Marriage Quote by Jaha Dukureh

The power here is in the plainness: a mother’s voice refusing to romanticize “tradition” when tradition has meant pain. Jaha Dukureh doesn’t argue abstractly about human rights; she sets a boundary. “I don’t want” repeats like a heartbeat, turning private desire into public demand. It’s not poetic ornament so much as a pressure tactic: insistence as survival.

The pairing of “early marriage” and “FGM” is deliberate. She links two practices that are often siloed in policy debates, exposing how control over girls’ futures travels through both the legal and the bodily. Saying “whether it’s” also tells you she’s had to navigate the rhetorical dodge people use to minimize harm: treat each abuse as an exception, a one-off, a misunderstanding. Her syntax refuses that compartmentalization.

“Face the challenges I did” signals lived experience without forcing spectacle. The subtext is strategic: testimony that’s credible but not voyeuristic, a way to keep the focus on prevention rather than the audience’s curiosity. Then she lands on “fear”, which widens the frame beyond a single procedure or ceremony. Fear is the atmosphere these systems create: silence, compliance, the constant calculation of what resistance will cost.

Context matters because Dukureh is speaking from inside the communities often reduced to headlines. That’s why the final line matters: “any girl”. It’s universal, but not vague. It’s a claim that protection can’t be conditional on geography, culture, or respectability. She’s not asking for sympathy; she’s asserting a future where girls don’t have to be brave just to be safe.