Mariam has always been outspoken, an agitator, a nuisance, she says. Even now she speaks vigorously in sudden bursts of words, like somebody worried they won’t be given the chance to finish their point. In Eritrea, where she comes from, this is a lot more unusual in a woman, “We are raised to feel inferior to men” she says, “From the day we are born. If a son is born we celebrate with seven ululations, but if it’s a girl it’s only three. We have been taught, every day, not to speak up.”
But Mariam is speaking up, has been doing it her whole life, and as a woman in one of the world’s most brutally repressive states, this eventually led her into danger. “I had to flee because I dared to raise my voice against the unconstitutional actions of my government.” A pro-democracy activist, Mariam came to the attention of the authorities in Eritrea and was forced to flee for her life. Now, she is concerned for other Eritrean women in England, and the problems that they face in accessing their rights in a country where they are supposed to have them.
“When you come from a lawless country like mine, what you get is people who do not know the law. They do not know it can protect them; it has only been used to repress them in the past. To us, the government has always been just a bully, how can we know that things are different here? The women from my community have real difficulty trusting authority figures.
