British victims of FGM have spoken out about the terrible pain and stigma they suffered after being forced to endure this barbaric practice.
Despite being illegal in the UK at least 65,000 British girls are at risk of being taken to their ancestral homeland in Africa or parts of the Middle East.
Girls are usually mutilated when they are aged between 12 and 13 during the long summer school holidays.
Many of the girls are too scared to admit they have suffered FGM and can be stigmatised by their community for speaking out.
However a number of British victims came forward to talk about their experiences in a documentary for Comic Relief, highlighting the unnecessary practice.
Leyla Hussein, 32, from London, recalled the moment she was cut. She said: ‘Your whole body is in pain, the scream that you scream, meant I lost my voice for a couple of days.
‘The moment your genitals are cut, a part of your soul dies.’
Leyla continued: ‘The cutting season in the UK means holidays. If you don’t get this done, you won’t be married to the right family so your status is questioned.’
Nimco Ali, 31, who suffered FGM as a child, said the practice is more common place in the UK than people realise.
Everyone thinks it’s not the girl in Manchester, in Cardiff or London being taken away and having FGM – but it’s exactly these girls, they are not girls who are immigrants
She said: ‘Many are afraid to speak out as there is that fear of being judged. Everyone thinks it’s not the girl in Manchester, in Cardiff or London being taken away and having FGM but it’s exactly these girls, they are not girls who are immigrants or here on holiday.
‘They are the girl at the back of your classroom or the girl you could bump into on Oxford Street but you don’t know they have just been through FGM.’
Leyla also has to live with the mental as well as physical consequences of her FGM.
She said: ‘I live at home with a panic alarm, I have to carry a personal alarm with me wherever I go, it’s difficult.’
Hoda, 23, suffered the most extreme form of FGM in that her vagina was sewn up after she was cut. She was left with a hole no bigger than a matchstick that left her with a host of health problems and rendered her infertile.
She said: ‘I was seven when I was cut. I remember everything. It happened, I was cut and I got this pain every night, abdominal pain.’
Hoda suffered internal damage because the tiny hole she was left with trapped her menstrual blood inside her body when she had her period.
People are often surprised to learn she’s a victim of FGM, she says, because of her western appearance but many British girls like her are at risk, she claims.
Hoda said: ‘There’s this code of silence, I associate it with the Mafia. We describe ourselves as the “Topshop FGM” survivors. We are High Street girls so don’t narrow it to one particular image.’
Another British survivor, who asked not to be identified, said: ‘I don’t think there’s any word I can use to describe that moment. They grab you with a woman holding each leg and another holding your head and chest so you can’t move.’
She claimed that British parents were prepared to let their daughters suffer so they could receive a bigger dowry when she is married than if she was spared from the archaic practice.
The anonymous victim added: ‘It’s a business for the person doing the cutting and the family as once the child has been through FGM, whoever they will marry will pay a higher dowry, it’s all about money.’
The British survivors appeared in a BBC documentary presented by actress Zawe Ashton, for Comic Relief, which funds a project in Kenya which helps girls escape FGM.
The film, entitled ‘Stop Cutting Our Girls: A Comic Relief Special’, was screened on BBC Three in March this year.
Waris, now 49, added: ‘Girls from African, southeast Asian and Kurdish communities living in the West are threatened by FGM. The immigrants brought the practice with them. The parents cut the daughters, because they fear the girls could become too westernised.
‘Every week we receive emails from African girls living in Europe threatened by FGM.’
Like the thousands of other cutter women across Africa, the controversial skills of how to perform FGM were passed down to Kerubo and Ndege by their tribal elders.
The parents cut the daughters, because they fear the girls could become too westernised
Waris Dirie, model and campaigner
Kerubo said: ‘I was taught by the old people – my elders, my mother and my grandmother. I started to learn when I was about 12 and it took about four years to learn. After that I continued to practice. The cutter is more important than a midwife.’
There are three forms of FGM: the partial or total removal of the clitoris; the partial or total removal of the clitoris and labia minora; the narrowing of the vaginal orifice.
In the third, and most extreme form, the clitoris and labia are cut away with any sharp object – glass, knife, scissors or razor blade. The labia stumps are then sewn together. A hole remains the size of a match head for urination which commonly leads to pain and frequent infection.
Victims have described the terrible pain they suffer from the procedure and life-long consequences of this non-medical surgery.
Waris, who was forced to undergo FGM aged 13, told MailOnline: ‘I was mutilated as a little nomad girl in the Somali desert. I almost died from blood loss, shock and an infection after this brutal torture. I suffer from nightmares, flash-backs and chronic pain,’
In her autobiography, Desert Flower, she wrote: ‘I felt my flesh, my genitals, being cut away. I heard the sound of the dull blade sawing back and forth through my skin.
‘It’s like somebody is slicing through the meat of your thigh, or cutting off your arm, except this is the most sensitive part of your body. I passed out.
‘When I woke up… the worst part of it had just begun. The Killer Woman had piled next to her a stack of thorns from the acacia tree. She used them to puncture holes in my skin, then poke a strong white thread through the holes to sew me up.’
Inab Abdillahi, from Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa, was dragged out of her bed and mutilated with the most basic tools.
She told MailOnline: ‘I was 13 years old when in was cut in the most cruel way. I can remember everything. The pain, and of course I remember my mother screaming at me. Our neighbours were furious. From that night on I have suffered terrible pain while urinating and when I got my period.’
Inab was taken in by the Waris Dirie Foundation she underwent reconstructive surgery to alleviate her pain at a centre that has been set up in Berlin.
Inab added: ‘After the surgery I felt complete as a woman and felt very proud and happy with the decision to go through with surgery.
‘After I had the surgery, all pain I had experienced for so long has disappeared.
‘In addition, I am so much happier, confident, strong and self-confident. My self-esteem is through the roof. I feel strong, I’m always laughing now and I enjoy life with my friends’.
‘IT IS THE WORST FORM OF CHILD ABUSE’: HORRIFYING EXPERIENCE OF THE SUPERMODEL ANTI-FGM CAMPAIGNER
Supermodel Waris Dirie has bravely highlighted the blight of millions of the girls across the world forced to undergo FGM.
The international fashion star has detailed the cruel and unnecessary practice that she underwent aged 13 when she lived as a nomad in her native Somalia.
And Waris, 49, has revealed her mission to save one million girls from the evils of FGM through her Desert Flower Foundation.
In an interview with MailOnline the former face of former face of Chanel, Levi’s, L’Oreal and Revlon has revealed her determination to campaign for an end to this barbaric procedure
Waris said: ‘I was mutilated as a little nomad girl in the Somali desert. I almost died from blood loss, shock and an infection after this brutal torture.
‘Even though I was only a little girl I knew this was very wrong and I decided to fight one day against this crime not knowing when, where and how.
‘Many years later as a model I used my fame to start my mission to eradicate FGM and to let the world know about this atrocity.
‘Some 30 million little girls in Africa alone are threatened with FGM. I will save one million of those beautiful, innocent little girls.’
Waris blames the sexist societies in Africa which promotes FGM, branding it ‘child abuse’.
She said: ‘The society I grew up in, girls and women are not respected. As a woman you have no rights. They [men] can abuse you, misuse you, rape you, mutilate you, beat you up and dismiss you, if they want.
The society I grew up in, girls and women are not respected. They [men] can abuse you, misuse you, rape you, mutilate you, beat you up and dismiss you, if they want
‘Nobody will protect you when you are a woman. People believe a girl will not be faithful if she develops any sexual feelings or pleasure.
‘Therefore they destroy the girl’s sexuality in cutting her genitals. It is the worst form of child abuse.’
The model revealed the lifelong psychological scars the mutilation has caused her.
‘I suffer from nightmares, flash-backs and chronic pain,’ she told MailOnline. ‘A lot of those girls [who undergo FGM] die from blood loss and infections.
‘Those who survive suffer from physical pain and psychological trauma for the rest of their lives. Sex will be very painful.
‘They will suffer big problems while having their period and will also have problems trying to urinate – often forever. They will be at high risk delivering a baby.’
She added: ‘The whole world has to fight against FGM. It has to become everyone’s fight otherwise it will never stop.’
Waris has described in intimate detail how she was held down while parts of her vagina were amputated with a blood-stained razor blade and the stumps sewed up using thorns from an acacia tree, in her best-selling autobiography Desert Flower.
She wrote: ‘I felt my flesh, my genitals, being cut away. I heard the sound of the dull blade sawing back and forth through my skin.
‘It’s like somebody is slicing through the meat of your thigh, or cutting off your arm, except this is the most sensitive part of your body. I passed out.
‘When I woke up…the worst part of it had just begun. The Killer Woman had piled next to her a stack of thorns from the acacia tree. She used them to puncture holes in my skin, then poke a strong white thread through the holes to sew me up.’
The model fled her nomadic life after her father planned to marry her to a 60-year-old man. She found sanctuary with relatives first in the Somali capital Mogadishu and later London where she was discovered by photographer Terence Donovan, who helped her to become the cover girl of the 1987 Pirelli Calender.
Her incredible story was made into a film, also entitled Desert Flower, and released in 2009.
The Killer Woman had piled next to her a stack of thorns from the acacia tree. She used them to puncture holes in my skin, then poke a strong white thread through the holes to sew me up
And it is the desperate plea from the young African girl who played Waris at the time of her so-called ‘circumcision’ that is the subject of her latest book, ‘Saving Safa; Rescuing a Little Girl from FGM.’
The youngster, Safa Idriss Nour, had played the young Waris Dirie as she underwent FGM. Her parents had signed a contract and received money not to have the procedure performed upon her as part of the acting agreement.
But the girl wrote to the supermodel appealing for help four years later saying her parents were planning to make her undergo FGM, following pressure from relatives and clan members in their Horn of Africa home, Djibouti.
‘I was shocked and I was very angry,’ Waris Dirie, 49, said. ‘I decided I had to fly to Djibouti immediately to save my little girl from this brutal crime.’
Waris Dirie dropped everything and flew to the Horn of Africa state where she met Safa’s parents. She brought them to Europe to encourage them to change their minds, despite the tremendous pressure they were under from their community.
The model discovered the family were being ostracised and Safa’s father feared he would never find her a husband in the Horn of Africa state where 97 per cent of girls undergo FGM.
The Desert Flower Foundation aims to raise awareness about the tragedy of FGM and help prevent girls from undergoing this unnecessary procedure.
The foundation helps girls – from Europe and Africa – threatened with FGM by trying to convince their parents to abandon the practice.
It also works with a Waldfriede hospital in Berlin, Germany, to provide reconstructive surgery, gynaecological, urological and psychological treatment to FGM victims.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has condemned FGM and new laws are being rushed through Parliament aimed at sparing girls from this ‘barbaric practice’, ahead of the holiday ‘cutting season’.
FGM protection orders will enable councils, social workers and the police to stop someone travelling aboard if they are suspected of planning to take someone overseas for FGM.
Courts will be able to force suspects and potential victims to give up their passports and other travel documents immediately.
Waris has welcomed Mr Cameron’s intervention. She told MailOnline: ‘I fully support any activities, campaigns, laws implemented by the government to stop FGM. It is high time to eradicate this brutal crime on innocent little girls.
Parents who force their daughters to endure FGM should be jailed, the supermodel added.
FGM became illegal in Kenya in 2001 following a change in the law. It is also illegal in Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Mauritania, parts of Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, parts of Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia.
But the practice has remained widespread among many African communities and their diaspora.
The cutters MailOnline spoke to would not confirm that they had ‘cut’ girls whose families live in Europe or North America, possibly because they fear the legal repercussions.
But MailOnline was told during our visit that the trade in FGM is thriving in most towns and cities – as well as traditional villages.
And Ogeto said Cameron and other western politicians are powerless to stop the practice.
She said: ‘David Cameron cannot stop FGM by talking. Families are worried that their girls will be made outcasts and be shunned if they are not cut. Some families sign a pledge not to have their daughters cut. But I find out that the following year their daughter has been cut despite their commitment.’
Inside a traditional village home, some 20km from Africa’s imposing Lake Victoria and six hours bus journey from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, Kerubo showed MailOnline how quickly she could end a girl’s ability to enjoy sex by amputating her clitoris with any sharpened object.
Held down, often by their mothers, aunts and other female relatives, girls’ legs are forced apart while the cutter woman operates on them often in darkened rooms and with little regard to hygiene.
Flour grown from millet is sprinkled on to the girl’s genitals to enable the cutter woman to hold onto this sensitive sexual organ. The flour is also said to help stem the bleeding.
Kerubo told MailOnline: ‘We use a sharp instrument like a knife or a razor blade. I put millet flour over the organs so that is not slippery so I can hold it. And the flour helps to stop the bleeding.’
The clitoris is put on the ground to be carried away by Safari ants, as part of the tradition.
Ogeto told MailOnline: ‘A neighbour might ask a mother if her daughter has fed the ants, as a way of asking if the girl has been circumcised.’
Cutter women are paid less than £13 [2,000 Kenyan Shillings or $20.20] to carry out the life-changing procedure.
Both cutter women admit that FGM victims can suffer terrible complications from the crude surgery.
But perversely if a girl dies following the procedure her mother is blamed.
Kerubo told MailOnline: ‘If the girl becomes sick it is the failure of the mother because she should be at home looking after her daughter. I know two girls from this village who have died [after FGM].
‘One of the mothers was made an outcast. She was accused of allowing her daughter to die. The mother is blamed for being unfaithful to her husband. The girl was buried like a dog. She was buried without a proper funeral, without the proper respect.’
Ndege added: ‘I have known girls who are healthy to become sick after they are cut. If a girl is bleeding heavily after she has been cut she must lie down on the ground.
‘A woman who has had sex that night must jump and this will heal her. It is like magic. I have known girls to bleed a lot and get tired but not die.’
Both Kerubo and Ndege have both suffered FGM and openly admit to how painful it was.
With a broad grin on her face Ndege said: ‘We have been cut. I remember it was very painful but everyone was very happy – there was dancing and singing.’
‘UNCUT GIRLS CAN’T CONTROL THEIR EMOTIONS’: DEFIANT TRIBAL CHIEF
Young girls must suffer FGM otherwise they will become sex-mad wives who will be unfaithful to their husbands and may become lesbians, an African cultural leader has claimed.
Forcing daughters to be ‘circumcised’ – as FGM is commonly known – is the only way for an African family to maintain its culture and be respected among its traditional community if they move to Europe or North America, Dixion Kibagendia a well-respected leader of Kenya’s Kisi tribe says.
Abandoning the barbaric, unnecessary and often unhygienic procedure, which can lead women to suffer a life-time of pain, will turn Africans into ‘slaves’ of the West and leave their relatives shunned and isolated among their community, he claims.
‘It is a duty of every parent to maintain the culture for their children and it is our tradition for girls to be circumcised,’ Kibagendia told MailOnline.
‘Not being circumcised is a cultural taboo. Someone who is without their culture is a slave to another culture.’
‘Circumcision is carried out by families who have left Africa to maintain their culture. Some families are arrested and fined because their daughters are cut.
‘Some [African families who have moved abroad] have been told to forbid their girls from getting cut. But these girls have no discipline and show no respect towards their relatives.
‘The families become isolated in their own community, they become lost from their own culture and traditions. In Africa culture is everything. If you are out of the culture you are lost from the community.’
Kibagendia claims amputating a woman’s genitalia prevents promiscuity – and even cancer.
He said: ‘Uncut girls [women who have not been subjected to FGM] cannot distinguish between their husbands and other men. They cannot control their emotions if they have a clitoris.
‘It [the clitoris] makes women get on heat for sex. So a woman who is not circumcised can demand sex every day. And if the husband cannot perform the woman will go looking for another man to have sex with.
Uncut girls cannot distinguish between their husbands and other men. They cannot control their emotions if they have a clitoris. It makes women get on heat for sex
‘Girls don’t have the idea for sex all the time after they have been circumcised. They are very loyal to their husbands and most of them do not get aroused easily. They are less likely to contract sexually transmitted diseases and they don’t become lesbians. Women who have been cut are not exposed to cancer because the clitoris is the part of the body that causes cancer.
‘Men who marry women who are cut are always satisfied sexually. They are not worried that their wives will be unfaithful, become sluts, when they leave the house
‘Circumcision reduces a woman’s sex drive and encourages her to be faithful. Even if the husband only sleeps with his wife once a month, she is satisfied.’
Kibagendia claims a girl who has undergone FGM makes a better wife as the procedure is final stage of her part of traditional education to become a woman, in some cultures.
He said: ‘A circumcised woman never thinks of divorcing her husband. This is because of the stages [of traditional education into becoming a woman] she has gone through before she is circumcised. This makes strong-hearted women.’
In one African community girls are taught how to fetch water, collect fire wood, cook, wash clothes, sit and how to speak and sit respectfully with relatives over several months before they are deemed ready to undergo the so-called circumcision.
They must then walk naked for up to ten miles to a specially-designated camp and then lie in damp grass for several hours ahead of the procedure.
Women who cannot fulfil their tradition obligations are considered cursed in some communities and, on occasions, burnt as witches.
Source: THE DAILY MAIL by Nick Fagge
THE KENYAN GLOBE 