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Future Africa without FGM.

Somewhere in Duse, Adimu watches her 14year old daughter meticulously go about chores. Suddenly, she hears those voices, again— voices of the women who had held her still, as she struggled, while her mother watched—The insistent gory images that appear to be real whenever she shut her eyes, makes her entire system hot, so much, so that her tanned skin moistens with sweat and her eyes glisten with unshed tears that sting hard. And each time she recalls the excruciating pain that accompanied the pricking, piercing, incising and cauterizing of her own flesh, she shudders. Often, she tells her daughter about Nice Leng’ete.
On the day she turned eight, Adimu hadn’t been expecting any gifts, as were the cases in the previous years. But on this birthday, her mother had gotten her a dress. A beautiful red dress, patterned with yellow colored flowers, having pleats around the waist. Adimu had loved the dress so much that she decided to wear it in the spirit of the commemoration of her birth. But she didn’t understand why her elder sister had kept on grimacing, nor did she have any reason to suspect the imminent misfortune, when some women whom she had always considered friends to her mother started showing up one after the other.
Adimu has not visited home since she got married. She doesn’t plan to do so until her mother is no more. When she had her first child, she had vehemently refused her mother coming to visit her. She was never going to let her mother lay a finger on her precious daughter. Not after her own experience.
Adimu had vowed to never be the reason for a rift to be created between she and her daughter, as it had been between Adimu and her own mother for many years. She wakes every morning, immensely thankful for the Amref movement, UNICEF and WHO, who have consistently sensitized the people on the dangers of FGM. She thinks them a savior to her daughter and every other girl child that has been born after her own time, who would also have suffered the mutilation of the female genitals. Today, the girlchild transitions into womanhood through the Alternative Rites of Passage model, which is an alternative to FGM— without any form of cut. Adimu looks at her daughter one more time, her face is a reflection of satisfaction.

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37 Responses

  1. Amazing story. A tradition is designed by the people to serve the people, and when it is no longer beneficial, then the people can decide to change it. FGM is a wrong tradition that should never have been practiced. Thank you for this wonderful story.

        1. This is a very beautiful piece to address FGM. The essence of this practice has long faced out and the practice too should be stopped.

  5. The fight against female gender mutation is a war we all have to fight. Thanks to great writers like Lucy as she narrates the ordeal some girls face in Africa. God bless you.

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