A powerful interview with a lovely young woman about FGM

I follow Hibo Wardare on Facebook. She goes into schools and teaches with mixed sex classes and also teaches the teachers and medical professionals
www.facebook.com/hibo.wardere

That poor wee girl, 8 years old

It's horrific that ANY girl has this done to her. What is the UK gov doing to pressure foreign governments to actively prevent this?

www.kwisa.org.uk/about-us

This is where I donate when I have cash.
This is a wonderful organization run by and for African women.
The board are incredibly clever and very brilliant campaigners.
It's difficult to talk about these issues in communities because it's a stigmatized issue, both fgm and female sexuality.

Also African communities experience so much prejudice already and don't necessarily want to be known mainly for something that British politicians call 'barbaric'.
Especially as it isn't practiced uniformly across Africa, and does happen elsewhere in the world.

Kwisa are amazing at getting the balance right in what they say and do.

'I think there needs to be a grass roots movement, so someone like this woman, who is actually from there, might be listened to'
Yy

Jaha Dukureh is another voice speaking out on this issue.

As is Fatou Baldeh who studied in Scotland then moved back to the Gambia

Sorry, cross-posted with midge.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a good anti-FGM campaign going in the US.

Very sad story today about a girl in Egypt bleeding to death after FGM:

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/03/fgm-doctor-arrested-in-egypt-after-girl-12-bleeds-to-death

FYI

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/03/fgm-doctor-arrested-in-egypt-after-girl-12-bleeds-to-death

There's this:

www.ifrahfoundation.org/

"Ifrah Foundation was founded in 2010 by Ifrah Ahmed, an Irish citizen originally from Somalia. Ifrah Foundation has been active in Somalia since 2013, where it is a registered Civil Society Organisation (CSO). Ifrah Foundation is also a registered charity in Ireland.

Ifrah Ahmed is one of the world's top international FGM/C eradication advocates and activists. Ifrah has received multiple awards for her work and she campaigns relentlessly for legislation to ban FGM/C around the world. Ifrah is the Gender Advisor to the Government in Somalia.

Ifrah Foundation aims to:

Support the work of Ifrah Ahmed

Implement a National FGM/C Eradication Program in Somalia

Support similar initiatives in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) region in Africa."

Thank you drspouse. That's a hopeful link. I'll donate.

There are various grass roots charities promoting alternatives - rites of passage, education for girls:

www.beyondfgm.com/

I follow Nimco Ali on Twitter. She has received an OBE for her work re FGM. She’s a tad controversial as she’s (now) a Brexiteer Tory but when it comes to FGM she is a loud, proud voice who gives no fucks what others think.

Well it's not going to be me is it? Why would anything I say be relevant to them?

I did think that I wanted to hear from the fathers. Where women are harming and policing each other in an intensely patriarchal setup, the voices you're not hearing may be the actual voices of power. I wanted to hear the fathers of those boys telling them that women deserve complete lives and sexual enjoyment just like they do. And then to hear the mothers not just talking about 'clean girls' but about their own experiences. Which is why the voices of authentic women who have experienced this are so powerful.

I dont care about the colour of the people who rescue me from a burning building or an assault. But I do care, more than a bit, that e.g. women are represented in legislatures and not all laws and culture is male focused and male made. The same for different races.

And who do you think is going to influence these young boys?

I remember the documentary a few years ago about British activists in this field.

The documentary showed conversations with young men from communities where FGM is rife. At first they seemed to say 'nothing to do with us'. Then one said that he would choose to marry a girl who had been brutalised like this because his mother had told him to make sure he married 'a clean girl'. He clearly knew what she meant.

It makes sense that what boys and men believe and are taught about women in their societies influences the lives of women. Of course women like this boy's mother and the cutters are part of the system. But the men have to rethink their attitudes too.

If someone is coming to save me from getting sliced into, I don't care whether he or she is black, white, pink, alien, a little grey, yellow, purple or green. So don't give me that 'white saviour' shit.

You care what colour the policeman is who comes to rescue you from an assault?

Heartbreaking beyond words. The abuse and horror, but when that near-universal, the road to abolition is going to be long. Just horrendous, the abuse meted out to women simply for being women.

Thank you for the suggestions on ways to support efforts there to effect change.

Men have no need to change their attitude. It's not them being mutilated.

In cultures where girls are dependent upon marriage to men for their survival and the custom of FGM is practiced to make girls acceptable to men as marriage partners there absolutely does need to be men involved in changing the men's attitude toward this custom.

It made me cry too.

Wow, that made me cry. The betrayal, of having your grandmother hold you down while your great-uncle cuts you.

Tommy doesn't know who he'll be interviewing, so he's going in blind - if some of you were wondering why he seemed to be asking stupid questions.
I thought he handled it really well - he was clear, sensitive and concentrated.

Cutting is an utter outrage and it is so embedded in the cultures that practice it. There was a positive article on the BBC a while ago, though, which showed change was possible.

I think the best way for western women to support anti-FGM campaigns in third world countries is probably to give money. Getting Bono involved would be very 'white saviour'. There are laws against it in most countries but getting communities to testify against each other is hard.

What we could do here is campaign for more people to be prosecuted here for performing FGM. The only case I'm aware of was against an NHS doctor who was stitching up a woman after birth. But we know the procedure is performed here lots and nobody gets prosecuted. Weshouldn't pretend it is only something that happens far away.

Not sure what you are asking here- you are asking how you/we can help the women and girls suffering fgm in the U.K. and abroad?
Personally as someone who is not from the communities that have the tradition of fgm I’m not sure how much influence i’d have, so it would make more sense to me to join with one of the organisations already up and running with local communities in this area rather than trying to start something new.
Not sure how much influence bono or Meghan markle would have either with these communities either to be fair.
Looks like there are several charities and campaigning organisations set up already working with local people to raise awareness and support victims of this practice.
Here is one
www.28toomany.org/signup/
Could be a good place to start?

You mentioned that it is men who have opposed the challenge of the practice of fgm but I think women have too. I think it’s based on the (very unhelpful) reasoning behind it and the fear that their female relatives will be unmarriageable in a society where a single woman can’t earn her own keep (and is possibly also a source of shame to her family?) So a cut woman could have better prospects of survival than a single woman. Bit harsh but I guess that’s the reality they are living with and it’s quite a complex thing to challenge.

Clearly it's governments that we'd need to petition in Somalia for example in order to make it against the law.

Article 15 of theFederal Constitutionadopted in August 2012 prohibits female circumcision but there's no effective criminal proceedings against perpetrators. There seems to have been one prosecution in 2018.

It's very much a feminist issue and one that I think the women involved will need to change. I wouldn't be depending on men to do anything about it. It's their idea in the first bloody place!

I don't think saying it's men who are to blame is particularly useful. It's clearly deeply ingrained in Somali culture and women will be doing the cutting. Any campaign and action needs to involve men and women. Women can refuse to act as cutters and to report when it happens and men, because it probably will be men, need to police it and prosecute case.

@JustonTime

Probably outing myself to my sister, but I spoke to my mum's women's guild group on FGM a couple of years ago - they were very much of the white, middle class, older female persuasion, and they were horrified by my talk, the concept, the statistics, the suffering.

I read Waris' story as a child in the reader's digest, and I have never forgotten, or stopped reminding people. As upsetting as it is, I hope I will never stop telling people about the reality our sisters face, every single day.