“I feared that if I spoke out, next time would be worse if they recognized me, but I believe women should be able to speak out so that our government knows the exact challenges.”
It can take courage to inform women of their rights and ask them what they want. It also takes courage to answer the question. When women are informed of their rights, the next step is to demand those rights; this can be threatening to established power structures. Halima Mnung’ulile is a 37-year-old mother of four from Yombo Vituka in Tanzania. When she was in labor with her second child, she went to the local government health facility expecting it to be safer than giving birth at home. Yet during childbirth the nurses swore at her and when she needed help, they ignored her. Her child was born with disabilities. Until she was approached by the What Women Want campaign, she had no opportunity to speak about her experience. “I feared that if I spoke out, next time would be worse if they recognized me, but I believe women should be able to speak out so that our government knows the exact challenges.” Speaking out can be a matter of survival in her community: “If service providers in health facilities treated pregnant women with respect and dignity, we would have no more women giving birth at home.”
