You might be confused with the title. Sure you may not know what is going on and no, I have not been put up for sale on some black web market. But I’ve been looking around and there are approximately 50 000 people sold into marriage. That is around the world, not that I’m going to point fingers to the East, because it does happen in the West. For the last three years a male relative keeps on telling me that he wants to sell me. Today, I say: Enough is enough.
There are young girls who are being sold to a man up to three times her age or older. These girls have no say or they get shamed by their family, they have no way to escape from this. These are not girls who can fight off a grown man. These girls are not even mature enough to express their feeling or what is going on inside their heads. The men are their be all and end all. Yes, we should focus on these girls and even young women who get forced into marriage, or in these cases they get treated as sex object. But we should start shaming their families who do absolutely nothing to stop it. For them it is a tradition, for them it is just the normal way of life. The families should not get out of this scot-free. Why should we just blame the disgusting men, when we do nothing to the families. Maybe like that we can stop this disgusting practice.
To the male family member: Just because I am female does not mean I cannot get someone for myself. Just because I am single, does not mean that I am always on the lookout for a significant other. It is as if people forgot that I do own my body, it does not belong to anyone else. I am not there to fill your pockets with money and listen to your every command. Just like I am responsible for my own actions, I am responsible for the rest of my life as well. You cannot impose your viewpoint of people onto everyone around you. It is a sick mentality thinking that you have the right to own anyone. While everyone else laughs at this ‘joke’ you make, I know you’re serious. I will never be for sale. In a way I am glad that you do not have children, because your viewpoint would not change. You won’t sell your daughter, you say – but what gives you the right to sell someone else then?
There’s no race for us to populate the earth. There’s no need for anyone to be forced into pleasing anyone’s desires. Everyone has the right to have a choice, no one else owns anyone. We are not slaves, we are our own selves. Treat us like that not just once, but always.
Thinking space for one 