Namibian society is fairly conservative, particularly where issues of morality, customs and family values are concerned

Women’s rights and family matters

Customary marriages

most prominent within the sphere of the family household.

matters that pertain to the children.

the maintenance of such gender and role conceptions in Namibian society at large

the eldest son makes all the major decisions

Luisa: Yes. There came a point. We were in the [Pause] process of getting our permanent residency card in order to be able to go to school, and the lawyer let my mother know that me and my sister—my other sister—were not going to make it because once you hit eighteen, you're no longer under the case that you originally filed, so the best option for us would be adoption. We would be adopted by an American citizen in order to get our American status fixed, and that was something my mom and I contemplated for a long, long time, and she was going to go through with it, but my dad put a huge stop to that and was like, "That's not happening. You're stupid. That's not a thing. These are my kids. You're not letting that happen."Luisa: It was going to be a family member, not a close family member, but these were the lengths that you go through to try to get through this. I didn't have a normal childhood. I never got to learn to drive. I didn't go to drivers ed. I didn't get to travel with my best friend to DisneyLand because my mom was so scared of—