Dear Parent; Your Daughters Sent Me

 

 

 Any time I sit with young people; boys or girls; I always like to pick their minds. I am curious. I want to know how they are doing, what is shaping them, and what they are silently carrying. I mean; am a mother, right?

This morning, I had a group of young women on internship visit me. Bright-eyed, brilliant, full of laughter and questions. Of course, I asked why they chose their courses—because let us be honest, the course names nowadays can make your eyes roll into next semester 😄.

They had come to learn about us, our work, basically more about the motivation behind the program, and we spoke freely, with me answering, them asking, and all of us laughing.

When they were done; I asked my own question:
“If your universities would solve one problem, which one would it be and why?”

There was a bit of uh and oh's, lakini.... the bombshell happened:

“There are no safe spaces.” Create them.
“Sexual harassment is everywhere.” Deal with that.

And suddenly, my mother claws came out.
I almost flew to four campuses from my chair.

We dove into it. Deep.

Story after story. Pain layered upon pain.
Girls being harassed by lecturers.
Girls mocked by peers for being “too straight.”
Girls repeating units they should have passed because they refused to “cooperate.”
Girls who have to choose silence if they want to graduate in peace.

And me? I just sat there, heart dropping to sub-zero degrees.
Because these daughters, these women; so full of promise, are out there in the hands of systems that do nothing to protect them.

Where Is the Compassion?

In some campuses, when a girl falls pregnant, she is expelled—alone.
As if she self-impregnated.
As if there was no other party.
As if?

In other places, girls face their abusers in official hearings—without empathy, safety, or a shred of human dignity.

And in many more, the rot is hidden under fancy mission statements and “inspirational” vision boards that look good on paper and nowhere else.

Are you tired?

Tired of watching us enable abuse through silence.
Tired of seeing how depravity and indifference have become neighbors in places meant to shape futures.

My heart is still sitting in that room with those girls.

And it is silently wondering:

How do we raise men to respect women in a system that rewards the opposite?
How do we protect our daughters when power is so often in the hands of predators?
How do we shift from talking about safety to building safety?

 So, Dear Parents,

When are we having the conversation?
The real one.
The one without the heavy sighs, the awkward silence, the “not under my roof” sermon?

Your daughters sent me.
Not with words,
But with their stories—
With questions wrapped in shame,
And silence wrapped in survival.

They are not okay.
They are navigating abuse, coercion, confusion…
While pretending to be “fine” because
They do not know how to start a conversation ;they were never taught to have.

Dear Parents?! 

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