SAFEGUARDING GIRLS

Girls like us by rachel lloyd

This book was moving, heartbreaking, empowering, enraging, truthful…a great book. The narration of how young girls are exploited at a young age and the harsh treatment received by society brought to light an undeniable truth. The realities that these real young girls are forced to live through showed me a cruel side of this world.

Reading this book, I also became aware of my own implicit bias about sexually exploited and domestically abused girls and women. I have been an advocate against gender-based violence since a young age reading accounts of real women in books such as “Burned Alive” (by Souad), learning more about the topic by being on the Commission on the Status of Women in Model UN and classes taken in undergrad. Nonetheless, even educated people can carry implicit bias and this book served to challenge me to bring forth and dismantle some subconscious bias.

Reading this book reignited my commitment to pursue advocating for women safety and rights. I am still not sure how that is going to happen but I do have a desire to include in my career the pursuit of providing safety and health to marginalized girls in my neighborhood and around the world.

The accounts in this book (and other stories) of how people, the justice system, cops can be so cruel and disregarding to victims is something that we ought to change. It is imperative that we work to not persecute but to protect all victims, especially women, especially women of color.

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If you would like to learn more about the author’s story and donate to help her organization Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS) more information can be found at https://www.gems-girls.org/