SH Stories Essay Competition — Sold Into Silence: A Failed Scholarship, A Forced Marriage & Fractured Dreams
Nyanhial, a refugee woman living in Kakuma Refugee Camp, was unable to pursue her education due to a lack of opportunities and multiple rejected scholarship applications. Consequently, she was forced into an arranged marriage. In her essay, she sharply critiques the patriarchal mindsets that dominate the lives of many women, highlighting how the intersection with their refugee status further marginalises them.
By Nyanhial Kuony War
Today, I found out that I had been rejected. I tried so many times. I applied to not just one scholarship but twenty. But guess what? I got rejected by all of them.
Sometimes, I wonder if I deserve it or if it’s just how life is. Life has perpetually humbled me to the point where sometimes I cry my eyes out, or I am dumbfounded and retreat. Other times, I just keep quiet and let the storm pass. But where is my silver lining?
Do not get me wrong; it’s not that I am acting entitled or think I am more deserving than others. It’s just that I wish things would work out for me for once. I crave joining the university and getting a degree like any other person. A year ago, I reduced my expectations to a diploma, as luck is not on my side. I realised that even a certificate is worth something instead of sitting at home. By now, I have undergone several training sessions and received my certificates.
“It is good to have several life plans,” they said.
‘What is your plan if education doesn’t work for you?’ they asked.
The thing is, education was my only plan. But soon enough I was listening to my aunties plant the idea of marriage inside my head. It was not just any ordinary marriage but a Western world kind of marriage. A wedding gown, a ring, a possible visa, and, to top it up, a European-based South Sudanese man.
‘The age part doesn’t matter. He has to be well loaded,’ they said.
I do not like the idea of getting married, but if you are a South Sudanese girl like me, then you are well aware that your life decisions are not yours to make.
A Broken Self Esteem
Being a refugee had anyway left me with no dignity or self-respect. I always waited for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to provide for my daily needs. Since my father was a soldier in the war, he lost both of his legs and became an amputee.
As a result, he could not do much to ensure that we got our daily needs since he depended on us for survival. On the other hand, my mother never really went to school, so she could not get a decent job to support us. In addition, she was not supposed to be out of the house for long hours since Dad needed someone to carry him around and make food for the household. We were very poor and ate only one meal a day. The quantity was not much, and living in a refugee camp, the foods given to us were either rice or maize flour. A balanced diet was a privilege.
For prospective suitors, marrying a girl from the camp was cheaper. You did not need a church wedding, nor was it mandatory to pay all the cows that city girls always want as dowry. Another advantage of marrying a girl from the camp was that she would never return to her family even if you mistreated her, so long as the family got financial support from the husband. They believe that a refugee has no dignity or self-respect and should be treated as such.
I had previously seen girls as early as fifteen years of age getting married to older men. Whenever they could not sire children within a year, it was automatically assumed that the girl was the problem.
‘She cannot bear a child because she played with boys and destroyed her womb.’
Then, she is taken to countless hospitals, and numerous tests are done on her body in an attempt to make her pregnant. It was never the man’s fault.
‘How could men have fertility issues?’
The more the pregnancy is delayed, the more insults are hurled at the girl.
The marriage is more of a secret, because, in Europe, a man should have only one wife. Many European-based South Sudanese men who come to marry us, the refugee girls, are already married. However, they are dissatisfied with the protection European laws provide to their wives. As a result, they come to the Kakuma refugee camp to marry us, seeking to boost their egos and treat us poorly. As refugees, we are treated like disposable commodities, without any remorse for our well-being — especially when our uncles and aunts pitch the idea of a get-rich-quick scheme to our parents.
A Social Media ‘Auction’
I watched them create a Facebook account for me, that I later realised was the market where the ‘auctioning’ happened.
If you are from a reputable family, the sale is more expensive and it increases the number of suitors. Your height and beauty double the price. Lastly, if you can; cook, not talk back, stay indoors, respectably cover yourself and hide all your allowances from other men, then you are the jackpot’. Keeping the yolk intact for the chosen one is the most important thing.
After my Facebook account had been created, the photography session began. After all, they can’t buy what they can’t see. My photos made a few rounds on social media with eye-catching captions. Of course, they were not making it evident that it was a quest to find me a husband. Then the thirsty men fell into the trap; they began asking for my hand in marriage, but the goal was to bag the money, so all the people who came to negotiate with nothing but love and a few coins were blocked with immediate effect. The young men who were recent graduates from university and had no jobs were also rejected. Men residing in Juba were told they had nothing to offer.
I hated everything, but speaking up meant that my mother did not raise me well. It would also earn her backlash and a few blue-black beatings. The auction continued and intensified, they now expanded it to TikTok where a live recording happened in which I was told to do things like cook akob, walwal, kisra, Mula kombo and the rest. The greatest way to a man’s heart was through the stomach, but I didn’t want anything to do with a man, let alone his stomach or his heart. I wanted to be at his fingernails so he could reject me and save me from this misery.
Soon, the auctioneers gave their bids, and the highest bidder won. An eighty-year-old man, for that matter, ticked all the set qualifications of being rich. He lived in Europe and the rest. He had sons and daughters older than me and needed someone to care for him in his old age. So, I was disposed of. The wedding happened when he came to Kakuma. This man couldn’t even stand without support. But money made my family members blind, deaf and even mute. I was taken to my alleged husband’s house, and that is where I am now residing.
My most significant task is to take care of him under extreme scrutiny from his other five older wives and children. They all remind me with no fail that I was disposed of and should never have high expectations of a change in my life. My relatives only pick up my calls to ask me when I will send them money. I cannot complain because I am not allowed to. And I should laugh through my misery since a rich man’s joke is always funny. I find no purpose in living.
‘What If’
Sadly, this is the reality for most of the South Sudanese girls who have either not gone to school or have stopped schooling for various reasons, such as lack of school fees. The uncles and aunts will not help clear your fees but will have the audacity to find you a husband. Your parents will not see the injustices done to you because of the bragging rights they have obtained in society as a result of your marriage. Your siblings will not speak for you because they can now enjoy the privileges of rubbing shoulders with the rich, and you will always depend on your husband and his family. They give you just enough to ensure you don’t think outside the box and discover that it’s a scheme, a charade. Your rights are limited by the one who holds your power.
So, my question is, ‘What if God had given me just one scholarship?’ Would my life be less hellish than the one I am currently living? Rejection is redirection, they say, but I wish I were redirected to a classroom, a university which would make me become a lawyer and fight the injustices thrown at me and the female gender at large by a dystopian reality.
About the Author
Nyanhial Kuony War who also goes by Seraph Sane or Sarah is a young South Sudanese refugee poet, writer and public speaker whose work delves deep into themes that resonate with human experiences, shedding light on issues such as mental health, early marriages, girl child education, body shaming and self-identity as a refugee. Through her poignant
and educational poetry, Seraph offers a glimpse into the complexities of these topics, drawing from her own experiences and observations to create powerful narratives that speak to the heart. She was the winner/runner-up in the Samuel Hall Essay Competition
