Stand Up Poetry: “Young Women Speak About Femicide”

This is Suicide
This is Genocide
This is Homicide

What then is Femicide?

I can be killed because I am a woman
I can be murdered because I was born a girl
I can be sentenced to die just because the society defined me

This is my story
I am 24 years old today
As a child, everyone wished I was a boy
I saw mother cry just because I was born a girl

I grew up to be a beautiful girl
They made me feel as if it was a crime to be beautiful as a teenage girl
They thought I needed to be married off

My education became a dream never to come true

I am now very old
I did not know I will be called names by the children I cared for as infants
Fingers point at me whenever a youth dies, they believe I am evil
I will soon be exiled from the community I lived all my life

Femicide always stared at me in the face at every stage of my life

Femicide was the gender based violence I feared most
Femicide is real, it exists

This is my story
I had hopes my daughters would tell a different story
I wished the news could call it Femicide and not Homicide
I believed governments would wake up to address this menace

I have a question
Why murder women because they are women?

Who informed you to cherish misogyny?

There is synergy in unity
Together we can achieve a world free from Femicide
Let us hold governments accountable to enact laws that protect women from Femicide and punish perpetrators

I see a world where Femicide would only be read in history books
I am not satisfied
I have questions unanswered

I hear about the problem
I think about possible solutions
I actively engage in dialogues to bridge gender gaps

Yet, societies remain silent about structural reforms to end gender based violence

Data and statistics of survivors of GBV keeps increasing
GBV digs grave, buries seeds and potentials of women and girls

I am not satisfied
Women and girls die in Genocide
They are listed as victims of Homicide
Depression makes them consider Suicide

Yet, they are murdered because they are women

News of Femicide in Asia, Africa, North-America etc
No, it is rather reported as homicide

I am not satisfied

Women and girls struggle to survive in societies cynical by default

Some escape female genital mutilation but got captured by torture and sexual abuse
Others escaped gender based violence and stood face-to-face with Femicide

Cultural myths that promote Femicide are barbaric
Dishonoured girls are killed to protect the family’s honour
Old women are killed because they are now perceived as evil

Femicide exists, Femicide is real

There is misogyny of women and girls in many cultures and homes
Women are killed because of their gender identity as women

Written by Muonyelu, Adaeze Chidinm

#16Days of Activism to End GBV, 2021