African women throughout the world endure the most brutal forms of discrimination and oppression known to human civilization. The various forms of abuse, sexual violence, psychological humiliation and the resulting trauma stem from the belief in practice that women and girls are lower than men; that our lives are worth less than theirs are. The different ways that these deeply rooted cultural practices are realized, vary from country to country, region to region, and community to community. 

Where women and girls are mistreated, their lives, the totality of who each is as a human being--someone with meaningful thoughts and ideas, the capacity to do great things in life if given a chance, with thoughts, feelings, beliefs, aspirations, hopes and goals--is utterly reduced to a baby maker, sexual object, and/or servant.

Tradition is no justification to continue practices that are demeaning, violent, and dangerous.  That they continue reflects arrogance, backwardness, and the desire to keep half of a population (women) under the feet of the other half (men).  Women's complicity with male violence and intimidation is wrong.  And when justice is carried out, these women need to be dealt with just as severly as the men.

• Antiquated Cultural Practices: includes traditionally assigned gender roles whereby the woman carries out domestic work (even if she works a job and the man doesn't), arranged marriages, dowries and bride prices.  All of these practices deny women the right to make decisions about their lives or treat them as property. 
• Female Genital Mutilation (FGM): the removal of the clitoris, outer labia, and/or inner labia, as well as the stitching up of the wound (or any variation), mostly without anesthetic.  When this happens, girls have no choice, no voice. This is a culturally rooted practice often carried out by women, but also men. Girls very young in age, as young as 3 (sometimes younger), are mutilated. Justifications for its persistence today: to prevent sexual promiscuity, rites of passage to womanhood, or religious observance.
• Sexual Violence: [includes FGM] includes rape (anal and vaginal), molestation, fondling, forced oral penetration by husbands, relatives, known perpetrators, strangers, individuals or a gang. Sexual violence also includes forcing a child or women to participate in sexual slavery; the buying and selling of girls on a local/global sex market. In impoverished areas, sometimes parents or other family members sell girls to men who then sell them for sex. Sexual abuse affects girls and women worldwide. Numerous young girls are violated often by people who know them, such as family members. Using various coping strategies girls and women live out their lives with the trauma of having been violated and brutalized; some successfully overcoming the abuse and humiliation, while others sucumbing to mental illness, depression, sickness or even death (suicide). In some parts of Africa, women also endure the added trauma of being blamed for the attack and are shunned, further abused, or even killed.
• Domestic Violence: physical, emotional and/or physical abuse by a member of the household. This often involves husbands, but we also include violence (beatings) of adults against children. Throughout the world, African women are beat down by people close to them.  Tragically, that they endure such abuse often reflects the deep cultural and broader societal support of such treatment; otherwise either women would fight back to end the abuse or the family/government would step in and stop it.  If a woman is too weak or otherwise incapable of protecting herself, then her family should.