Talita Kum: Girl, Rise Up
In honor of the International Day of Women (March 8th) this post will deal with the world’s fledgling women: adolescent girls. UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children this year emphasizes the importance of supporting adolescent education as a means of eradicating poverty. Because the gender gap in secondary school is wider than it is for primary school, the report also focused on the problems facing adolescent girls in the developing world.
One of the most shocking things I read in this report was that “on average more than 50 per cent of adolescent females aged 15–19 in the developing world (excluding China) consider that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife under certain circumstances, such as if she burns the food or refuses to have sex” (32-33). What shocks me most is that these are the responses of women, not men. That a woman could think she deserves such treatment—or rather, that so many women could think they deserve such treatment is truly disturbing.
Unfortunately, something similar came up recently at Buen Pastor. A young married couple came here to teach the girls Capoeira and photography for a few weeks. While working with the older girls (middle and high school-aged), the couple found that many of them believed that the man was, in effect, the boss of the woman. The couple tried to explain that they were a partnership, they made decisions together with the wife’s opinion counting as much as the husband’s, and that he was most certainly not the boss of her. Hopefully, the girls believed them. But it’s likely they thought the talk he talked was not the walk he walked.
It is so important to invest in girls because, as the report states, “the intergenerational transmission of poverty is most apparent among adolescent girls” (4). Uneducated girls get married and have children sooner. They can’t continue their studies if they have children, so they don’t make very much money. Their children then grow up in a poor environment and the cycle repeats. However, when a girl is educated, she will likely get married later and have fewer children, allowing her to have more of an education and therefore make more money to support those fewer children. In addition, a woman invests 90% of her income into her family (compared with 30-40% for men), contributing to better health and more education for her children (74).
At the entrance to Buen Pastor’s internado where the girls live, there is a sign greeting them which says “Talita Kum.” I don’t know what language it’s in, but Jesus said it to some girl after he had brought her back to life. It means, “Girl, rise up.”
One of the most shocking things I read in this report was that “on average more than 50 per cent of adolescent females aged 15–19 in the developing world (excluding China) consider that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife under certain circumstances, such as if she burns the food or refuses to have sex” (32-33). What shocks me most is that these are the responses of women, not men. That a woman could think she deserves such treatment—or rather, that so many women could think they deserve such treatment is truly disturbing.
Unfortunately, something similar came up recently at Buen Pastor. A young married couple came here to teach the girls Capoeira and photography for a few weeks. While working with the older girls (middle and high school-aged), the couple found that many of them believed that the man was, in effect, the boss of the woman. The couple tried to explain that they were a partnership, they made decisions together with the wife’s opinion counting as much as the husband’s, and that he was most certainly not the boss of her. Hopefully, the girls believed them. But it’s likely they thought the talk he talked was not the walk he walked.
It is so important to invest in girls because, as the report states, “the intergenerational transmission of poverty is most apparent among adolescent girls” (4). Uneducated girls get married and have children sooner. They can’t continue their studies if they have children, so they don’t make very much money. Their children then grow up in a poor environment and the cycle repeats. However, when a girl is educated, she will likely get married later and have fewer children, allowing her to have more of an education and therefore make more money to support those fewer children. In addition, a woman invests 90% of her income into her family (compared with 30-40% for men), contributing to better health and more education for her children (74).
At the entrance to Buen Pastor’s internado where the girls live, there is a sign greeting them which says “Talita Kum.” I don’t know what language it’s in, but Jesus said it to some girl after he had brought her back to life. It means, “Girl, rise up.”
