Kapoeta … or where a girl is just 100 cows

It’s not only surprising sometimes, but shocking as well, the reasons girls are denied education by certain sets of people or in certain regions.

According to a report by Moses Yakudu, Kapoeta, South Sudan girls are married off against their will because their parents get a hundred cows in return.

Pissed off at how cheaply they’re sold off, Caroline Wauldo blasted such parents, saying, “We know you earn 100 cows when you marry off your daughters. Yet, that comes only once. If you send your girls to school, they will find jobs which will allow them buy you one hundred cows every month. Wouldn’t you prefer that?”

Wauldo made her mind known at an event by the United Nations in Kapoeta recently to promote the rights of its girls and women.

Kousa Rakudo, a 17-year-old female student at Saint Bakita Girls Secondary School of Narus, also used the opportunity to speak her mind and enlighten others.

“Sweet dreams come after education. Women, it’s possible to achieve anything you want if you are educated!” she declared.

“I appeal to parents to stop forcing us young girls onto men. We also want to study so we can help the world,” echoed Veronica Natalia, a student and captain of the community’s female football club. “Girls, even if you have given birth, go back to school. That is the only way your future will be bright.”

The UN programme, a variety of sport activities, chief of which was a women’s football match, had over seven hundred people in attendance, and they were sensitized about the negative effects of harmful traditional practices on women.