Standing Tall

STANDING TALL

The fight for women's rights is fought on many fronts.

Traveling the world,

I've met many women of all ages and from all kinds of backgrounds.

I've observed the role they play in their family and in their society.

I believe that the evolution of a society can be measured by the place

which it gives to women's rights.

In some countries, in Africa, Latin America and Asia,

their basic rights are far from being acquired.

And equality between men and women

is still just a dream.

The right to have an abortion, to have an education, to have medical treatment

and a decent job.

There's still a lot of work to do before there's real equality between the sexes.

In Cameroon, Cambodia, Senegal, Nicaragua and Ethiopia,

I met five extraordinary women,

five wonderful women who have taken fate into their own hands

and who, within their own culture and with their own means,

are fighting back against the injustice and violence

of which they are victims.

They're fighting for themselves,

for their loved ones and for all young girls

of today and tomorrow.

Their stories are personal, but their victories are universal.

Since 1995, women's rights have been on the international agenda.

CAMEROON

The schooling of girls has been made a priority.

Despite recent progress,

in Africa there are still fewer girls who attend school than boys.

And half the girls don't finish their elementary education.

Tradition, religion, poverty and forced marriage

are some of the many reasons girls are forced to quit school.

Cameroon isn't the worst example,

but in La Briqueterie, one of the poorest districts in the capital,

I was struck by a sad reality:

one girl in three doesn't attend school.

For the past ten years or so, Hawaou Adamou has been fighting

for the autonomy of women and girls in her neighborhood.

Forced into a marriage and illiterate until the age of 35,

she reflects what many women in the world still suffer today.

I was married off aged 16.

I've given birth six times.

I had 12 pregnancies by the time I was 30.

But I only gave birth six times normally.

It was an arranged marriage between two families.

I found myself in another family.

And when you're a newlywed in a new family,

you're the one who has to do everything in the home.

When my husband died, I was thrown out with my kids.

Not having been to school and not having a job,

they considered me and my kids as a burden.

So I had to leave after 19 years of living with them.

I packed up and left

with 19 years of my life in my bags.

If I had attended school, I'd have had a job.

Only recently have I started going to school.

I got my elementary education diploma aged 41.

Today, four of my children are alive.

Three boys and one girl.

And they all go to school.

Like their mother!

My greatest dream was to...

Actually, I don't know if I had a dream.

I don't know...

It wasn't until I was 40 that I realized you could dream.

When you're not educated, can you know

that it's possible to dream? I don't know.

Education: an absolute condition to dream of having a life.

To give the possibility of dreaming to girls and young women,

Hawaou is active on all fronts.

I'm committed to helping women

to prevent what happened to me happening to others.

That's my combat, and the combat of everyone:

that our children don't suffer what we suffered.

Today, I'm president of an association

which promotes education for girls.

We make women aware

of the importance of financial independence.

If you're financially independent,

you can help your husband and help your daughters

while your husband helps your sons.

You can participate

in running the household and have a say in things.

Because, naturally, when you're totally dependent on a man,

you have to obey all he says.

You can't participate because you can't help him.

But when you help out, you can have a say in things.

For Hawaou, as for all those women I've met

who are fighting to increase their rights,

progress will only come about through very concrete things:

not marrying too young,

attending school and being on an equal footing with boys and young men.

Her most recent victory is this makeshift sports field

in a mainly Muslim neighborhood.

A place where girls can now play freely, express themselves,

and simply be themselves.

It's not like professional handball

with qualified coaches.

But you saw how the boys watched and cheered

when the girls scored goals.

That gives the girls self-esteem.

An everyday scene of kids playing sports. But here, it's extremely symbolic.

Every day, Hawaou meets with the fathers and elders of the district,

to convince them of the need to educate girls.

It hasn't always been easy.

This is the home of one of the district leaders.

He supports our cause to educate girls.

He took the time to become aware.

Now he sends his own daughters to school.

So he's all for the education of girls.

That's why he agreed.

He wants it to be an example that others will follow.

That was his wife, earlier, who was in the role of coach

and referee.

He removed all the furniture from his living-room

so that his children could use it

to draw and play games.

For these girls, it's not easy to find their place in such a patriarchal society

where men hold sway over the family and more widely,

over the clan.

Hadja Hawa came to the Koranic school and asked who hadn't been to school.

I raised my hand.

She asked me why I hadn't been to a normal school.

I told her my parents were too poor to enroll me there.

At her Koranic school, Hawa wasn't taught to read and write.

Hawa was 12 years old

and her mother wanted her to go to school.

But was unsure as to how a 12-year-old would be able to manage.

I asked Hawa if she would like to attend school,

and she said yes.

So we went to the school and spoke to the principal.

She told us that there was no problem,

but Hawa had to start in Year One.

My mom asked me if I was too old for Year One.

I said, "No, I want to finish elementary and then go to junior high."

On my first day in school, I felt great.

I want to continue school so I can find a job later.

Thanks to Hawaou, in recent years, over 9,000 girls from La Briqueterie

have been able to attend school.

She has won the trust of heads of families and religious leaders,

and mentalities are beginning to change.

Hawaou is now doing everything to make sure the girls stay in school.

Vanessa is a girl we discovered at the school.

She's first in her class.

Her dream is to become President or be a journalist.

Why journalist?

To find out what's going on all over the world.

She's eloquent,

but when you see her family situation, you wonder if she can continue

or if she'll have to quit her studies at the end

of elementary school.

We don't know.

But it's true that her parents can't afford it.

It's important for me to go to school so I don't suffer later.

Vanessa Student

Because the world is getting tougher.

Some people can't even eat.

School allows girls to find a job and have all she wants in life.

Because if a young woman can't work,

her parents give her in marriage. And that's not good.

That's why girls should attend school these days.

To earn money so that can do what they want in life,

become what they want.

My greatest dream is to see

all girls able to read

and write.

Not only in Cameroon,

but across the globe. Because it's important.

Inequality between men and women begins at an early age.

And not attending school only serves

to increase the disparities between the sexes.

No school, no further education, no job...

so no decent earnings to break the vicious circle of poverty.

To change this, one essential step needs to be taken,

and it's a major challenge for our societies:

access to education and job-training.

But this is far from being a guaranteed right for all.

CAMBODIA

In Cambodia,

one of the poorest countries in South-East Asia,

access to jobs with a decent wage is difficult for women.

Every year, thousands of young women leave the countryside

and head to the capital Phnom Penh, a huge city

with a population of 1.6 million.

Here, due to their lack of qualifications,

if they don't fall prey to prostitution and human trafficking rings,

young women often accept dangerous and precarious work,

notably in textiles factories.

In Phnom Penh, I met members of an association whose daily work involves

supporting these women.

It's the case of Min,

who had a very difficult past.

When I was little, my dad drank and beat my mom.

They ended up divorcing.

My dad didn't keep his responsibilities

and gave us no money.

My elder sister and I had to stop school.

Min's family, like many others in Cambodia,

chose to send the sons to school rather than their daughters.

In Cambodia, one in two children works to help support the family.