When the schools close and everyone is excited to usher in the holidays, there are thousands of girls somewhere around Africa who are worried dead sick, and only wish that the holidays were not here as the season is here with them, what is termed as the rite of passage the door to womanhood they believe so.
It is now close to 20 years since the incident happened but the memories are still very fresh, the wound that can never be healed and it keeps on hurting each and every year when I hear that there`s a group of girls somewhere who have undergone the “cut”.
20 years ago when the schools were closed my sister and I went back home excited as usual that we were home, at last, I was 14 at the time and my sister 12, that evening though we never slept at home, an elderly lady came to our place and after some lengthy talk with our parents we were asked to pack our stuff as we were to accompany the lady, we went back to our grandma’s hut packed our stuff and innocently followed the stranger.
The whole journey to our destination was a silent one and we were all drifted in our thoughts wondering what was install for us at our destination, some few minutes after arrival, we met some other few girls and later in the evening we were all taken to another room in blindfolds and after a huge silence was later broken with some sobs and screams and being next in the line I was shivering and scared not knowing what was held before me.
I was finally the next one I was picked up by 3 women one held my hands the other one put his whole weight on my shoulder and her hand on my mouth and the next thing was an eternal pain that I always felt to date. I stood there dumbfounded paralyzed as the woman took me to another room but what pained the most was watching my sister next to the line.
The most traumatizing experience is that of female genital mutilation which you would not even wish on your worst enemy, lets’s speak out and say NO to FGM.