"Marie Stopes, the great apostle of contraception in interwar Britain, was also—like many among the progressives of the time—a keen eugenicist. In 1935, she attended a Congress for Population Science in Nazi Berlin. In August 1939, she even sent Hitler a volume of her dreadful poems, accompanied by a treacly epistle about love. Yet all this has been forgotten amid continuing progressive admiration for Marie Stopes’s embrace of what are nowadays known as "reproductive rights.""

"In this country, to get ahead in life, to beat poverty, you need education"

"Some have actually come out in the open and said: ‘I used to be a commercial cleanser, I’m HIV positive, I’ve stopped, it’s not fine and I go village by village telling other commercial cleansers to stop this, it’s a risky taboo behavior"

"I decided I’m going to dedicate my life to dealing with injustice, just because I don’t like it when a structure or system puts others in poverty, puts others in a position of inequality"

"widow cleansing,” a traditional practice in which a widow is expected to have sexual relations, “in order to cleanse her"

"What I know for sure child marriage is a guarantee for poverty among girls in my country and I want it to end. No ifs or buts"

"There is a belief that if she does not sleep with someone, the spirit of her dead husband will come and visit upon her and her family will be cursed"

"I will remain sad because I know the cost of child marriage. It deprives girls of education and undermines their self-confidence and self-identity. It also makes them prone to physical and emotional abuse by their so called husbands"

"Girl-child marriages need to be prohibited tough the Constitution because they are a violation of every conceivable human right including the right to life, health, education, human dignity and development"

"It’s a mindset issue,” says White. Even the widows, they’ve told me, ‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want a curse to come to my husband.’ They cry to be cleansed"

"I was hoping to talk to women and not to kids or girls, as I don’t think they would understand much about inheritance"

"My hero the law, save the girls,” I thought! Yet, I soon found out that this was a complex story"

"When I came back the next day, the “women” had indeed gathered waiting for me. However I noticed that the “women” were not women, as such. They were… kids. Teenage girls"

"It is really important for us as young people to be better equipped with the right knowledge and network so that we can actively engage with policy makers and diverse stakeholders in the pursuit of gender quality"

"in defending women’s rights, men are actually preserving their own dignity"

"Young people have the task to mobilize and decentralize information on why achieving gender equality is a win overall for humanity. Technology has made it very easy for us to advocate both offline and online, share best practices and form synergies across continents"

"We hear the voices from across the world telling us, yes it has been done elsewhere — it can also be done in Kenya"

"My philosophy is that in life you either succeed or learn."

"Things that change your life are the people you meet and the books you read."

"and there’s nobody that’s going to stop that kind of change that is brewing across the country"

"We should be agitated for change, especially the many things that don’t work as opposed to sitting back, moaning and groaning."

"Women’s dressing has been weaponized. Society uses the dress as a backlash against women who are proponents of certain changes."

"without access to education, it is impossible to make gender equality a reality"

"Achieving gender equality is more than 50-50 representation; it is also about recognizing and respecting women’s rights as human rights, treating women with dignity, offering them equal opportunities to participate fully in the socioeconomic and political development of their individual countries"

"Young people are the future of our communities and for us to thrive socially, economically, and politically, we have to ensure that everyone plays their role effectively. That is not possible without achieving gender equality"

"Gender equality is a prerequisite for making sustainable development a reality. As young people, we have to inform ourselves and passionately advocate and work to address the barriers hindering equality for all"

"When you find a network of people who are thinking alike with a common desire to bring change, you achieve a lot."

"The recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals are actually our objectives as young people and we can no longer be sidelined in the discussions around execution and implementation because we are the ones who are going to live through them"

"I wanted to die. For three months, I cried every day"

"They’ll never be able to shake off the shackles of oppression"

"We still felt the fear, but continued to do it anyway because it was the right thing. We understand that it is our duty, and that of our generation, to replace the present despair with a new hope"

"The brain is a very powerful organ, whatever you tell it, it does. The body will just adjust"

"Unless the people are equipped with all the information they require, and they need, to make the right decisions"

"In Africa and in Kenya we have all the resources"

"When you speak up, our government listens. When you activate your networks, that is awesome"

"When you are involved in activism, your goal is never to get rewarded but to create impact and change."

"My advice to such radio presenters is, go to a counselling school and learn do you can offer constructive advice. Radio is a very powerful tool and some listeners take our word as the gospel truth"

"I see more young people equipping themselves with the right kind of information. This is critical as it allows us to both be impactful in our advocacy and to be taken seriously"

"It’s only that we have the wrong priorities, the wrong leadership to direct those priorities, and the levels of corruption that make it impossible for that potential to be realized"

"I talk to myself. Najiambia ‘Anne, whatever you have, put it behind. You are the voice of hope to the people outside there"

"The time for change has come"

"What if my daughter asks me about it? What am I going to answer? Does it matter to me what my in-laws think? What does it mean to me when my child starts condemning me? What if my husband leaves me? You manage the dynamics around you immediately, and then you develop resilience"

"My singular motivation is that… if [the government] is responsible for me, when I do something bad it throws me in the slammer. In the same way, when it does badly, it should be thrown in the slammer"

"My personal vision is that I will do all I can do with the ability I have"

"To achieve prosperity, everyone has to have a seat at the table when decisions are made. And there is no more important voice as that of youth. From unemployment to poverty to child marriage to violence, just to mention a few, we are the ones on the ground grappling with these issues"

"I have used my voice to give the voiceless a voice."

"Right now, we have not seen any long-term strategies and policies that can adapt to these situations. It is good to project the country’s future population but the main question is: What are we going to do today to solve these problems?"

"there used to be some degree of tolerance as Moroccans would not incriminate, condemn or judge homosexuals"

"I see no issue if you can be able to give your voice to people and help them. My only problem would be if you know nothing about what you are speaking of hence, misadvising listeners"

"One of the most influential women in South Africa during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries"