In push to end FGM, local women offer influential message
| Ziguinchor, Senegal; and Banjul, The Gambia
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It was the biggest party Aminata Man茅 had ever been to, a riot of colorful dresses and exuberant dancing. There were enough fluffy piles of rice and roasted sheep鈥檚 meat for the entire village to eat until their stomachs hurt听鈥� and it was all to celebrate her.
But Mrs. Man茅, who was 11 at the time, couldn鈥檛 stop crying. She cried as her aunt led her from the ceremony into the party, whooping and cheering. And she cried as her mother leaned over her and whispered how proud she was. You were so brave, she said. She kept crying through the congratulations and the dances and the dinner, right up until the moment she was finally allowed to go home.
鈥淗ow can you enjoy a party when you are in pain like that?鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut it wasn鈥檛 only physical pain听鈥� I cried because I didn鈥檛 want this, I didn鈥檛 choose this.鈥�
For years, Mrs. Man茅 rarely talked about that day, when she and several other girls from her village returned from an initiation rite known locally as xarafal jiggeen, and in the parlance of the global aid world as FGM, or Female Genital Mutilation.
What was there to say? It had happened to her, just like it had happened to every other girl she knew in her community in Senegal鈥檚 southern Casamance region. It was as ordinary as the crackling call to prayer at the local mosque, or cooking chebujin, spiced tomato rice and fish, on a Sunday morning.听
And so afterwards, they had all simply carried on.
It wasn鈥檛 until nearly two decades later, when Man茅鈥檚 in-laws summoned her eldest daughter for the rite, that a long-buried instinct clawed its way to the surface.
鈥淚 told them no听鈥� absolutely not,鈥� remembers Man茅, who is now the president of Santa Yalla, a local women鈥檚 advocacy group.听鈥淚 know the psychological pain I still suffer from this, and I cannot let her go through that.鈥澨�
Globally, more than听200 million women and girls听have undergone some variation of FGM, , most of them scattered across some two dozen countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Many of these women go on to suffer severe medical complications, often during childbirth. Sex is frequently unbearably painful.听
In recent decades, their plight has become something of a cause c茅l猫bre in the international advocacy world, sprouting dozens of polished NGOs and high-level promises from bodies like the United Nations, which has pledged to . Forty two countries听鈥� including both Senegal and its banana-shaped neighbor, The Gambia, have now partially or totally .
But in countries where FGM is also widely practiced, such vast international advocacy can backfire, by creating the uncomfortable implication that local culture is 鈥渨rong鈥� and needs help from Westerners who know better. of Senegal鈥檚 1999 law banning FGM, for instance, found that without local advocacy and buy-in, the threat of punishment alone did little to change people鈥檚 minds about cutting.
Instead, many activists say, the call to end FGM must come not just from lawmakers or international NGOs or UN resolutions.
It must come from inside.听In other words, it must come from women like Man茅.
Since she first stood up to her in-laws 33 years ago, Man茅 has told her own cutting story dozens of times, perhaps hundreds听鈥� in packed rooms and under baobab trees in remote southern Senegalese villages, on the radio to thousands of people she doesn鈥檛 know and at her own kitchen table, to her own daughters.
鈥淲hen you are a victim yourself, then you have unique skill to talk about what鈥檚 happening,鈥� she says.听
And a unique moral authority, too.听
After all, when a local woman听鈥� a woman people in the community have gossiped with in the local market or knelt beside in mosque听鈥撎齭tands up and says she suffered, it鈥檚 much harder for those around her to claim that anti-FGM activism is simply an import of a finger-wagging West, says Mary Small, the acting executive director of GAMCOTRAP, The Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children, an NGO founded in the 1980s to fight FGM.听
鈥淭o do this you have to be part and parcel of that culture, to show that their experience is your experience too,鈥� she says. 鈥淲hen people know you accept them, that you are not condemning them for how they live, they begin to listen.鈥澨�
Often, that work is slow going. In Gambia, three-quarters of adult women have been cut, and in Casamance, where Man茅 works, put the number at 69 percent.
But activists like Ms. Small and Man茅 are not dissuaded. They know that cultural values shift slowly听鈥� often imperceptibly at first. At the root of their work, they say, is trusting that the women they work with are those best equipped to decide what is right for them and their communities.
鈥淚f you tell women the truth about what is happening to them, they will listen,鈥� says Small, who before becoming an activist worked as a nurse in the delivery wards of several Gambian hospitals, and saw firsthand the painful medical complications of FGM. When she explains them to women now, she says, she finds they are often relieved to finally understand the cause of symptoms they have experienced.听
Many are often equally surprised, she says, to learn that there are no references to FGM in either Islamic or 海角大神 religious texts (cutting is practiced by both groups in Senegal).
鈥淭hey think it is a religious obligation for them,鈥� she says.
Both Senegal and The Gambia have formally outlawed FGM听鈥� Senegal in 1999 and The Gambia in 2015. But activists say that resorting to the law is, at best, a last resort. Their goal, after all, isn鈥檛 to make families who practice FGM out to be monsters, but to help them decide freely to change their minds, Small says. 听
So far, indeed, there has been only under the new Gambian law.听GAMCOTRAP, meanwhile, has convinced more than 150 鈥渃utters,鈥� the women who traditionally perform FGM, to abandon the practice, and given them money to start new businesses. The group鈥檚听support comes from听, from Kuala Lumpur-based Musawah (which advocates 鈥淔or Equality in the Muslim Family鈥�) and the African Women鈥檚 Development Fund to UN Women and the European Union.
鈥淭hings are changing, but not because of the law,鈥� says Jaha Dukureh, another Gambian anti-FGM activist.
Instead, says Man茅, it鈥檚 happening because women are making it happen.
鈥淚n all the years I鈥檝e been doing this, I haven鈥檛 seen any turning point, really,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut each day perhaps you change one person鈥檚 mind. And that鈥檚 a success. That鈥檚 one more girl who doesn鈥檛 suffer.鈥�
Maguette Gueye and听Saikou Jammeh contributed reporting.听Ryan Lenora Brown's reporting in Senegal and The Gambia was supported by the International Reporting Project.
