Women Lead Change - Social Video & Article
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Across the globe, women are becoming leading figures in protests against injustice.
““There is no true social revolution without the liberation of women.””
The late Burkina Faso leader, Thomas Sankara, saw gender equality as a key tenet of societal progress.
Sankara famously said: “There is no true social revolution without the liberation of women. May my eyes never see and my feet never take me to a society where half the people are held in silence. I hear the roar of women's silence.”
Sankara followed his rhetoric with action. He appointed women to the highest positions of government, outlawed forced marriage, banned FGM and made strides to create a more equal society.
The Burkinabe leader heard the ‘roar of women’s silence’, today we hear the roar of fearless female protestors. Rarely short of courage, women find themselves leading protests against inequality across the globe.
Within days of the start of Nigeria’s #EndSARS movement which emboldened many to demand for an end to police brutality and government corruption, the all-female group Feminist Coalition established an alternative government.
The group mobilised thousands of protestors through social media, ensured that medical care was dutifully dispatched to treat protestors, divvied out tens of thousands of pounds to social justice initiatives, documented crimes by federal agents, provided constant power supply to protest attendees and offered legal aid to those wrongly imprisoned – all functions that the fragile state has been unable to consistently deliver in its sixty years since independence.
In Sudan, it was 23-year-old, Alaa Salah, who risked her life to stand atop a car and rally crowds to demand freedom from Bashir’s repressive regime. Currently, on the streets of Minsk, Belarus – daughters, mothers and grandmothers are acting as human shields and leading protests against Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.
As the increase in access to information and social media usage sparks social change worldwide, many remember Sankara’s words and hail brave women, dragging societies forward and setting the moral compass to a new true north.
When the dust has settled, will societies remember who was at the fore in the call for justice for all?