Girls Are Not Potatoes
Once you leave the confines of the city of Nairobi and you drive into the rift the world 
changes dramatically. Gone are the large ugly apartment buildings, the traffic and the large stores and markets. Soon you reach the Rift Valley, the richest land and most fertile growing in Kenya.
As we drive through it, I notice by the side of the road, men beating stones from rocks by hand. Donkeys laden with cane and women walking tall with huge jerry cans of water travel walk by the side of the road. One also sees tomatoes, potatoes and cabbages stacked in beautiful pyramids.
What you don’t see is the sale of 8th grade girls who have no place to go after they finish primary school. Last week was the International Day of the Girl and it’s chief focus was on stopping the sale of girls into sex trades. It seems (according to GEMS.org the largest national organization for child sex workers) that the average age for a girl being sold is 13.
But girls are not potatoes, or cabbages. They are children, and the more we talk about this growing problem the more chance a girl has to go to school, become empowered and change her country.