She Isn’t a He
What is she?
Who is she?
Where is she?
Whom is she?
In abuse she is mother-cum-wife
She is the scapegoat
For the avenging spirits
She is the maid and breadwinner
One married against her wish
She is in the family of the not so discerning parents
She is the little vulnerable girl child
She is one whose education is sacrificed
She does the cooking
Dishes
Laundry
And ends up in bed with unscrupulous babamukuru
She does all household chores
Goes to the fields
Tends the cattle
Goes to the market
Looks after siblings
Those speaking for her rights
Hold meetings in five-star hotels
Deliberate over three-course dinner
Drive posh cars
Live in spacious, low-density mansions
At tender age
Initiated into prostitution
By anatete
Older sisters
Ana amainini and the harsh economic environment
In the city, by the corners she stands
Bowl for begging in one hand
The other sniffing glue
She sleeps in the open
Gets her meals from rubbish bins
Frowned upon by society
At extremes, taken for
Child pornography child labour
Child gangster
Child prostitution
All this done to a she
Thanks to affirmative action
That is only in words
Only applies to the better-off
Thanks to girl child organisations
Who shower themselves with perks
Concerned about self more than the girl
She remains disadvantaged
She remains a she
She remains with bare boobs
She remains with an uncovered butt
She is not a he
Indeed she is not a he
Had she been a he
She would then be
Dada’s hero
Owner of the house
Heir to the throne
The bully in the family
The one momma won’t send for errands
But then she is not a he
She is only a she
Condemned with a single dress
Exposing her infant breast
Behind almost bare
Transparent as democracy
Never to open her mouth
In complaint
Or in comment
In the presence of elders
Only sitting cross-legged waiting for orders
She is an example of human weakness
At birth announced as a mistake
At rural school does scrubbing
Does the teacher’s dishes
Waters the school garden
Carries the teacher’s books
To be sometimes sexually abused by the teacher
She will never be a he
Who the girl child to liberate?
Dhihwa Ignitius
