Banda was born in Chitera, a village in southern Malawi. Her father died when she was 3, leaving her mother to raise two girls on her own.
When her time came to go to the initiation camp, at age 13, she refused.
“I simply said no,” she says. “I knew what I wanted in life, and that was getting an education.”
The women in Chitera considered her disrespectful of their cultural values. They’d say things like: “Look at you, you’re all grown up. Your little sister has a baby, what about you?”
Banda found support from people at the Girls Empowerment Network, a Malawi-based nonprofit that was training girls to become advocates and urge their village chiefs to enact ordinances to protect girls from early marriage.
With the group’s help, Banda convinced her mother and aunts that she needed to make her own decision.