THE VICTIMS OF THE KNIFE | AUDIO DOCUMENTARY ON FGM

[00:00:04]In many parts of the world, girls are celebrated as they transition into womanhood. But for some, it involves silence, pain, and a vicious practice that is hidden behind tradition.

[00:00:21]This is the story of female genital mutilation told by those who have lived it, those that have seen their loved ones go through it, and those who have fought it and are determined to work towards its total eradication.

[00:00:40]My name is Rachel Mita, and this is my audio documentary titled The Victims of the Knife.

[00:00:52]My name is Doras Sina. I come from Kaji County.

[00:00:58]>> My name is Matin.

[00:01:00]>> My name is Judy from a Kenya village.

[00:01:09]>> My name is Metrin and I am born in a family of four children.

[00:01:14]I have two parents and I have been raised in in Kenya village Kajiadu Kenya.

[00:01:20]When I was in class 6, there was an external pressure that I was a grown lady and I have to undergo FGM.

[00:01:33]I remember very well in 213 December some ladies barged into my home and told me to go and shower and get ready to experience the cultural practice.

[00:01:52]They proceeded to perform the cut and they had cut through my vein and this led to me bleeding extremely.

[00:02:03]I was in so much pain that the women had to go and get me a doctor.

[00:02:08]I lost a lot of blood. I couldn't eat anything and this experience scarred me.

[00:02:17]This experience changed my life and it it was even too shameful for me to tell my friends in school because no one in my generation was familiar with this.

[00:02:31]I had to defer from going to school for a while and this made me fall behind when it came to my studies.

[00:02:39]I was mentally scarred.

[00:02:45]But what gave me hope was that my grandmother had stopped performing this practice on other girls when she saw how it had affected me.

[00:02:56]At least other girls won't experience what I had went through.

[00:03:01]The other thing that had thoroughly affected me was dropping out of school.

[00:03:07]I got pregnant and the boy had refused to marry me because I had done FGM.

[00:03:13]He said I was too much of a grown woman for him and he would prefer a younger girl.

[00:03:20]I stayed at home in 2020 and went back to school in 2021.

[00:03:28]Even then, I was chased from home by my parents because I was too much of a grown woman according to them.

[00:03:37]Honestly, I'm sorry.

[00:03:45]The idea of not being able to go to college had changed my life.

[00:03:51]But thanks to Agnes Lena, who I had met later on, who owned an NGO that helped girls like me, I was able to get an opportunity to study a certificate course and I am hoping to further my studies one day.

[00:04:10]And this is my story.

[00:04:12]Thank you.

[00:04:17]>> My name is Judy from In Kenya village, Kajiado, Kenya.

[00:04:25]I just want to say that um FGM is not good because when a girl gets caught, she she becomes a woman ready for marriage despite her age. After undergoing FGM, um, girls mindset shifts from being a child to being a grown woman leading to engaging in unproductive behavior.

[00:05:03]FGM distracts young girls from pursuing education because they feel they are grown enough to engage in grown-up activities.

[00:05:16]I think maybe it's a psychological thing for me. I dropped out of school after going through the courts because I got pregnant.

[00:05:28]At that time I had no choice but to accept to be married off to a man that I don't even know.

[00:05:36]All those factors are contributed due to lack of knowledge.

[00:05:43]The truth is when you drop out of school you end up getting married to any man they choose for you.

[00:05:51]Another challenge I had was when it was time for me to give birth.

[00:05:57]I experienced a lot of pain because of the scar that was left after the cut.

[00:06:03]And the worst thing is I didn't even give birth at the hospital.

[00:06:07]I gave birth at home with the help of old local women that had no experience.

[00:06:15]I honestly think it's only God who has helped me survive all those difficult times.

[00:06:24]That's all I have to say.

[00:06:31]My name is Dorcas Sina. I come from Kajiad County. I'm here to talk about female circumcision.

[00:06:39]I'm a survivor of female circumcision which was done to me when I was barely 13 years. This was pushed through by my own mother because she wanted me to become married woman.

[00:06:53]and therefore I accepted to undergo through the practice.

[00:07:00]It was very painful and I actually regretted it later.

[00:07:07]After circumcision, I was married off and this happened when I was still young. I didn't finish the school.

[00:07:16]After the marriage, I gave birth and it was a very painful experience because of that female circumcision.

[00:07:30]I'm therefore come here to advocate for my young girl whom I wouldn't want to see her and go through this practice.

[00:07:44]I want my girl to achieve her her her dreams because I want her to finish her studies.

[00:07:53]I also want to advocate for these other young girls in my community so that they do not undergo through this harmful practice.

[00:08:04]It's not a very good experience h because on my side it did much more harm than good.

[00:08:16]Thank you. My name is Miriam Santo. Our story today is about female genital mutilation. I'm going to be asking the locals a few questions on their thoughts on eliminating female genital mutilation in their community.

[00:08:30]Hi.

[00:08:30]>> Hi.

[00:08:31]>> What's your name?

[00:08:32]>> My name is Ruth. Mhm.

[00:08:33]>> Yeah. Okay, I have a few questions for you.

[00:08:36]>> Mhm.

[00:08:37]>> Can you describe what you think about FGM?

[00:08:40]>> FGM is removal of female genial.

[00:08:46]Yeah.

[00:08:46]>> Okay. How how many women and girls are affected by FGM?

[00:08:55]>> Do you know the types of FGM?

[00:09:00]infilation and many more.

[00:09:07]>> How does FGM affect the health of women and girls?

[00:09:13]>> Mhm.

[00:09:14]>> Bleeding.

[00:09:15]>> Mhm.

[00:09:18]>> And others say, >> "H, what are the psychological effects of FGM?"

[00:09:24]>> Depression.

[00:09:25]>> Mhm.

[00:09:26]>> Anxiety.

[00:09:27]>> Mhm.

[00:09:28]>> Yeah. So, thank you so much.

[00:09:32]I'm sorry.

[00:09:43]for bleeding.

[00:10:11]Oh depression, depression.

[00:10:38]Yeah.

[00:10:43]Ruth described FGM as removal of genitalia. She named infibrillation as a type of FGM. She states bleeding and death as health risks caused by FGM. She added that depression and anxiety are the psychological effects.

[00:11:06]On the other hand, purity said over 1 million girls go through FGM. She talked about the complete removal of genitalia and removal of some parts as the types of FGM that she knows about. She mentioned bleeding and death being the health risks of FGM as well.

[00:11:31]Last but not least, she said that girls get affected mentally by this practice as they go through depression, self-pity, and shame.

[00:11:49]I've had a wonderful conversation with the locals and after listening and interacting with them, it's very evident that female genital mutilation is one of the most dangerous practices that causes torture and death among those who undergo the procedure. The practice has no health benefits for girls and women and can result to serious problems like severe bleeding pain during urination, menstrual difficulties, infections, as well as complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths. It reflects deeprooted inequality between the sexes and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against girls and women. The practice also violates a person's right to health, security and physical integrity, the right to be free from total and inhuman degrading treatment and the right to life in instances when the procedure results in death.

[00:12:42]However, good news is that how is that uh we can prevent this practice by educating girls and their communities about their bodies and their rights. We can also speak about health risk of female genital mutilation activism through youth community groups and social networks. We must work together to end female genital mutilation. Thank you so much.

[00:13:10]So my name is Daniel soy man and I work for community concerns as a project officer in charge of the gender justice and climate justice programmatic pillars. So let me just introduce the organization that I work for. So community concerns is a registered non-governmental organization.

[00:13:29]To be precise, it's a human rights non-governmental organization established in the year 2011 to champion for the rights and development of indigenous pastoralist communities particularly Masai women and girls who normally face poverty, exclusion and harmful practices such as FGM and GBV.

[00:13:49]Um so the organization has a mission which is which actually focuses on engaging communities and duty bearsers through advocacy and awareness to ensure mass women and children thrive in a supportive environment. uh and to achieve its mission the organization actually implements its project in the in the following four programmatic pillars which and the the first one is gender justice uh where ICC actually promotes gender equality by holding duty bearers accountable empowering women and to participate in governance and advoc advocating for the elimination of gender based violence such as FGM Hi, my name is Sed Shanko. I'm a four year student studying peace and conflict. I we have an organization which is ority organization which is a grassroot organization at Naro County and we registered it at uh June 2023 I think yeah we are now 2 years I looked for a friend who called Selentoy Mita and when I reached out because I had an idea of starting an an organization to her to our community because I saw there was a gap on it and I pitched the idea to her and I told her we don't have the money or we don't have the resources to start this thing on empowering our community through economic resilience education of the girls and also mentorship of both genders the girls and the boys. So we came up with this idea on November and we really tried we talked among the three of us with another lady is called Mela and we really tried to look for the things and brainstorm among the three of us to really see how the the mentorship could go and we did our first our first fundraising. We got 10,000 and we bought eight boxes of sanitary towers. We took them to a compassion school in Susha town and it really helped the girls around 185 of them. That is the most important thing that we really did. And this is an idea we have to help them to integrate with our elders and the morance in our community which are the Masai and tried to have an holistic talk on how the importance of the girls going to school and also stopping the culture of progressive practices that we used to do like FGM which which is really affecting the culture.

[00:17:04]Now, let's get into two interviews I was able to have with Ephra Ahmed. Uh she's a social activist. And I was also able to talk to Mary Magaken, a film director and producer based in Ireland. And she directed the movie A Girl from Moadishu.

[00:17:29]And this film is based on Ephra's testimony um about FGM, her whole experience. I'm Ephra Ahmed and Ephra Foundation is the organization based in Ireland. We work with women in ID camp and refugee camp where women are displaced. We work with religious leader and media and we also work with the government.

[00:17:56]>> And I also saw uh the film a girl from Moadishu which was based on your testimony and it also showed how you fought uh to campaign for the end of FGM. As you know in our count in our community where is Somali or other national it's very hard to speak on practice FGM because of as we know that FGM is cultural practice and from our community they believe and young girls it's very difficult to speak so for me I choose to speak out because I had the current especially I live in Ireland so that is when the other team has given me opportunity to speak out but you know it's not really easy someone to stand up and speak about FGM >> and uh how hard was it to shoot the film in Somalia >> basically the movie was not shoot in Somalia but it was shoot in Morocco as part of Africa um Belgium and Ireland it was from Ireland Morocco and Belgium I won't say much I see many young women they do really when they are circumc Salem they run away from FGM but many people they left their own country because of different religion like you know violence FGM other issues.

[00:19:27]My name is Mary McGuckian and I'm a an Irishbased originally from Northern Ireland filmmaker who likes to focus on gender issues. I watched a girl from Moadishu actually and I liked the fact that it touched on the international pressure ifra was trying to like get to meet the president and like different um European leaders. What are your thoughts about like um the international pressure against FGM?

[00:20:05]Well, I think it's important beau on a number of levels and ifra has a very good sense of this. Um, yeah, you know, she operates on the basis of a three pillar form of advocacy and one of those pillars is or of action, sorry. And one of those pillars is advocacy, not just locally and through education and community work, but uh by pressurizing stakeholders politically and through other organizations to acknowledge the extent and um prevalence of the issue. Uh they can bring you can bring pressure to bear from on a top down level. It it isn't enough to do it on its own and sadly it it has been you know a lot of activists do a lot of advocacy.

[00:20:56]>> Yeah. But without the funding, they can't reach the grassroots level and do the the the national, you know, the kind of national scale of programs that are required. And we know and we can see that when there is a national campaign that has government support, it is effective. When it's just lots of small NOS's doing doing pilot programs, it it doesn't move the needle at all. Um, so there is there is, you know, she's right, advocacy really matters and she she has always been very very good at it and it can help with funding if you go all the way. Um, >> yeah, >> it can uh, you know, the kind of what's so annoying about it is the the the level of funding required is not dramatic in the context of other global issues. Anyway, >> it's it's it's upsetting that we can't seem to focus people on how important it is >> uh to deal with with FGM and to try to ameliorate harmful practices generally cuz the prevalence is level is not going down. It just isn't.

[00:22:06]is you actually wanted to know more about the the government not the girl campaign and uh it's it's actually a campaign that was launched with a powerful vision to ensure to actually help former FGM practitioners or as we normally call them ex cutters to find a dignified sustainable alternative to harmful practice to the harmful practice that is so so the program actually offers these women trailering and dress making classes uh and after completing the their training the women are supported by the organization to produce or to make school uniforms which are later sold to the near nearby schools.

[00:22:48]uh most yeah 10 schools around 10 around 10 10 schools so far that that 34 matas have successfully gone through the program and their transformation had played a key role in reducing FGM cases in Dalle to quad where we operate.

[00:23:09]You also wanted to know the number of girls and women that the organization has rescued.

[00:23:14]So for this one, it's actually being implemented through two programmatic pillars that is the gender justice pillar and the education pillar and our organization has directly rescued and supported over 300 girls from undergoing FGM and early marriage. These girls have been reintegrated into schools mostly if I can mention it Sajelon Primary School and others and many of them are actually driving and becoming advocates of FGM.

[00:23:49]>> What do you think is the way forward when it comes to things like gender based violence and FGM things like that?

[00:23:58]God will in the last six months we've just decimated decades of achievement in terms of or creating organizations and funding pathways to to trying to deal with these issues. I think the way forward it's a bit it's a it's a little bit the Obama style I would say um is you know I always look at kind of general gender issues as as you know having a a kind of a a journey from from political agency or suff uh suff suffraetism through economic uh equality or equal right equal to equal opportunity and education, you know. So, there's a whole journey and those waves of feminism have happened differently in different cultures. Some of them quickly, some of them slowly, and some of them, as we now know, very sadly are being rolled back. But there is such a thing, unfortunately, as a universal female experience, no matter what country you're from or what culture you you you are born into, and that is domestic, sexual, and gender- based violence. It is a universal female experience and it treats nobody any differently to anybody else.

[00:25:14]>> Yes.

[00:25:14]>> And the most powerful way I think to deal with it is to take uh an example to to to take uh the example of of the African-American movement.

[00:25:30]>> Yeah. and to see that with with the combination of education endeavor and grassroots activism in numbers united in numbers you can make change.

[00:25:43]So it's but you know the the easiest way to do it would be for the patriarchal governments in the world to realize that it wouldn't actually take very much money to fund every government that needs to deal with this issue with these issues. Wouldn't take much.

[00:25:58]>> Yeah, that's true. you know, it really wouldn't. I mean, it you know, we've scoped out a national program for Somalia, for example. It would be 30 million euros, $30 million over eight years. It's not a lot of money. But in the overall of it all, um you know, we do live in a world where there is an EP epidemic of of domestic and sexual, you know, gender- based violence generally, including obviously horrific harmful practices like FDN. And until we make a fundamental belief system change in the way men respond to women and attitudinally treat women and that is you know this is a long-term education program.

[00:26:38]>> Yeah.

[00:26:38]>> That will continue. So I'm not you I'm not I'm not I'm I'm not unoptimistic but I'm not hopeful. You know progress is glacial.

[00:26:48]There's a wonderful organiza you there are a lot of organizations outside you know there are local NOS's in every country and there are a lot of organizations outside who do see that what something has to be done but the f and they focus on stakeholder advocacy which is fine but is not actually doing anything on the ground.

[00:27:13]So really, you know, it's, you know, as we keep saying, it's not a difficult thing to do >> if the people in charge would just do it, but they have, you know, they've no they have no skin in the game. It doesn't really matter to them and they don't get how important it is. And until we can oh, break down that structure that doesn't understand that it's counterproductive to keep women down.

[00:27:40]Um, it'll be hard to see Progress at speed.

[00:27:50]In 2025, World Health Organization says that more than 230 million girls and women today have gone through female genital mutilation in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia where it's mostly practiced.

[00:28:14]W health organization also states treatment of health complication is estimated to cost health systems $1.4 billion US per year.

[00:28:38]This is a sad reality to many young girls and women who have and continued to endure female genital mutilation.

[00:28:57]This cultural practice has no benefits and is a total violation to human rights.

[00:29:08]The question is how many more will go through torture and how many more will have to die in the name of tradition.

[00:29:59]Hallelujah.