“I have to be at peace with my past before I can really step strong into the future” - Josephine Kamara (Sierra Leone) 1/2

Josephine Kamara is a girl advocate, environmental activist and young communications professional from Sierra Leone. 

In our conversation, she shares her story of experiencing gender-based violence as a girl and looking to her education for hope, and how her experiences fuelled the resistance that she now continues at Purposeful (Part 2). 

Josephine was interviewed by Aissatou Bah in late 2019, as part of a global project documenting girls’ resistance. The conversation has been edited into this two-part interview by Nadia Ahidjo, for our #GirlsResistWA series. You can find out more about the series here.

Trigger warning: this conversation contains mentions of violence and abuse which may be triggering for readers. Kindly take a moment to decide if you want to keep reading. If you do proceed, we encourage you to centre your wellbeing and stop reading at any point, as you need. 

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Hello Josephine! Thank you for participating in this series. To start, tell me a bit about yourself. How would you describe yourself as a girl? 

I think I like to think about myself as someone who is playful. But in reality, I was just this very tame girl. I can’t say I enjoyed girlhood. When I was young, I was constantly abused by my uncle at home. And I couldn't talk about it, because my mom and my grandma were never going to believe me. This was my aunt's boyfriend. He was a respectable man in the family who could bring home food – that was important at that time just after the war in Sierra Leone, as many families were struggling. And he would tell me if I told anyone about it, nobody would believe me. And I said to myself, well, I guess he's right then. Nobody will believe me.

How old were you when this started? 

I was around eight years old, and it lasted for a long time. For many years, I grew up hating myself. I blamed myself for what happened because I couldn't stop it. And I'm in a family who never believes in a girl. They always trust the words of the men and the boys. I was the only girl in my family. Most of the time when you say you’re the only girl, people think oh, so you are the princess. But when you're the girl, you do all the house chores. After school, you have to go to the market and help your mom. While the boys were playing, I was at home cooking, or at the market helping my mom. I really needed reasons to go out, because any time I would stay home after school, my nightmare was Mr Mohamed. So, I was always happy to go do extra activities. I volunteered for everything in school.

We asked you to bring something that reminds you of your life as a girl, and you brought an exercise book. Why is that?

It is my maths book, which I used when I was in Form Four. It reminds me that I was also abused when I was about 15 years old. You see, I wanted to be in the science stream, but I was struggling with my maths, but not because I'm not intelligent. I’m a very smart girl, by the way. I attended one of the best girls' schools in Sierra Leone, so the competition was really tough. I was thriving in all my subjects except maths, because you know, you need enough time to really practice your maths. For me, in the mornings, I walked to school most of the time and then after school, I’d come back home, take food and then go to the market to sell. After that I’d go home. I would be a bit tired, so I wouldn't able to study before waking up again in the morning to go to school. 

One day, my mom introduced me to Mr. Saliou, who was supposed to be my maths tutor.  My mom could not pay for the classes. It was supposed to be free, and she would just give him some of the food she was making to sell: fish cake, banana cake and doughnuts. One day he told me to come to his house for lessons and I was sitting in the parlour with my maths book and he was inside his room. I was wondering: “why is he still inside his room? When is he going to come out? When are we going to do the exercises?” And then he told me to come inside. Well, I wasn't expecting anything to happen.

When I went inside, he started saying: “you see, I am trying to help you. You see your mom cannot pay for maths lessons. These are free lessons that I am giving to you. If you want to thrive in this subject, you need to come to me for regular classes”. As he was saying this, he was touching me inappropriately. He was touching me and I was scared. I didn't know how to process it. He started touching me and he forced himself onto me. He sexually penetrated me. I was afraid to go home and report to my mom because they would ask: "what were you doing at this place"? "So why didn't you shout or scream or come outside"? My mom always blamed me for stuff that happened. My mom was going to be very frustrated that she finally managed to find me somebody that could help me with my classes, my courses and I messed that up. So, I kept quiet and never spoke about it.

I am so sorry this happened to you, Josephine.

As I grew up, I kept going for classes with him. And he always took advantage of the situation. And eventually, at the age of 16, I got pregnant. Saliou chased me out of his house when I told him. That was my first pregnancy and I saw my future crashing in front of me. I am the only girl in my family who desperately wanted to go to school. To this day, of all the children my mum and dad had together, I am the only one with a university degree. Not just the only girl but the only one. 

I saw how my people believed in me and put their trust in me. I saw how my mom and my grandma struggled. My grandma got married at the age of 16, and my mom had her first child below the age of 18. That was what took her out of school. And that was me at 16, repeating that old cycle again. I said to myself: “my future is going to end. I don't want this baby. I want to stay in school”.

I saw how my people believed in me and put their trust in me. I saw how my mom and my grandma struggled.

So what did you do?

First I tried taking care of it myself. I tried some of the things I’d heard about, like squeezing a lime on a blade and drinking the juice. It didn’t work. I even swallowed a packet of anti-malaria tablets, because I had read on the box that they should not be consumed by pregnant women. I thought that was going to kill the baby. I also wanted to take my own life. I saw myself as a disappointment, all because of what one man did to me. I survived, thank God. But the pregnancy didn’t go away.

So I called my friend Jane, who lives in Ghana now. Jane suggested that I go to the hospital. At the first hospital, I met with a doctor but he started touching me inappropriately. So, I left and went to another place, on Goderich Street. It looked like a butcher’s shop. It’s a place where girls who don't want pregnancies go for abortions. Abortion is illegal in this country, so these are unsafe abortions. My experience was terrible. I bled for about a week after that. There was nowhere to go, so I just managed. Nobody suspected anything at home. 

This must be so traumatic. And you kept the maths book. Why is that?

I kept my maths book to remind me of my past and of everything I've gone through. I think I have to be really at peace with my past before I can really step strong into the future. It also reminds me of who I am as an African girl growing up in Sierra Leone, and it also gives me the consciousness of all the girls that might be going through something like this. I have to do something to stop it. This really defines who I am and my feminism.

Most of the things I fight for now, as a feminist, are things that are very close to my heart. When I say a pregnant girl deserves the right to go to school, and the right to have a baby by choice, not by chance. She should be given the opportunity to have a safe abortion. These are close to my heart because they are things that I've experienced.

After describing the painful experiences of her past, we continue the conversation with Josephine in the second part about how she has built her resistance and advocacy that continues today. Click here to read the next part.