Children have Human Rights too
" My very earliest memories are of feeling terrified...
As the years crawled by, the beatings escalated."
Victim of child abuse
Taking FGM to Davos ~
Julia Lalla-Maharajh
"I'm here because I won a YouTube competition and I'm campaigning against female genital mutilation..."
My hand is outstretched, it is generally taken and shaken. Sometimes the pause is barely noticeable. Othertimes there is no pause at all. My hand is shaken rapidly. The President of the International Labour Organisation tells me that Davos is exactly the place I need to be and congratulates me.
Time and again, I am surprised by people's reactions, not least Bill Clinton, ex-president of the "free world." Melinda Gates' (female) bodyguard specifically finds the right person on her staff for me to talk with. The chief executive of Manpower spends an hour talking with me and what I'm trying to do. A senior executive of McKinsey offers time and space for strategy development but also says that he will fundraise at his 50th birthday on behalf of FGM.
"What I learnt is that the world seems ready..."
What I learnt from my experience of taking FGM to Davos, to the World Economic Forum, is that the world seems ready. The time is right. Enough people are realising the confluence of economic impact of women, of empowering women, of how investing in a girl can change entire countries and productivity.
But more than this, there are women standing up for themselves - we as "western activists" are simply their mouthpiece or their conduit. Their voices deserve to be heard, stronger and louder.
But more than this - in the centre of world leaders and an economic debate, female genital mutilation fit right in.
"I was heartened by people's innate goodness"
I was heartened by the attention of people. By their innate goodness. These were meant to be the people who brought down the economic system, greedy bankers, people who don't care about their world. I saw the exact opposite. I saw leaders humbled and impressed and wanting to make change, wanting to care.
The most exciting people I met were social entrepreneurs and those coming up with technological solutions to change.
It was a rare chance to engage with people who weren't surrounded by "minders" or by people whose job it is to "guard" their senior person. Once you get to these senior people, you realise they are senior for a reason...
Because they have vision, because they really care. Perhaps I was carried away by the altitude or the beauty of the cleanliness of the Swiss town. But I think not, because these same people have followed up with me.
"We cannot fight women's issues from the sidelines"
The main message for me is that we cannot fight "women's issues" from the sidelines. For too long, women's voices have been marginalised. It cannot happen any more.
Moreover. we have sometimes been our own worst enemies in excluding ourselves from centres of power (Davos is but one example) - the more we can do to raise our voices from within the better.
Who would have thought that the Times of London would run a piece on female genital mutilation and in its business pages, at that, but there it was! If we don't try, then we simply can't succeed.
Every day I talk female genitals without pause or concern.
I would urge you to do the same - talk about whatever you can, to whomever you can, however you can.
Follow Julia on Twitter: @JLM_FGM
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FGM
Julia Lalla-Maharajh
A Child's Life
Child Labour
Women & Girls in Bangladesh
Child Education
Educating Afghan Refugees
Comments
One of my closest friends in the U.S. who was Eritrean and came from a well to do family had FGM. She started to have menstrual problems etc. and the doctors were horrified when they examined her. She was 18/19 and they operated on her and she was o.k. after that but I recall for her it still was not something wrong that her family had done to her. She went to college in the U.S.!
And then there was another friend of Sudanese descent from Egypt. Her parents were very progressive and they wanted her to study in an environment where she could break out of traditional roles. So they sent her to the U.S. Her mother fought with her family and made sure none of her daughters had FGM. But my friend, after studying and living in the U.S. for many years -- was determined to give her daughter (if she had one) a greater feel for her traditions and culture, and said would take her back to Egypt for FGM! She would say, "I don't want my daughter to grow up sexually free like the American girls." Thankfully she had a son. But I realized this adherence to 'tradition,' or maybe resurgence was her response to racial/cultural rejection that she felt in the U.S.
I am not in agreement with people who say that this should not be called FGM because it is culturally insensitive. Even now i see sites using the term 'genital cutting.' It is ironical. What sensitivity can you show towards a cultural practice that shows no mercy in the violence and pain it inflicts?
But it is violence and it is mutilation. It is inhumane. And It is an attempt of a patriarchy to sexually subjugate women through violence. Women perpetuate it? Of course they do! That is the degree to which we have internalized violence. That is the biggest challenge. To teach women their own human worth and hope they will learn to claim it as their birthright.
I find I feel it is such an insult to young women to not trust them to take responsibility for their own sexuality and to not allow them to make their own informed decisions about whether they wish to have sexual partners before marriage or not.
It would be so interesting to do an in depth survey of women between the ages of 15 and 65 just to find out how many have "strayed" so much as to become promiscuous. How many partners qualifies a girl as promiscuous anyway? I bet the majority don't "give themselves" that easily. Most young women have more self-esteem than that!
African bloc backs female circumcision ban
Delegates from 27 African countries assembled in Senegal in support of a UN ban on female genital mutilation -- a practice that affects some 120 million women through Africa and the Middle East. The UN Population Fund reports that about 91 million girls aged 9 and under have undergone genital mutilation, with 3 million operations performed each year. The African Union has warned that migrants who leave for Europe and other areas in the West are bringing with them the practice and that the West must work to combat it also. Google/Agence France-Presse (5/3) LinkedInFaceboo kTwitterEmail this Story
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