My life as an FGM survivor
Nuriah Golloh during a Climate Change Adaptation workshop in Marsabit last year. The FGM survivor says the vice has the most devastating effect on a woman or girl’s life.
What you need to know:
- In Marsabit, more than 95 per cent of women and girls between the age of 15 and 49 years have had their genitals compulsorily disfigured.
- Contrary to her expectation, Nuriah Golloh realised she had welcomed a series of health challenges immediately after the cut.
Thousands of women and girls live with not only physical scars and health challenges after undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM) but are also forced to carry the psychological baggage that accompanies it.
Most of them are forced to bear these scars with endurance since they cannot do anything about it.
In Marsabit, more than 95 per cent of women and girls between the age of 15 and 49 years have had their genitals compulsorily disfigured.
Marsabit Women Advocacy and Development Organization CEO Nuriah Golloh, opens up about the humiliating and demeaning ordeals girls and women undergo during FGM but which most o decide to keep mum about.
“FGM has some of the most devastating effects on a woman or girl’s life and I’d never encourage any young girl to opt for,” Ms Golloh says.
The 55-year-old who grew up and nestled in Marsabit County says customs here dictate that every girl should undergo FGM and she had to obey the tradition.
Big girls
At the age of three years, she was subjected to what the World Health Organisation (WHO) refers to as type three mutilation where the labia is completely removed.
As a young girl back then, she got curious and relished joining the league of other big girls who had graduated and were considered by the society as ‘heroines’, she thought there was pleasure in undergoing the cut.
Contrary to her expectation, she immediately realised she had opened the gates ajar for a series of health challenges.
She narrates how peeing became a challenge soon after the cut, forcing the circumciser to be called back to reopen the wound.
As if that was not enough, a year later, she was betrothed to a man she never loved. Tradition dictates that immediately a girl undergoes a cut, she is considered ripe for marriage.
A marriage that she says never lasted long since she was determined to further her education and pursue her dream of becoming a teacher.
The FGM challenges never ceased even when she grew into a woman. She says women who have undergone the cut have an extremely difficult time and endure a lot of pain during their first encounters with their husbands.
Gruesome delivery
Ms Golloh, a mother of three boys and two girls, also narrates how gruesome the delivery of her children has been.
All the five children were born through C-section as the birth canal could not expand to allow the baby’s passage.
She would never want any of her two girls to get cut.
She paints a grim picture of how several girls and women bled to death after the cut, or during deliveries.
Out of this experience, she became a staunch advocate against FGM, which she says is life-threatening and extremely painful.
She is happy that the Borana Council of Elders last year made a declaration that outlawed FGM in Ethiopia and wants other Cushite and pastoralist communities to follow suit.
Pastoralist girl
She observes that FGM can cause serious medical complications, including urinary problems, severe infections, extremely painful, obstructed deliveries and fistula.
Girls can even die during the cut, or later in life when trying to give birth.
FGM also leads to setbacks for girls because as soon as a pastoralist girl is cut, she is considered a 'woman'. They drop out of school and are forced into early marriage.
A tremendous number of girls among the communities that practice it are denied the chance to reach their full potential.
But why do girls and women still allow themselves to get the cut?
Khadija Hiddaya (not her real name) a local journalist, tells nation.africa that girls would go to any length to ensure they undergo FGM even if their parents are against it, out of peer pressure.
She says the girls don’t want to feel out of place among their peers for not undergoing the cut.
Stigma
She narrates how she sneaked to her aunt’s home to be taken to a circumciser even after her mother advised her against it.
She was cut when she was in Class Eight. Prior to that, she found herself out of place whenever her peers bragged about having undergone the cut.
Stigma and the fear of failing to get married is another reason why girls volunteer to undergo FGM.
“Some girls or women don’t undergo the cut because they're forced by anyone but simply because they don’t want to be stigmatized, fail to get a husband or to be left out,” Ms Hiddayya says.
According to WHO, more than 200 million women and girls across 30 countries, have been affected by FGM.
