It's horrific! I am a living testimony of FGM effects

Is it a cut like any other accidental incision? No, it is not! For those who have lived the experiences a ‘cut’ is such a horrifying one-word phrase.

Cut is a euphemistic reference to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a cultural practice deep in the roots of some Kenyan communities and which is done at variance severities. Here is a story of complexities affixed to the cut.

“My name is Fatuma Hakar and I am from Garissa County in Kenya. I am 36 years old, and a living testimony of horrors of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

I run an organisation called Girlkind Kenya, which I started in 2019 out of my daughters’ experiences. I relocated to Garissa from London in September 2017 with my three daughters.

Stigmatised and bullied

My youngest was three. The eldest ten and the second born, seven.
I enrolled them for Quran lessons in Duksi schools between September 2017 and December 2019.

Little did I know they were to be stigmatised and bullied because they are not cut. My daughters were all born in London and had never heard about FGM. I had not told them about it.

It became obvious to other girls that they were uncut when they inquired when they would be going for the initiation since December holiday was upcoming. Girls are usually cut during the end-year season.

My daughters said they did not know what FGM meant.
Confused, they approached me for an explanation.

Worst form of FGM

They asked: ‘Momma what are these girls taking about? How are girls cut?’
I explained to them that FGM is about Somali tradition but they would not be subjected to it.

I am a living testimony of its effects. I underwent the worst form of FGM and I know what it does.

Up to now, I am living with the pain and would not want my daughters to go through the same. I was seven years old when I was cut but the pain lives on.
My first period was very painful and to date, it continues to be a horror.

Sometimes I get abdominal pains. I sought medical help and doctors linked my predicaments to the cut.

Back to my daughters - I counselled them to avoid confrontation with the other girls and instead educate them on the effects.

This did not work. The girls were beaten and verbally abused - that they were unclean, thus prohibited from touching the Quran or reading it.

Somali culture

But FGM has nothing to do with religion. It is all about Somali culture!
I kept moving them from one Duksi to another hoping things would be different in the new environment. Nothing changed, the reception was uniform.

My daughters were depressed and I said enough is enough! December 2019 was the last month they set foot in the Duksi.

Beginning last January, I started home schooling them. Their mind is at peace and I am happy.

But I am worried about the other girls. I want to help them. For instance, in December, last year, I rescued five girls aged between five and ten years at Iftin Ward in Garissa County. They were about to be initiated.

I reached out to their mothers and educated them on dangers of FGM. Now, they understand the damage it causes on girls’ sexual and reproductive health. They know why it must stop.

It is saddening that women are the perpetrators and victims of FGM. The women cut the girls. The girls suffer from the cut.

I purpose to create an understanding of FGM and its effects among girls and women to save and secure their lives and future. I am currently sensitising village women on alternative livelihoods like weaving, as a way of converting them into anti-FGM champions.”