Fatuma Adan won’t take no for an answer.
“I’m supposed to be locked up, married. I should be a grandmother now,” she told an audience of development workers at a conference held in June in Ottawa, Canada. Instead, Adan has unexpectedly managed to defy cultural norms and expectations, forging her own destiny and becoming a trailblazer for women’s and girls’ rights in her community.
Adan hails from Marsabit, a small town in northern Kenya — Adan calls the area “Kenya 2” which, according to her, “starts where the tarmac ends.” In Kenya 2, girls rarely finish high school. Early marriage and pregnancy, female genital mutilation and domestic violence are just some of the many issues faced by girls and women in this remote and underserved part of the country.