Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
(APPLAUSE)
ANN MOSSOP: Good afternoon everyone and
welcome to this session 'The Power Of Women and Girls'
at 'All About Women' today.
We're very honoured to have as our speaker, ah,
Leymah Gbowee.
I'm Ann Mossop.
I'll be chairing the session this afternoon and there'll be-
Leymah will speak- and there'll be time for some
questions and discussion at the end.
Leymah is an African peace activist whose work as a
Leader of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace
was a key part of ending the second Liberian civil
war in 2003.
She was the Founder and Executive Director of Women
Peace and Security Network Africa, of which she
is now a Trustee.
She's written a memoir, which is an absolutely wonderful
book that I would recommend to you all,
'Mighty Be Our Powers:
How Sisterhood, Prayer and Sex Changed a Nation at War.'
And her work was also the subject of the award-winning
documentary 'Pray the Devil Back to Hell.'
She's been honoured with numerous awards for her work,
including, as one of distinguished recipients of
the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.
Please welcome her to the stage:
Leymah Gbowee.
(APPLAUSE)
LEYMAH GBOWEE: Thank you. Thank you.
It's truly an honour for me to be here in Australia.
I, my partner Jay and I, travelled 29 hours to get
here and mid-way in the flight I said:
"Jay if you weren't here I would be screaming hysterically
'When will we reach?!"
because it was the longest flight. I usually pride myself in the
fact that I jump off a flight, put on a suit, look
pretty and give a speech.
(LAUGHTER)
LEYMAH GBOWEE: Honestly Ann, Australia won.
(LAUGHTER)
LEYMAH GBOWEE: I could not do any of those
things yesterday.
I'm really, really happy to be here today.
I'm truly honoured that you decided to invite me to this
event 'All About Women' to talk about something that
I'm passionate about:
the power of women and girls.
I want to say 'thank you' and I want to recognise at
this moment my Liberian community,
if you're here: shout.
(SHOUTING FROM AUDIENCE) (APPLAUSE)
LEYMAH GBOWEE: And I would also like to
recognise and say 'thank you'
to the people of Australia for welcoming close to 10,000 Liberian refugees in your country.
(APPLAUSE)
LEYMAH GBOWEE: When we came we thought we
would probably see 10 or 20.
When they told me 10,000, I said:
"Wow, war has a way of spreading people out."
I'm grateful to God also for being here, because it is
by His grace and mercy that I find myself on this journey
of peace activism and rights advocacy.
I tell people, most times, that there are many
intelligent women out there.
There are many that could represent the world and the
voices of women and girls, especially in Africa.
But he chose me and I'm grateful and I'm humbled.
Today, I've been asked, like I said, to talk about the
power of women and girls.
And, most times, I spend time thinking through my speeches
because I don't want people to go on the internet and see
that 'she gave this speech and she gave it to us also.'
(LAUGHTER)
LEYMAH GBOWEE: So it's a lot of work,
given the rate that I speak, trying to be creative.
But, I also try to put practical examples in my
speeches because it is in that way people who are so
disconnected from some of the reality of my world can
really come close
to understanding what my world is.
And, my journey toward the women's movement in Liberia
and in Africa, have taken me to different places and I've
seen different things.
Some of those things have entertained me and sometimes
I've gotten angry and other times I'm just silent.
And, for those who know me, when I'm silent that's the
moment of confusion because my mouth run and before I try
to catch it, it's gone.
(LAUGHTER)
LEYMAH GBOWEE: And so, when I'm silent, my
assistant Hafizah (?) says:
"She gets the jitter. What is she going to do next?
Is she going to pull a gun? Lord, what is she
going to do?
I've never seen this woman silent."
And, one of our other colleagues said:
"When she's silent, just say, 'Deuteronomy 2:4'
'and the valley shall be filled.'
Whether that's the verse in the bible, no one knows."
But- I'm rarely silent- but some of the places I've been,
have kept me silent.
I joined the women's movement with great caution,
you know, all of the stereotypes that we've heard:
'women are gossips' 'they are not good at working
together' 'PhD pull her down.'
I actually cried when I was told that I'm going to work
with a group of women.
"No, I can't, I can't. I can't".
And then one woman pulled me aside and says:
"Stop that crap. You can. You have it in you."
And I said: "Really?"
She said: "Yes. I know you can
do a great job."
I had worked, prior to that time, in a male-dominated
environment where peace building was done.
I worked for the church and we did a lot of healing and
reconciliation workshop.
My first assignment was with child soldiers,
ex child-soldiers.
And, my second assignment was working on a project to do
peace building and trauma healing with Charles Taylor's
security apparatus.
So, Charles Taylor is the former president of Liberia
who's credited for the war, if there is anything to give
credit for.
His army was vicious. His police had no training.
He had special death squad units and child soldiers were
people he used to commit some of the worst atrocities.
So, in the earlier years of my work, I worked with these
group of people.
And, when we were on, at first when I started working
with the child soldiers, first thing first, a young
women, slim, pretty- even though I am a little bit fat
now, but I'm still pretty, but I was prettier thenů
(LAUGHTER)
the child soldiers would say:
"Wow you look so good" Many proposals for marriage;
one was so keen on getting married to me that he would
move the world, he would do this, he would do that.
But, the point I tried to make was that:
no one amongst those young people
saw anything intelligent.
What they saw was a woman, let alone anyone with power.
And, we'll talk about that later.
Then, I started working with the security apparatus,
people who I thought knew a little bit more, or had a
little bit of intelligence.
And, I was the only female civilian on the team of
civilian trainers.
Every time I walked into the room- someone's phone
is ringing. Answer.
(LAUGHTER)
Every time I walked into the room of security personnel,
they either took me to be the caterer or the logistician.
And then, I, I always enjoyed a moment where, after
lunch, when they have eaten, I will walk into the room,
take their marker, stand by the flip chart board and
start lecturing.
And then their mouths would drop open because, for most
of them, this was the first time they would
see a woman training.
I worked in that world, observed many things, but I
never- as part of that world, I too was a part of not
really paying attention to women and women's issue,
because I was so caught up in this male world.
We went to northern Liberia to do a piece of job and I
was leading the team.
That was one of my first trip as the Head.
So, I had a driver, I had a staff of all men that I was
commanding.
But, it would be the lesson for me that has accompanied
me from 1999 up to this point.
We got to that village and they found a house for me
that was run by one of the local NGOs.
And, quickly, I made friend with the caretaker who was an
older woman.
We chatted, talked about my children -
if you want to get me started, ask me about my six children,
I can go on telling you stories about them.
And, when she was about to go home she said:
"Madam, will you please lock, double lock your door and
make sure you prop something at the back of your door?"
And then I turned to her and said: "Why?"
She said: "Because my boss is a known ***.
He is known for forcing himself on women when they
come to stay here.
In this community, the Liberians will understand, he
is known as the 'Commander of Dirty Way.'
But, in normal English, he was the Commander
of Bad Attitude.
That made me- a light bulb went off in my head.
And, I decided I would observe the women and girls,
because this boss was the Head of a humanitarian agency.
And, if he was a known *** and a known, um,
sex-predator, whatever you want to call him, there must
be a serious problem amongst the women.
And, that community was host to refugee women from
Sierra Leone.
So, my eyes were wide open, observing this community.
And, the next morning we saw this little girl.
My driver is taking me to look at the room we'll do the
training in, and she is standing changing five US
dollars to Liberian dollars.
And then, my driver said:
"See her, acting like she has so much money."
And, I said: "Do you know her?"
He said: "Yes, that's the thing I slept with last night."
I said:"Really?" He said: "Yes."
I asked him: "You're about fifty-something
going to 99 and that girls looks like she's no more than 15."
And then, he said to me: "Boss lady, those are the
ones that are correct."
During the workshop, I would move around talking to
refugee women and the story was the same:sex for relief.
I left that community in a daze.
Because for me, it would have been easier to see the
men in a community exploit women, rather than those who
have gone in the name of 'doing good and
humanitarian aid' exploiting young
women and women.
The question that kept playing on my mind, because
that was not the first or second community that I would
encounter:"Is there no end?"
"Can women not do something to change this situation around?"
"Why is it always violence and abuse and sex and sex and
*** abuse?"
"Why is it always us?"
"Why is this war being fought on our bodies?"
Those questions kept me awake, many nights
and many days.
We went to another place to do a workshop, and we asked
for an example of non-violent strategy to end a
particular situation.
And, once we got to that place of asking that
question, a young lady stood up and said to us:
"I have a story from my village.
And, this is the story of one of our villagers, married a
girl from another village, brings her into our community
and beats her every day.
That culture was strange to us because he had moved back
home with his wife; in our village, no one beat
their wives.
One woman decided: 'this is a trend, and if we
do not stop it, our men will pick it up.'
So, the first time the girl is beaten, this women talks
to her husband, he said: 'Mind your business.'
The second time, she called the women to a meeting, the
women said: 'That's a private issue.'
The third time, this woman leg is broken, this woman
called the women together and said:
'We have to do something. It's going to be us next.'
They went to the men and said:
'The next time this happen, we will take action.'
Of course, they were toothless bulldogs.
Of course, women are never taken seriously when anything
they have to do or say.
So, the next time it happened and the
women decided:
'We will use this tradition that has been used to abuse
us as a means of confronting this problem.'
So, there's something called a secret society where we
come from, there's a 'sande.'
In the sande, men cannot go there.
It's a women only space.
So, that morning the women decided:
'We'll go into the sande' and the men laughed.
Early the next morning, about 5am, all of the women
gathered with the female Chief and walked straight to
the sande.
No babies, no husband, no children.
By 6am men were waking up - no hot water.
(LAUGHTER)
LEYMAH GBOWEE: By 7am men were waking up -
children were crying for breakfast.
By 12 noon all hell had broken loose.
(LAUGHTER)
LEYMAH GBOWEE: They started arguing
amongst themselves who was responsible, someone should
have taken action, and they called their own meeting.
By evening time, they called the women and vowed that it
would never happen again.
When this girl told me this story I was so excited that I
used that story in every training for women,
everywhere I went, but I played that story in my mind
every day.
And so, at one point, I'm not looking at the abuse of women
any more from a hopeless perspective, but that story
energised and rejuvenated me and my imagination was
running with me.
Those were the days I did not own a computer, so my laptop
was a notebook.
I would scribble ideas in there and I was looking into
magazines to read stories of positive things that women
were doing.
And then, we started working with these group of fantastic
women- pastors' wives- and I'm using
this story.
And, this story becomes the revolution for the work that
we were doing.
In 2003, a group of us, five of us, just armed with our
conviction and ten US dollars, decided we would do
something to change the situation in Liberia.
I'm armed with that story.
If those women could challenge the structure of
patriarchy, if they could use a structure that had been
used to abuse and oppress them as a tool for getting
what they want, we too can do something.
So we started this famous Women of Liberia Mass Action
for Peace.
But, you see, when we the Mass Action for Peace, just a
few of us had read Ghandi, a few of us had read King, but
the vast majority of the women had not read anything.
And, we stayed in- we started this protest.
Every day, someone gave us one crazy idea, we took it
with enthusiasm.
But, what was important was that as we gathered in that
space, each and every one of us, as women, began to see
the power that was within, coming out.
I did not know that I could stand up and talk down the
speaker of the Liberian Parliament.
But, when we gather as women, that power came from just the
presence of women doing something to change their
communities together.
When I look at some of those women who were advocating and
doing activism with us, I smile, because, two, three
years before they could not speak up.
But, these were the women in a rural community who was
rising up, one at a time, mobilising women.
And, in three months, we had over 10,000 women in 15 locations
in Liberia saying: "no" to war.
The power that we had seen in those women was something
that we can never- I, I cannot describe.
It's been exactly 10 years, this April, since we did that
work to transform Liberia.
Two months into our ad- three months into our
advocacy, a peace agreement was signed.
The typical thing was that women should go back there
and celebrate the peace and go and sit down.
We were not ready for that. (LAUGHTER)
We told ourselves we would constructively interfere in
the politics of this nation.
We were into disarmament, taking guns from the fighters.
We were into different things.
We were on the international community case, as we say in
our local language, like white on rice.
We will not give them their peace.
One of the days, just before elections, we had done our
analysis and we knew that the elections would sway in a way
that would not be favourable to women if we didn't do a
special campaign to mobilise women to vote.
I had gotten invited to speak at an international
gathering of elections experts from the US and other
parts of the world.
And, I told them: "These are the signs."
And, they said:
"Well, we can't do anything. The money we have is 10 days
for voters' registration and after 10
days, nothing."
Five days into voters' registration, 10 business
district, they could barely get women registered.
This socialisation for a lot of Liberian women had been
that politics was a male thing.
This, simply put, it is the people's thing,
not our thing.
So, it was easy for them to work for peace but they
didn't see any power within themselves to change the
political dynamics.
We taught ourselves if we sit again, we will lose out.
It's time for us to harness our powers.
We got up, gathered a team of 250 women,
25 in each section. Some other women's group took
women to the other parts, rural communities;
in Monrovia, 10 business districts.
We had less than five days.
We registered 7,425 female voters in five days.
(APPLAUSE)
The group that went around
the country did their own share.
By the time we put together the number of registered
voters, we had 50 plus one more women registered
than men.
That we made Africa's first female president is not
rocket science. (APPLAUSE)
After the election of President Sirleaf, we saw a
new wave;a wave of some of the issues
from the past coming back.
I remember going to an event where one of our Justices of
the Supreme Court.
And as we sat in that event, he came and sat next to me,
cleared his throat like he was about to give a verdict,
and said:
"Look girl, you are very smart. You are very intelligent and
you are very beautiful.
I suggest that you start doing those things that our
mothers did:
open an orphanage and take your mouth out of politics.
Um, start a sewing school.
Do something that women do, decent women.
But, don't get involved in all of this political thing."
I said:
"Thank you sir for your opinion"
and "I'm glad that I'm not your daughter."
(LAUGHTER)
I changed my seat.
But, that energised me more to start a new revolution;
a revolution of bringing young women ahead because,
with that kind of mindset, we needed to do something to
bring the young women on.
In 2007, we started a new kind of work, working
with girls.
It's something called the Girls Transformative
Leadership Initiative.
Going into communities, and really just trying to get
these young girls to see that, deep down inside, there
is some hidden power; that, you do not have to be
sitting up there, in order to exploit your power.
From 2007, til today, is a journey that I have
never regretted.
Because, in some of the communities that we've gone
to, we've seen transformation of young women who never
really had the outlook of any future beyond getting married
early, or any future beyond going to college.
There is a young student now, as part of our
scholarship program, who is the first in her family to go
to university.
Her mother is in the village, her brother came to
town and he does odd jobs and he's married.
So, when we gave her a full four-year scholarship to go
to university to become a professional nurse, she moved
to town and moved in with her brother.
Few months ago, she walked into my office and said:
"Madam Gbowee, I am having problems.
I need a place to stay."
I said: "Why do you need a place to stay?"
She said: "First things first, my brother is very upset that
I've chosen to go to school rather than to get married."
"What the hell do you think you will achieve?
No one in our family has ever gone to college, let
alone you, the girl."
So, to really push his point, and push her further
to go back to the village, her mother bought a mattress
that she used to sleep in the other room, in his house.
He and his wife seized the mattress.
So, she sleeps on a thin sheet of cloth on the
bare floor.
He will not give her money for transportation, some
days, no food, nothing.
But, the point is: your destiny is to go back
to the village and get married.
College is not your destiny.
She stared him down and said:
"If no one in our family did it.I am going to do it."
Her resolve had brought us- has brought us to the place
where we found a lodging for her.
She continues to go to school.
But, from community to community we see girls
resisting early marriage, we see girls resisting the
temptation of being prostitutes versus going back
to school.
It's happening one girl at a time.
Each of these young women have realised that the power
to transform my life, first, and to transform my
community, lies within me.
And, today, I've come to
Australia just to let all of us in this room know because,
you know, most times when you talk about these things they
seem so far away.
"Oh, this is Africa."
"Oh, these girls are suffering."
"Oh, it's so pathetic."
I was in Texas once, and because I dress like this,
sometimes people are fooled.
You know?
(LAUGHTER)
Especially young people, they tend to think, well she's
just an African.
And, what they've been taught in school, I'll tell you
quickly something.
I went to New Orleans, as part of the Nobel thing.
Everywhere I go to speak, I want to meet with children.
So, Ninth Ward, New Orleans, and the first class came.
They were about eight children between the ages of
eight and nine:
"Miss Leymah, question. Do your people sleep in beds?"
(LAUGHTER)
Yes we do.
And then, the next group came:
"Miss Leymah, do your people drive car?"
Yes we do.
So, by the time the 15 and 16 years old came, the first
questioner raised their hand: "Miss Leymahů"
I said "For the recordů"
(LAUGHTER)
"I do not sleep in tree. I do not have a tiger for pet.
I do not ride a donkey to work. I own an, a SUV. And, as you
can see, I do not have a tail."
(LAUGHTER and APPLAUSE)
One of the little girls said to me:
"Miss Leymah, I'm so embarrassed and I'm glad you
are not my mother."
I said: "You missed out."
(LAUGHTER)
But, people get fooled,
because of the'concept' of the African woman.
They are ***. They're abused, they suffer.
So, there's this syndrome in the media, across the globe:
six children on your back, *** sagging, begging bowl;
no intelligence.
So, I go to Texas, and this girl came to me and said:
"Miss Leymah, um, when you come to Texas or places like
America, I'm sure you're amazed by the big buildings."
(LAUGHTER)
I said:
"No honey, I'm not amazed by the big buildings.
I'm amazed by what is beneath the big buildings.
That's what I've trained my eyes to see:
the looming poverty, the single mother struggling to
make the end meet, children in the streets.
That's what I've trained my eyes to be amazed by.
And, you sit in this audience, come to
something called 'All About Women'
and you're asking yourself: "What can I do?"
It's easier to write a cheque, but what is not
easier to do is to go back home and sit and say:
"Where is my power?"
Is it in teaching a little Aborigine child to read?
Is it in putting together something for some slum
community here?
Is it working with migrant community to understand the
concept of women's rights, since they've come to this
big world and this great country?
What is my purpose?
Because, each and every one of us in this room, as women,
have that power- in here.
Somebody said once:
"If Rosa Parks had thought twice about sitting on that
bus, she would still be standing."
What are you thinking about?
What power do you have that the world is waiting to see
explored, that you're still sitting on?
What power have you found that you are exploring and
some girl or some boy out there is waiting to encounter
you, so that they can reach out and find the best?
You see, this women standing here was not always talkative.
She was not always assertive- from an abused relationship,
a single mother of many children, no self-esteem, no
self-confidence.
People, people, people who believe, that even at your
worst, you have that power in you, as a women, as a boy, as
a girl to do something, stepped out, held my hand,
and I stand tall today.
I'm on a journey.
A journey to work with young people and women across
Africa and Europe, America, Asia, wherever I'm needed.
That journey is to help all of us see that with our
power, as women and girls specifically, we can turn
this upside-down world upright.
Thank you. (APPLAUSE)