DR Congo: Children, Women Bear the Brunt of Escalating Conflict
This week, we start in Sudan where women-led aid groups are supporting women and girls through the war. Next, we stop in Nigeria, where The Table Community is providing a safe space for non-religious Nigerians. Then finally, we travel to Thailand where days adays after legalizing same-sex marriage, hormone therapy is now free for trans people.
But first, in Plateau State, Nigeria, a group of women are breaking cultural barriers that limit their rights to own, rent, and negotiate land. This week, we share their story.
Read an excerpt here👇🏽:
These Nigerian women are claiming their “right to own land”
As a child, Maro Okiti and her family attended a Pentecostal church and would spend significant time at the church’s camp. She joined her mother in being active in church and started teaching Sunday school at a young age. However, as Okiti, now 21, grew in her faith, so did her doubts and questions.
“I always questioned some of the doctrines and it would be shut down by the church. [They’d]say don’t question God or challenge spiritual authority,” she recalls. At that time, she was attending a liberal school, which further fuelled her curiosity. One incident in school that stands out for her was during her A-Levels when she was picked to participate in a debate that posed the question: Is science the new religion?
“I was arguing that science is not a new religion. I knew that this debate would cause some controversy,” Okiti says. “I spoke to the reverend [in residence] for some advice and she said that what most people hate to realise is that Christianity is a spectrum.
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As a child, Maro Okiti and her family attended a Pentecostal church and would spend significant time at the church’s camp. She joined her mother in being active in church and started teaching Sunday school at a young age. However, as Okiti, now 21, grew in her faith, so did her doubts and questions.
“I always questioned some of the doctrines and it would be shut down by the church. [They’d]say don’t question God or challenge spiritual authority,” she recalls. At that time, she was attending a liberal school, which further fuelled her curiosity. One incident in school that stands out for her was during her A-Levels when she was picked to participate in a debate that posed the question: Is science the new religion?
“I was arguing that science is not a new religion. I knew that this debate would cause some controversy,” Okiti says. “I spoke to the reverend [in residence] for some advice and she said that what most people hate to realise is that Christianity is a spectrum.
‘There is no Judgment’: A look inside Uganda’s LGBTQ+ inclusive church
It is a quiet Sunday morning in a Kampala suburb. From a distance, the distinct voices of people singing can be heard. As one draws closer to the origin of the song, it becomes more apparent, the emotions unmistakable, as a group of about two dozen people chorus in unison, “Let your living water flow over my soul. . .”.
At first glance, it looks like a usual church gathering. But the person seated by the entrance keeping watch and scanning the area around the hall, the suspicious gazes from the congregation whenever someone enters the room, and the rainbow-themed backdrop reveal a more profound truth.
This is no ordinary congregation. This gathering has been organized by Adonai Inclusive Christian Ministries, an LGBTQ+ affirming church in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. It is led by and welcomes gay people, a huge fraction of who struggle with reconciling their faith and sexuality.
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Teenage actress takes on child marriage in role mirroring real life
The 15-year-old star of a film about a schoolgirl forced to marry an older man is evangelical about her role – despite the fact that her community in north-western Kenya might see it as a betrayal and treat her as an outcast.
“I want the movie to spark conversations about this topic, because it’s really not something people want to talk about,” Michelle Lemuya Ikeny tells the BBC.
She plays 13-year-old Nawi, the eponymous heroine of the coming-of-age film set in Turkana county, a rural area which borders Uganda and where the UN says one in four girls are married before they are 18.
“So many of my friends have had to leave school, or never been to school because someone paid a dowry to marry them, so their fathers had married them off,” she says.