 39% of women are able to. The Malian school system is facing many challenges and I unfortunately don’t see it improving on a national level in the near future. Mali is currently investing in infrastructure, and allowing China to loan them money to build roads and improve Bamako.

Women face many issues when making decisions about reproductive issues. They often do not have the knowledge or access to birth control and family planning information as we do in the United States. Even more concerning is that women often do not have skilled attendants present when they are giving birth and rarely receive postpartum care. I have helped deliver babies and it has always just been me and this very old illiterate midwife. The last baby we delivered was still born and the cause of death was determined as lack of prenatal care. Another factor could be that she had over nine children already and that her body was too tired. In Mali, there are 113.66 deaths per every 1,000 live births. In the United States, there are 6.14 deaths for every 1,000 live births. Access to STD testing is limited for both men and women, but even more so for women because a female doctor would be required. The fertility rate in Mali is 7.3 children per woman, as opposed to 2.06 children per woman in America.

The legal age for marriage is 15. To get married before the age of 15, you must have parental consent and the permission of a judge. However, judges will create false documents allowing a child to married. The rule is irrelevant in my village though, because few people know their real age. Just last night I had a conversation with Fodes family where one of the boys thought he was ten, and this ensued in a ten minute discussion of how he couldn’t be more than eight, so they compromised on nine. Another reason that this law in ineffective is because in village, a girl can be married to a boy even at age 9, and then she will live with her new mother in law until she is able to have children. In most cases, the man is at least ten to twenty years older than the woman, especially by the second, third, and fourth wife. This is an issue that I try to bring up often in conversation, by saying that I am 22, not married, and without children. They all are shocked and tell me that women in my village are married by age 12 and then begin having children at 15. A few days ago I did a prenatal consultation on a 15 year old in her second pregnancy. The first baby died, though I don’t know how. She had her first prenatal consultation in Bamako though and her papers exam papers said she was 19- my suspicion is that she lied while in Bamako to avoid judgment and problems. The early age at which women begin having children and then the frequency at which they have them causes problems in their 30’s and 40’s when they are onto their 10th pregnancy or so because the body is simply tired. A few weeks ago with the elderly illiterate midwife and I delivered a baby to a 40 something year old woman and it was a still born, cause of death was that she had too many children too close together and a lack of prenatal care.

Prostitution is also an issue which faces young boys and girls working in large cities. Prostitution is legal and I believe that most men participate. I know that when men in my town go to Bamako, they will usually meet up with other women, though they choose to call them ‘girlfriends whom they pay’. Children between the ages of 12 and 18 are most vulnerable, especially those who work as street vendors, domestic servants, are homeless, or are victims of child trafficking. Prostitutes are most commonly found on borders, transportation routes and in mining areas. The country has a rape law which defines 18 as the minimum age for consnsual sex, though this is inconsistent with the legal age to marry. Many of the women whom I give prenatal consultations are under the age of eighteen or had their first child before then.

Most shocking is that 95% of women in Mali have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). There are no laws prohibiting FGM, though non profits are working hard to eradicate the practice. FGM is preformed on women from the age of six months to the day before their wedding. The practice is harmful and potentially deadly for the young girls. It can result in hemmorageing, infection, the spread of blood borne diseases, and difficulty in child birth, not to mention general pain and discomfort and frequent infections for the rest of their lives. The practice continues because it is deeply rooted in their culture. FGM is believed to help preserve a girl’s virginity and bless her with many living babies. FGM Is prohibited in government funded health centers, but my maternity for example has no government funding.

Lesbian women and Gay men also face many challenges. I have been in Bamako and accidently come across anti-gay rallies before. But the police have prevented gay activist rallies, even when the activists used the angle of supporting AIDS/HIV awareness. There are no publicly gay or lesbian organizations in the country, and they are actually illegal because the government states that they exist for an ‘immoral purpose’.

Overall, Mali is much different than America. In America, we have access to as much information as the world can offer and we have the right to make our own decisions and access to a fair and honest legal system. I think that we are very lucky to have been raised in a free country, especially since so many right now are fighting for that very right.