Human rights education in Senegal triggers a re-examination of Koranic law and traditions like forced early marriage and female circumcision, causing a historic movement towards positive social change.
WALKING WITH LIFE The Birth of a Human Rights Movement in Africa
A Senegalese non-profit organization called Tostan uses African methods like dance, drama, debate, poetry and music to guide a largely illiterate Islamic populace towards their own understanding of human rights and democracy. Participants like Ouriye Sale, who formerly performed female genital cutting on thousands of girls, or Demba Diwarra, a village Imam, tell their own stories. . Narrator Issa Saka leads viewers from one stage of the program to another, with sequences punctuated by the songs of a traditional griot, or oral story-teller, commenting on the impact of human rights on peoples lives and the need to change or abandon some ancient traditions..
American founder Molly Melching explains how she worked with the great African philosopher Cher Antja Diop to develop Tostan after realizing that people did not understand the terms human rights and democracy that they heard on the radio. To bring about positive social transformation, its essential to start where people already are in their culture, states Melching. You cant come in and impose new ideas on them these ideas have to grow organically from the peoples understanding, not from anyone telling them that their culture is wrong. The people themselves have to decide which traditions serve them well in the modern word, and which do not and should be abandoned. Melching has lived in Senegal for 34 years. The staff of Tostan is 99% African, and the program is run by Africans and funded by outside contributors.
While some people initially resist, others agree to participate in the two-year training program which includes human rights, democracy, health, hygiene, problem solving and math. Trained facilitators help communities decide which traditions need re-examination in the light of human rights, and which should be maintained.
In a theatrical sketch designed to teach audiences, a woman complains that she has five children and does not want any more, but her husband will not discuss the matter with her. Her friend, who has participated in the human rights education program, hands her a pink condom for her husband, advising the woman that she has the right to good health and that having more than five children is not healthy.
A weeping woman describes the death of her young daughter during the operation known as female genital cutting. In a play produced by villagers as a teaching tool, a womans husband insists that their daughter be circumcised. Even after consultation with the local Imam, who can find no mention of circumcision in the Koran, the husband maintains his position only to find that the cutter herself has thrown away her dreadful knife and abandoned the practice after learning of its health risks and of a womans right to a life free of violence.
One woman relates how she and her friends decided to abandon female genital cutting (FGC) after realizing that they had a right to a life free of violence, and a right to good health. In addition, because they traditionally could not marry into tribes that do not practice female circumcision, they found this to be a form of discrimination which they no longer wish to practice. Their Imam, Demba Diwarra, describes how he consulted with religious leaders in Cairo, and returned with the sensational news that FGC is not required in Islam. We see Demba walking country paths where he marched hundreds of miles between villages to spread the news. The women of several inter-marrying villages hold a public declaration in which they announce to their husbands and sons, politicians, chiefs and Imams, foreign aid representatives and the media, that they will no longer tolerate female genital cutting or forced early marriage. At the tenth anniversary of this historic occasion, dramatic footage conveys their powerful speeches, wildly energetic dances and enlightened songs.
A village chief explains that Tostan has been successful where others have failed because the organization understands the Senegalese social and political structures, and takes pains to work together with local Islamic authorities and obtain their consent and cooperation before taking any action. Another village chief explains that people can easily accept human rights because they see many parallels between human rights and Islamic laws.
We see the program in action in the villages, where participants work together in a variety of ways to realize their human rights to good health, to education, to shelter. Community clean-ups, always accompanied by music and dance, are a common feature, as well as improved pre-and post-natal care, girls education, and birth registration for proper citizenship. All such activities are initiated and managed by the villagers themselves, without outside interference.
In a Koranic school in Dakar, boys who come from outlying areas and even other countries must traditionally beg for a living. Through Tostans program, they learn their human rights to better living conditions and a better education. Tostan arranges that local women living in the neighborhood adopt a boy to whom they give two meals a day, so that the boys need spend less time begging and more time in learning job skills or going to French school.
Finally, Imam Demba Diwarra comments that the human right to a life free of discrimination has led to the break down of barriers between ethnic groups, opening up new areas for cooperation, intermarriage and prosperity. As he speaks, four women of different tribes sweep their family compound, the broad, slo-motion strokes becoming a metaphor for the positive changes that Senegalese have brought about through their own understanding of human rights and democracy, and how they can be applied within their Islamic culture on a personal and community level.
