BREAKING CHAINS THEY CALLED TRADITION.

"ANYANGO, you'll remain back and prepare your brothers lunch after school" I would here my mum tell my sister

"How dare you contribute in family conversations, soon we'll marry you off" they told my sister every single time she tried to speak her mind.

Growing up in the luo community in Kenya,this was a normal thing the girlchild had no voice,they were considered passengers that will soon leave for a foreign land.The boychild was given more priviledges and power,I used to feel for a her but I was still blind folded in the norm,the thing I grew up seeing and watching.

Education later enlightened me and I came to realize no gender is superior and breaking this traditions is not rebellion,it is justice.

What happens when a community realizes that the rules it has protected for generations are the same rules holding its children back?

That is the dilemma many societies are waking up to today. For years, tradition has been treated as sacred,untouchable and unquestionable. It has been praised as identity, as culture, as wisdom passed down. Yet hidden beneath its celebration are chains quietly wrapped around the lives of children, especially the girl child.

In many communities, tradition is spoken like a sacred word passed down in songs, whispered in ceremonies, guarded by elders like a fragile flame. It is said to unite people, to preserve identity, to give meaning. But for many girls, tradition is not a song. It is a weight.

From a young age, girls learn the rules before they learn their dreams. They are taught how to sit, how to speak softly, how to lower their eyes. While boys are told stories of courage and leadership, girls are prepared for endurance. “This is how it has always been,” they are told, as if time itself has already decided their fate.

In some communities, a girl’s body becomes a battlefield for tradition. Painful rites are dressed as honor. Silence is praised as obedience. Fear is mistaken for respect. When a girl cries, she is told she is weak. When she questions, she is told she is disrespectful. And when she resists, she is reminded that tradition must be protected even if it costs her childhood, her education, or her sense of self.

Girls walk long distances to fetch water while their brothers walk freely toward opportunity. Girls are pulled out of school to prepare for marriage, while their dreams are folded away like clothes they are told they will never wear. A girl’s value is measured not by her ideas or abilities, but by how well she fits into a role chosen long before she was born.

Yet, even in the heaviest traditions, something powerful stirs.

Topics like menstruation, sexual health and consent were a taboo,girls suffered in silence leading to stigma, early pregnancies and school dropouts.

Across many communities, girls are raised with limits written into their futures. From a young age, they are taught endurance before ambition, silence before expression, sacrifice before self discovery. Education is often treated as optional, while responsibility is compulsory. Dreams are postponed, sometimes permanently, in the name of “this is how it has always been done.”

But something powerful is changing.

Girls are beginning to rise not alone, but together. Classrooms are filling again. Voices once softened by fear are now steady with purpose. Communities are discovering that when girls are educated, families grow stronger, economies rise, and cultures evolve rather than disappear. The girl child is no longer seen only as a bearer of tradition, but as a builder of the future.

At the same time, boys are learning a different lesson one that frees them too. They are being taught that leadership is not dominance, that strength is not silence, and that supporting equality does not weaken masculinity. Boys are stepping forward as allies, learning that a just society is not one where they stand above others, but one where they stand with them.

This shared awakening is powerful.

It reminds us that tradition should not be a chain, but a foundationstrong enough to stand on, yet flexible enough to grow. Culture should protect children, not pressure them. It should nurture potential, not narrow it.

Breaking these chains does not mean abandoning who we are. It means choosing progress over fear, hope over habit, and courage over comfort. It means redefining tradition so it serves humanity, not controls it.

When a society lifts its girls, it lifts its boys too.

When children are free to dream, communities thrive.

As a brother am so proud of my sister ANYANGO ,she's now a professional teacher, cultivating the spirit of gender equality to the upcoming young generation and not to dwell on traditions that appear biased.

Because a tradition that survives by hurting it's daughters is not a tradition worth keeping but one that grows with them,is a legacy worth celebrating.

"Breaking chains they called tradition is not destruction,it is transformation."