What You Can Do:
Join the struggle against FGM and support its front line of grassroots activists by writing and sending petitions to Mr. James Grant, Executive Director of UNICEF, at 3 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017, USA. Express concern over the lack of UNICEF resources for a practice which so severely injures, and in many cases, kills, so many children around the world. Urge Mr. Grant to allocate and earmark UNICEF funds for the work of grassroots activists fighting to eradicate FGM in their countries.
"However much a little girl may want to be excised because all other girls of her own age have been done, or because she has been persuaded that it is the right thing to have done, this does not mean that she doesn't suffer excruciating pain. Similarly, she feels that violence is being done to her body; she is conscious of suffering a physical injury, of being maimed in some way. Whatever other people may claim, what she experiences is a mutilation, even if she has heard it repeated time and time again that her clitoris is a masculine element which has no place in her body and so must be removed." (Awa Thiam, Black Sisters Speak Out)
This poem on female genital mutliation (FGM) won first prize in a poetry competition for female poets of Benadir. It and the statement above were provided to Equality Now by the Foundation for Women's Health Research and Development (FORWARD), an international human rights organization based in London and working for the eradication of FGM.
Dahabo Elmi Muse
Pharaoh, who was cursed by God
Who did not hear the preaching of Moses
Who was led astray from the good word of Torah
Hell was his reward!
Drowning was his fate!
The style of their circumcision,
butchering, bleeding, veins dripping with blood!
Cutting, sewing and tailoring the flesh!
This loathsome act never been cited by Prophet nor
acknowledged by the Hadith!
Non-existing in Abu Hureyra.
No Muslim ever preached it!
Past or present the Koran never preached
it (Pharaonic circumcision)
And if I may think of my wedding night,
awaiting me was caresses, sweet,
kisses, hugging and love.
No, never!
Awaiting me was pain, suffering and sadness
In my wedding bed there I lie groaning,
curling like a wounded animal, victim of feminine pain.
At dawn awaits me ridicule.
My mother announces,
yes she is a virgin.
When fear gets hold of me
When anger seizes my body
When hate becomes my company or companion
I get feminine advice, it is only feminine pain they say,
and feminine pain perishes like all feminine things!
The journey continues, or the struggle continues as modern historians say!
As the good tie of marriage matures
As I submit and sorrow subsides
My belly becomes like a balloon
A glimpse of happiness appears
A hope, a new baby, a new life!
Ah, a new life endangers my life
A baby's birth is death and destruction for me!
It is what my grandmother called the three feminine sorrows
and if I may recall my grandmother said,
the day of circumcision, the wedding night and the birth
of a baby are the three feminine sorrows.
As the birth burst: And I cry for help the battered flesh tears.
No mercy, push they say! It is only feminine pain and feminine pain perishes.
When the spouse decides to break the good tie,
when he concludes divorce and desertion,
I retire with my wounds.
And now hear my appeal!
Appeal for dreams broken
Appeal for my right to live as a whole
Appeal to you and all peace-loving people.
Protect, support, give a hand
to innocent little girls, who do no harm, trusting and
obedient to their parents, elders
and all they know are only smiles.
Initiate them to the world of love not to the world of feminine sorrow!
SWDO-AIDOS
Fauziya Kasinga has been in detention since 17 December 1994, the day she arrived in the United States seeking political asylum. She was seventeen years old, and had fled her home country of Togo immediately following a forced marriage to a 45-year-old man with three other wives. Although Fauziya refused to sign the marriage certificate, she was declared wed and confined to a storage room to await the arrival of a circumciser who would subject her to female genital mutilation (FGM). 