Fatou Baldeh MBE - My FGM Story
TRIGGER WARNING: This piece contains graphic descriptions of female genital mutilation (FGM) and its health complications. Please take care when reading.
DISCLAIMER: This article is for general information purposes only and is in no way a substitute for medical advice. Please always consult your doctor if you have any health concerns. This content is based on Fatou’s experience of working in the Gender Justice field in The Gambia.
Fatou Baldeh MBE is the Founder and CEO of Women in Liberation & Leadership (WILL). In this piece she tells her own story of FGM, and speaks about WILL’s work to end the practice. In 2019, Fatou was awarded a Member of the British Empire (MBE) for outstanding services to BAME women in Scotland. After living in the UK for 16 years, she came home to transform and protect the lives and rights of women in The Gambia.
Survivor
I’m a survivor of female genital mutilation (FGM). I was 8 when we went to a family member’s house in The Gambia. Some people were dancing, some people were drumming, but I didn't know what was happening. Nobody told us ‘this is what is going to happen to you’. We were put in a line, one person after the other. There were at least ten of us. It was just outside, they put up some wrappers to cover and it was done on the floor. I remember seeing whoever went first came out screaming. You can imagine how traumatic that was.
I was pinned down and I was cut. We were all cut in the same setting, without medication, probably using the same equipment as well. We were all kept in this house after the cutting, in a dark room for maybe about two weeks until we healed. In that room we were taught songs about being a woman, about being a girl, about how you behave.
Every morning they put warm water with salt and herbs in a pan, and you were forced to sit on it. That is something that was traumatising for a very long time. Not even the cutting, but every morning having to soak because you were cut. It's raw and sore. That’s what they believe would support you not to have an infection. For many years that was what stuck in my head, sitting on that every morning, and screaming at night. We had to go through that until we were healed. Just imagine that pain.
When we were ready, they had a big ceremony for us. Our families brought us gifts, and we had a party at the end and that was it. Then we never spoke about what happened to us there. You’d never hear anybody talk about it again, unless other girls go through FGM and then you are brought in as a mentor.
It still happens in that way today in The Gambia. There are reports that people sometimes go to healthcare professionals, but generally, it's not medicalised.
Women in Liberation & Leadership
I founded Women in Liberation & Leadership (WILL) in 2018 because of this experience. There is a lot of work going on but we need to accelerate the effort so we can end FGM in The Gambia. WILL tries to do this by taking a community-led approach.
We want communities to understand the harm done by FGM but we use a non-judgmental approach by saying, ‘we want to talk to you, we want to understand why you continue the practice, and why you support it,’ because it's important that communities don't see you as someone who's attacking them.
We target everybody in the community, both men and women. Some people may tell you that it's a women's issue but the decision-makers or the beneficiaries are men. In most households in the Gambian context, the head of the household is a man. I believe that if men take a strong stand against FGM, it will also contribute towards eradicating it. So we engage men to educate them about how FGM harms women, but how in return that also harms them as a husband, and as a father. We explain to them that when you remove a girl at that stage, and take them through this trauma, how that impacts their lives, and affects the development of the country.
Instead of individualising the harm and making it just subjective to women only, we want the whole society to understand how FGM harms people. We also use that opportunity to address any misconceptions that people may have around the practice. We educate girls, because they’re not taught about how FGM harms them. They're made to believe that if you do not have FGM, you are not a complete woman, you will not be married, or that people will not respect you. We want to change those mindsets.
I still remember this one rural community. There was a lady who had a two-year-old daughter, and the grandmother was also there. They (the grandmother especially) told us straight away that they would perform FGM on this child. We decided to engage this community over time.
So, we went back, and we took a religious leader and a healthcare professional who had experience in obstetrics and gynaecology, to talk to women about how FGM affects women's reproductive health. At the end of that session, the grandmother stood up and told us that if she had had that information, her own daughter would not have had FGM. She promised us that her granddaughter would never go through FGM. For her, she said she never knew this is how FGM harms women.
It was very important to have that conversation. Just last week we had a workshop with 20 girls who had all had FGM. I asked them ‘have you ever had any session like this to give you information around FGM, and how it affects you?’ They said, ‘No. This is the first time.’ Even when we used the term FGM, they didn't know what it meant. We had to explain. By the end, all 20 girls told us they were against it.
Harm
Dr Barrister Babanding Daffeh, Focal person for network against SGBV at Kanifing General Hospital, The Gambia, explains the health complications of FGM:
Short-term complications:
o Pain - due to a lack of use of anaesthesia
o Bleeding - due to injury of the clitoris and surrounding tissues
o Shock - due to heavy blood loss
o Injury to the tissue of urethra, vagina, and perineum
o Acute urinary retention because of swelling and inflammation around the wound
o Fracture or dislocation of bone or joints due to physical restraint or heavy pressure
o Infection because of unhygienic conditions, use of unsterilised instruments, application of the substance of herbs, binding of legs and contamination of wounds
o Failure to heal
Long-term complications:
o Difficulty passing urine
o Recurrent urinary tract infection
o Pelvic infection
o Keloid scar
o Abscess formation
o Cyst formation on the vulva
o Clitoral neuroma because of the clitoris nerve being trapped or cut
o Difficulty in menstruation because of partial or total occlusion of vaginal opening
o Occlusion of the vagina
o Calculus formation in the vagina because of the accumulation of menstrual debris and urinary deposits
o Dyspareunia (painful sexual intercourse for both man and a woman) due to scarring and reduced vaginal orifice
Sexual and reproductive complications:
o Infertility - due to pelvic inflammatory disease and irreparable damage to reproductive organs
o Fistulae - because of injury to the soft tissue, sexual intercourse, and obstructed labour
o Dangers for childbirth such as heavy bleeding due to tearing of scar tissues of the vagina causing maternal death, birth asphyxia and immediate neonatal death
Psychological complications:
As a child who has experienced FGM grows older she may experience:
o Stress
o Feeling of incompleteness
o Feeling of fear of humiliation and betrayal
o Loss of self-esteem
o Depression
o Chronic anxiety
o Phobias
o Panic attacks
I’d like to add the following harmful effects too:
· Denying pleasure: The main reason why FGM is done is to deny us pleasure. That's ultimately why, and that is my human right as a woman. That is something that continues to affect women throughout their adult life.
· Domestic violence: In my experience, women who have had FGM have told me that because sex is either painful for them or they don’t enjoy it, this can cause arguments with their husbands. It’s often misunderstood as a lack of desire to be intimate, but it’s not that, it’s because of the pain they may experience when having sex. Women who come to WILL have told us that this issue can bring tension and a heightened risk of domestic violence.
What WILL needs to stop FGM
We need resources so that we can continue to deliver sustainable projects. We don't like to go into a community for a one-off engagement and leave. We need support to make sure that we are reaching more people: men, women, girls, and especially young people. If we want to end FGM, we must engage young women and young men who may be parents in the future. All it takes to stop it is one generation. If I don't cut my girl, there is a 99% chance that her daughter will not be cut.
We need commitment from the government. A law was passed in 2016 to ban FGM but it’s not being implemented. People are not scared to perform FGM. The practice continues because we are not seeing the government come out publicly and address FGM. We are not seeing law enforcement. International partners need to put pressure on the government to make sure that this law is implemented.
We need to build the capacity of our healthcare professionals to provide services for people who are already experiencing problems because of FGM.
We need to learn from other countries that have made progress in addressing FGM.
We need to mobilise the effort to end FGM. If you think you can help us do that, contact us now.
Thank you.