Written piece
The Question Poor Fathers Cannot Ask
Grace Banda
Malawi
About this piece
My thread is the heavy question poor fathers in Malawi carry: Why is wanting education for your daughter a risk? I stitch in their silence as they watch poverty turn their love into vulnerability. If this quilt holds the truth, hold them too.
The Question Poor Fathers Cannot Ask
I bring the voices I hear every day to the Commonwealth quilt. I’m just a college girl, but I see the fathers.
I see them counting money for fees with shaking hands. Men who skip meals so their daughters can sit in lecture halls. Men who know exactly what happens in those halls because they are men. They know men with wives at home hunt students. They know “no” can mean a failed exam.
And they send their daughters anyway. Because what’s the alternative? Ignorance? So they pray. They cry. They go silent.
So I ask them: Why is it a crime to be poor? Why is it a curse to be a father with empty pockets? Why is your love for your daughter sacred, but his love is a weakness to exploit?
The Commonwealth speaks of “human dignity.” Then let it hear this: There is no dignity when a father’s poverty is the reason his daughter becomes prey.
My thread is their unspoken question. My thread is the weight in their chests when the term starts. If this quilt is about all of us, then stitch these fathers in. Poverty is not a crime. Exploitation is. And their love deserves to be seen.