2023-12-03 20:00:11
Hibo Wardere, a Somali refugee in the UK, survived genital mutilation as a child. She is now engaged in the fight and raising awareness against this practice which affects 200 million girls and women around the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The first time I told about my circumcision, I was 42 years old. I was following in the UK training to become a teaching assistant and I had an assignment due. I wrote about that terrible day, forever etched into my skin. I saw myself again, in Somalia, in the schoolyard, at the age of 6, mocked by my classmates because I had not been circumcised. Usually, excision takes place around 3 or 4 years old but I was so frail that my mother waited. I wrote, and found myself in this cabin, in the hands of this exciser, sitting on the ground, ready to cut, without anesthesia.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers “I feel like I can finally flourish in my sexuality, without guilt”
She grabbed my thighs. I watched her throw my chair to the ground. I saw his hands, full of blood. I screamed until I lost my voice. Then I slept. This is how death was described to me. People are sleeping. I wanted to die. Everything has changed since that day. I no longer had confidence in my mother, in these women who surrounded me in Mogadishu. They who had rocked me and given me so much love. I felt betrayed, abandoned.
The first few days the pain was excruciating. I couldn’t pee like before. Urine came out in droplets. I no longer had a penis, but an open wound, covered in salt. I was angry with my mother. But, for her, it was a way of protecting me. Excision is a pledge of honor. It is the condition for getting married, having children – which is at the heart of our identity as women in this patriarchal society.
“Trauma cuts off sensations”
At 18, when I arrived in London, I consulted a gynecologist. I spoke English so badly that she brought in a translator, a Somali, who reproached me for telling the gynecologist my pain. For her, I shamed my family, my community. Fortunately, the doctor understood and asked her to leave us alone. I understood the extent of my mutilation.
The exciser had cut everything, the clitoris, the labia minora and severed the labia majora. This is called infibulation, type 3 genital mutilation according to the classification of the World Health Organization (WHO). Doctors can’t fix anything. All they can do is open the skin that has been closed over the vagina. You can then urinate and have your period normally. It is possible to feel pleasure in the sexual act, but it takes work. You have to reconnect with your body, with your genitals to feel pleasure. The trauma of mutilation cuts off sensations.
Read also: Excision in Africa: when men also want to put an end to it
When the school principal read my text, she was very moved and invited me to speak about it publicly. I intervened in schools. Then the press interviewed me. It was the beginning of my liberation. Since then, I have continued to take action to educate and raise awareness about this issue. I work in high schools, with doctors, the police, judges… Since 2021, I have been at the head of a charity Educate not mutilate, which I created with other women. I am continuing the work I started with Orchid Project, a UK-based NGO that aims to end female genital cutting.
“A tradition that has no religious basis”
With them, I had the opportunity to go to Senegal and meet a community who decided to abandon this practice. During this trip, I met a former exciser. At first, I couldn’t stop shaking and crying. Then she took me in her arms. It allowed me to conclude my traumatic experience. I never dreamed of my circumciser again.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers “In Algiers, I discovered a city much more sexually free than it seems”
Today, I continue to intervene wherever I am called. I do it to protect these young women who risk experiencing what I experienced. In Europe, excision is prohibited but young girls do not escape it. « cutting season », “the season of mutilation”during the holidays, where they return to their country of origin.
I know how difficult it is to talk about these topics. We are considered traitors to our community. We risk being harassed. I do it for these young girls who are subject to a tradition that has no religious basis. They are the ones who give me the strength to continue. And for me, that’s a good sign. This means that the message is quite strong since it reaches its detractors.
Read also: “Intimate Africa”, a new meeting for free speech on sexuality
#Europe #excision #prohibited #young #girls #escape #mutilation #season