Until - In answer to the question "Why do you need a Women's Movement?"

Until girls are not killed at birth for being girls

Until we are welcomed for the gifts that we are

Until every girl goes to school

No more attacks from uncles, brothers, cousins, fathers, grandfathers,

Strangers,

No more keeping us indoors.

Until forced marriages end,

No more selling,

No more indentured labor,

No telling us what to wear.

Until there is no more violence, no more beating up, no more rape,

Until there is no more acid thrown in faces,

No more honour killing,

No more cutting, no more girls screaming in pain,

Until no more hot rocks are pushed against budding breasts,

No more breast ironing

By mothers, out of fear for their daughters becoming women,

Until we are cherished, respected, safe from the fear

That some man will rape us, will rape her,

Without fear

That I will, that she will, that they will

Disappear tomorrow and be discovered dead in a river,

In a barn, in a brothel somewhere far away from home,

Or in her home.

Until womanhood is held sacred,

And every girl has what she needs when she bleeds,

Until untouchable is a word of the past,

And seclusion is chosen, never forced,

And until old women are free of forced mourning in mourning huts,

Until no woman loses her home and land when a husband dies,

Until no woman is forced to marry his brother or lead a secluded life,

Or a life on the street,

Or pushed into a ditch to die in fire, labelled a witch.

Until women live freely and safely with dignity,

Until there is no more

Ridiculing of young single mothers,

Scathing rebukes for loving without knowledge,

For birthing without health care,

For mothering without community,

Until girls do not disappear into slavery,

Until there is no more pornography,

No more taunting words and grabbing and threats

For being alone on a walk, for being alone on the way to school,

On the way to work, on the way to friends,

On the way to meet a lover, on the way to read a book in the park,

On the way to drive a car,

On the way to do whatever we want with our days, our evenings, our nights.

Until we have the time and space and liberty to write and speak and meet,

Until all women speakers and journalists in jails are freed,

Until we are not held captive and tortured

For speaking the same words as these,

Until our words are free and heard.

Until this world built on violence and corruption,

Selfishness and squandering,

Money hoarded offshore is

Brought back to the communities it is stolen from,

Distributed to the people who mined those mines,

The farmers who fed theircommunities,

To the schools, the hospitals,

Until poverty is ended, medicine available

Until people and animals are not dying from

Chemicals in our water and land,

And endless wars over wealth,

While we witness the ruination of our magnificent earth.

Until the truth of what women have done and do is known,

Until our wisdom and beauty is understood,

Until women emerge from these lives, imprisoned and controlled,

This containing of our spirits, the forced silence of our graves,

Until every girl grows up strong and free, her opinions heard,

Until we have the time and space and liberty to write and speak and meet,

Until we formnew leadership for this world,

Until the brilliance of our leadership soars,

Our writing of history,

The truth of the past,

The truth of now,

The emergence of visionary ideas,

Connected with each other globally,

Celebrating each step forward,

Until every woman lives free.