FGM Survivor

My name is Asha Ismail and I am the founder of Save a Girl Save a Generation. The story your about to read is my personal story, Hope you will understand why this petition is important.

It's been 40 years, but the sound of the blades still rings in my ears. I was only a child when my mother sent me to buy the razor blade.  It was a great day for me as it was the day of my “purification" in Moyale, a border town between Kenya and Ethiopia. "I was happy because I thought it would be something nice. I thought my life would change for the better. I was only five years old." But what awaited me was nothing that was remotely near to nice. It was a hellish nightmare. The same nightmare that three million girls undergo each year worldwide... The same nightmare that 140 million women around the world have already undergone, according to the World Health Organization (W.H.O.)... What all these girls and women have in common is that they have survived Female Genital Mutilation, and are better known as FGM survivors.

When I came back with the razor blade, I found my mom, my grandmother and an old lady with very dirty hands in the kitchen. My grandmother had a big compound with three huts that served as bedrooms. There was also a pit latrine and a shower space with browns sacks as curtains. The kitchen had mud walls and a dirt floor with a thatched roof. They had made a hole in the ground of the kitchen and covered it with pieces of sack, that’s where I was told to sit between my grandmother’s legs. She immobilized me holding my hands behind my back, while she used her legs to open mine up. There wasn’t the least bit of hygiene in that kitchen, nor was there a health professional around in case of an accident. I was sitting right at the edge of the hole they had dug in the kitchen. That’s where my blood and my parts were to be buried. As the razor cut though my flesh, I could hear the sound it made. The pain was so intense that I tried with all my might to scream, but no sound came out since I had a piece of cloth stuffed in my mouth. “Your cries and screams should not be heard,” they said, “It’s a shame for a Somali woman to be heard. It shows weakness.” Nothing they said made any sense to me. All I wanted was for the pain to stop, but to my great disappointment, it was only the beginning. They cut off all that they had to cut, and it wasn’t until years later that I actually learnt the names for what they had cut: my clitoris, my labia majora and labia menora. The old lady then proceeded to stitch together my bleeding raw parts with a needle and thread and they left a small opening to allow urine and menstrual blood to flow. My mom stood behind the circumciser giving instructions on how much space should be left. The idea was that the smaller the space the better. This is what they called “asturnaan” (loosely translated as “covering something valuable.”)

They had just practised the infibulation on me, the cruelest form of Female Genital Mutilation and considered as the most harmful of all by the W.H.O..

“Consequently, as a result of everything I went through, to this day today I cannot sew a button or even look at a needle. I can’t stand the sight of a razor blade. I dread going to a gynecologist, and what’s worse, I don’t have any sexual desire.”

I have nightmares.

I am ashamed of myself.

I feel less than other women.

I have constant urine infections.

I visit a gynecologist only when I cannot avoid it, and the times I have gone, I come out shaking, sweating, and crying, and feeling deeply embarrassed.

I feel humiliated.

I am forever mutilated.

 I hold the Government of Kenya responsible for failing to protect many others that still go through this today. Although there was a law that was passed in Kenya in 2012 prohibiting Female Genital Mutilation, this practice has not been eradicated.

The Government of Kenya must open and finance free clitoris reconstruction centers. They must have psychologists in every hospital to attend the victims.