Mariam’s Cry in the Dark: A Lagos Girl’s Fight to Be Seen
The first time I met Mariam, she wouldn’t look at me. She sat on the edge of a cracked plastic chair in a small health post off Mile 12, her knees pulled close, her scarf pulled lower, as if hiding would make her less visible, less broken.
She was 16 — but if you didn’t know, you might have thought she was younger. Life had starved her, not only of food but of childhood.
Her father had died suddenly, the kind of illness that comes quietly and leaves like a thief — taking the family’s only income with it. Overnight, Mariam went from daughter to breadwinner, hawking fried plantain on busy Lagos streets where horns, sweat, and danger dance together every day.
One man noticed her — not with kindness, but with calculation. He saw the hunger, the desperation, the silence. He offered help, a little money, soft words. For a girl who hadn’t eaten all day, hope felt like safety.
But it wasn’t.
What followed wasn’t loud. There were no screams, no witnesses. Just whispered threats, silent tears, and a growing terror that knotted itself into her belly. By the time Mariam discovered she was pregnant, the man had vanished.
And that’s when the real punishment began.
Not from him — but from the world.
Her neighbors whispered. Her friends avoided her. Her mother, already drowning in grief and poverty, cried at night thinking she had failed her daughter, herself, and God.
When Mariam spoke to me for the first time, her voice shook like a paper in the wind:
"I thought maybe I should go to the bridge… maybe jump… maybe God will forgive me there.”
That single sentence is why I still believe journalism must do more than report — it must rescue.
Through community contacts and partners, we found her medical care that asked no questions, safe housing where no one pointed fingers, and counselors who held her hand when her own strength failed.
I watched her stomach grow round while her shoulders finally began to lift. She started to smile in rare, quiet moments. She asked for books. She started to dream again.
In the small hospital room where she gave birth, she held her baby girl like a soldier carrying a medal — hard-won, heavy, and sacred. She named her Imole. “Light.”
“I didn’t die,” she told me, tears streaming as she rocked the newborn. “I thought I would. But I didn’t. Maybe God wants me to help other girls now.”
And that’s when I realized — Mariam wasn’t just a victim anymore. She was a beginning.
Her mother has joined a women’s cooperative now, earning small money frying bean cakes by the roadside. Mariam has returned to school. She carries her baby on her back some mornings and her books in her hands — because life doesn’t wait for comfort, only courage.
Every statistic about teenage pregnancy in Nigeria hides a Mariam. A girl unseen until she is shamed. A girl unheard until she cries in the dark.
But sometimes, one voice — one story — can turn shame into power, can make governments look again, can make neighbors act differently.
Sometimes, journalism is the last light before the darkness wins.
Mariam is that light.
Comments
Post a Comment