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[00:00:00] Section: Teaser
[00:00:00] Evelyn Wambui translating: So it's a beautiful song that just says, why do we want to stay with the past? Why don't we listen and give girls and women a chance?
[00:00:10] Section: Podcast introduction
[00:00:10] Anna Stoecklein: Hello, and welcome to a very special first of its kind series of The Story of Woman coming to you in person from Kenya. This is a story about the strength and untapped potential of women. A story about what it looks like when one human rights issue that's been around for millennia faces the collective power of women who are determined to create better lives for themselves, their daughters, their communities, and the world.
The views expressed by the individuals interviewed in this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Orchid Project or its partner organizations.
[00:00:47] Section: Episode
[00:00:48] Anna Stoecklein: FGM, or female genital mutilation, is also referred to as FGC, female genital cutting. In this series, we'll mostly be using the language FGMC, and you'll hear it [00:01:00] sometimes referred to as "the cut".
[00:01:02] Evelyn Wambui translating: So FGM is a problem especially for the health of girls, and especially for her. She underwent great challenges even with being with a man and eventually even giving birth. It was very complicated for her. She almost lost her life. She had to undergo surgery to save her life. So that is one of the reason why she is very vocal about this, just to try and make sure other girls don't go through the same experience as her.
[00:01:38] Anna Stoecklein: That was Fariha, a 35 year old survivor of FGMC living in Kenya. She's one of the 230 million women and girls living with the devastating and lifelong impacts of this practice.
The voice you heard translating for Fariha was Evelyn Wambui, a Kenyan journalist and podcaster who I had the absolute pleasure [00:02:00] of partnering up with to bring you this series. You'll hear her translating Swahili to English throughout the episodes.
To get this story about FGMC and the strength of women, Evelyn and I partnered with Orchid Project, an international NGO working at the forefront of the global movement to create a world free from FGMC. Orchid connected us with their partners on the ground, COVAW, the Coalition on Violence Against Women, and the Brighter Society Initiative, two non profits both based in Kenya.
In this three episode series, we explore the issue of FGMC. We'll go beyond laws and policy changes and into the hearts and minds of community leaders, activists, and survivors, bringing you the human stories behind the headlines and statistics. We also dive into the broader mechanisms of cultural change that are necessary to address any harmful practice, belief, or inequality.
Some questions we had, why does FGMC continue? What's [00:03:00] it going to take to bring it to an end? And what can we learn from these efforts to stop FGMC about transforming other parts of our culture that no longer serve us? To tell this story, we visited two different communities in Kenya.
One was in southwestern Kenya, not far from Tanzania or the famous Masai Mara National Reserve where every year hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to to go on safaris.
We made our way there to the local village and inside of a small mud hut where we'd meet and speak with members of the Maasai community, which is one of just over 50 tribes recognized in Kenya. They were the dominating tribe at the beginning of the 20th century and are one of the few tribes left who have retained most of their traditions and lifestyle.
The Maasai in this region coexist with and are caretakers of that famous Maasai Mara National Reserve that I mentioned. [00:04:00] And they're semi nomadic and pastoral, meaning they live by herding cattle and goats.
The other community we visited required us to make it back to the capital city of Nairobi, where we started our venture, and where Evelyn lives. The bustling city of Nairobi is home for over 5 million people.
Here, we met the other community we'd be speaking with, Somalis, of which there are many in Kenya, just over two million to be exact. The fifth largest community in Kenya, the Somalis are also one of the 50 tribes recognized here, a Cushitic tribe. They live all over the country, but with majorities in the northeastern regions of Kenya, near to the border of Somalia.
But not all Somalis are up there. Many of them have established themselves and their businesses in the big city of Nairobi, .particularly in the suburb of Eastly. Those are the Somalis we met with and who you'll be meeting very soon.
[00:04:56] Evelyn Wambui translating: So what will it take to stop FGM? It's a very long journey [00:05:00] and it'll take a very long time, but she believes that if women come together and talk about it and fight against it, then eventually the practice will come to an end. But her opinion, her request, would be that it doesn't stop in the city, in the towns, that that conversation should be taken down to the communities and the rural areas so that the healing starts from inside.
[00:05:30] Sean Callahagn: FGM is a cultural practice. It's been around for 2000 plus years that we know about, documented. There's evidence within Egyptian hieroglyph.
[00:05:42] Anna Stoecklein: This is Sean Callaghan head of research and capacity strengthening at Orchid Project.
[00:05:47] Sean Callahagn: The most severe forms of FGM are often called pharaonic FGM, which speaks back to the times of the pharaohs. And so you can see how old the practice is. It is practiced in 90 plus [00:06:00] countries around the world. 230 million women and girls today living with FGM. 4 million or so at risk every year.
It looks very different in different communities, and different communities practice different forms of FGM, and it happens at a very wide age range. In some communities from as young as a couple of weeks after birth, through to other communities where it's maybe 13, 14, 15 years of age, and pretty much everything in between.
[00:06:29] Anna Stoecklein: Not only does FGMC happen at a wide age range, it happens all over the world, crossing cultures and religions, socioeconomic and education status.
It happens in Africa and the Middle East, and it also happens in Europe and the United States. There is no single story of FGMC. That's why for this series, we visited these two different communities in Kenya that certainly don't tell the whole story, but that start to give us an idea of just how varied and [00:07:00] nuanced this issue is.
And given that one community we visited, the Maasai, is seeing progress, and the other, the Somalis, have been stalled in their progress for quite some time, they even help us to understand the wider picture.
[00:07:15] Sean Callahagn: In one sense, Kenya represents a microcosm of what's happening globally, that there are communities that don't practice, there are communities that have abandoned the practice, there are communities that are in the process of abandoning the practice, there are communities where the practice feels very sticky.
[00:07:30] Anna Stoecklein: We spoke with survivors, activists, and community and religious leaders from the Maasai and Somali communities.
[00:07:36] Sean Callahagn: Some of the similarities between the Maasai and the Somali is both of them come off a base of very, very high numbers in the 70, 80 plus percent. We are seeing faster progress in the Maasai than in the Somali community. And that is shown out in the demographic health surveys, but it's also shown out in our own research.
[00:07:59] Anna Stoecklein: [00:08:00] Orchid's research shows that the national prevalence of FGMC in Kenya reduced from just under 38% of women aged 15 to 49 in 1998 to just under 15% in 2022. However, FGMC in Kenya is closely linked to ethnic identity, so the practice varies widely between groups.
In the Maasai community, even though the prevalence is still high, the rate has been steadily decreasing over the years. Alongside this, there's been a positive change in community attitudes towards the abandonment of FGMC as awareness of the human rights issue, health effects, and legal implications has increased.
On the other hand, according to Orchid's research in the northeastern region of Kenya, where many Somalis reside, the absolute number of women and girls affected by FGMC doubled between 1998 and 2022. And support for the practice continues, with one of Orchid's reports showing that more than three quarters of women [00:09:00] aged 15 to 49 in Somalia and Somaliland believe that the practice should be continued.
So why is one community improving while the other appears to be regressing? In order to answer that, we need to look at why FGMC happens in these communities in the first place. Because the first misconception we'd like to address, just like every other issue surrounding gender equality, there is no single story of FGMC.
[00:09:32] Sean Callahagn: Particularly in communities that don't practice FGM, when we look at FGM, we often caricature it. So somehow, the problem is, FGM is that thing that happens around puberty. The girl is probably wearing a hijab. She is probably about to get married. It's a religious requirement. You know, we kind of create this little caricature.
Now what we've done in just that little caricature is we've mixed at least Maasai with [00:10:00] Somali, just in my little caricature there, who do different kinds of FGM, they do it at different ages, they do it for different reasons. And we've left out the Nigerians who did it for a completely different reason at a different age, you know.
So, so that misconception of who's at risk, when they're at risk, why they're at risk, we kind of merge it all together in this caricature.
[00:10:20] Anna Stoecklein: Given how different this issue looks in every community, understanding how it works within and impacts each one is absolutely crucial.
[00:10:28] Sean Callahagn: And so if we're going to intervene in a community, we really have to understand the nuance of the why, the when, the what, the how, the who.
[00:10:37] Anna Stoecklein: That's why research is one of Orchid Project's main focuses. Orchid Project is an international organization that was formed in the UK in 2011. They have offices in London and Nairobi and are a single issue organization where they specifically work on ending FGMC. Their vision? To ensure that there is no more [00:11:00] FGMC globally.
There are three strands to their business. The first is capacity strengthening, where they work with grassroots organizations to provide funding and ensure they are equipped with the skills needed to carry out their work toward ending the practice within the communities they serve.
The second is global advocacy, where they collect stories of change happening at these grassroots levels and advocate them to the global spaces. And where they call for governments to put in more action and more resources. The final strand is research, which illuminates important statistics, like the fact that though Kenya's overall prevalence is only 14. 8%, there are some areas and communities with a prevalence upward of 95 percent and higher.
But research isn't just about understanding the numbers. It's about looking closely at each individual community in order to understand which girls are most at risk, what are the main drivers that keep the practice going, and what works [00:12:00] best for bringing it to an end.
Here's Sean again.
[00:12:06] Sean Callahagn: Those girls are cut somewhere between 0 and 15 years of age, but depending on who they are, depends on when they're going to be at most at risk. Those girls are cut and those families are cutting deep for very, very different reasons.
And so without the research and without the granularity of the research, your intervention is sort of nebulous nothingness, really.
[00:12:33] Anna Stoecklein: And ultimately, research is about illuminating and protecting the human lives behind the numbers.
[00:12:40] Sean Callahagn: Data and spreadsheets and graphs can be deathly boring, but what sits behind them is the truth. The stories of lives transformed and the stories of futures lived that would never have been possible to be lived because back then it just wasn't even possible.
[00:12:58] Anna Stoecklein: These human lives are [00:13:00] exactly who we set out to hear from.
[00:13:02] Christine: I've seen so many effects on myself. Because when I gave birth, it was very difficult when giving birth. Even there was so much bleeding that was caused by that FGM. So I felt so much bad. Even me, it was just something which you cannot return because it was already been done.
[00:13:28] Anna Stoecklein: That was Christine, a 29 year old survivor from the Maasai community. As we've said, there is no single story of FGMC. The issue reaches across borders, religions, cultures, and ages, but the devastating impacts on the girls, women, and community as a whole remain the same.
In Africa alone, according to Orchid Project's research, there are over 40, 000 deaths every year in the countries where the practice takes place. Beyond that, [00:14:00] FGMC can lead to harmful physical and psychological effects that last a lifetime. From incredible pain and risk of infection at the time of the cut, to ongoing challenges with menses, recurring fistulas, painful and high risk pregnancies, and mental and emotional trauma, the list of health effects are long.
Even a woman's ability to have her own family in the future can be impacted by something that happened to her in her youth.
[00:14:26] Evelyn Wambui translating: For her, her experience has been really bad, especially with childbirth. She would have wanted to have more kids, but she has not been able to because of the pain of delivery, and she even lost her last child as a result.
[00:14:39] Anna Stoecklein: Nurta, a survivor from the Somali community, shared her story, which was quite common amongst the survivors we spoke with.
[00:14:47] Evelyn Wambui translating: So she says herself she never went to high school. She finished after primary school. Her father got her husband, got married at 16, got her first baby at 18, [00:15:00] and that was how her life unfolded.
[00:15:02] Anna Stoecklein: And of course, if girls aren't being educated, the entire community will suffer. This was a big reason Saitote, a young male leader in the Maasai community, who's singing we heard at the top of the episode, decided to speak out, and sing out, publicly against the practice.
[00:15:20] Evelyn Wambui translating: So the reason why he decided to take up this role is because he saw that as a community, they're being left behind. Girls, immediately, they go through the cut, the next step is getting married, having children, and that means they cannot access education and they cannot grow up properly.
And for the community, that means they have to remain behind because a lot of the girls have had to remain behind to take up roles that they were not ready for. So that's one of the biggest reasons why he decided to take up advocacy against this.
[00:15:54] Anna Stoecklein: We'll hear more about Saitote's advocacy, and men's roles in all of this, in a later episode.
[00:16:00] So, there are lifelong physical and psychological impacts, as well as consequences to a girl's education and economic empowerment, which creates a ripple effect out into their families and communities. Or as Kirigo, an advocacy officer at Orchid Project, puts it:
[00:16:17] Kirigo Njenga: There's a misconception that FGM is a women's issue, but we all know that a social issue does not affect one particular group in a society. It affects everybody.
[00:16:28] Anna Stoecklein: So FGMC can impact the education and economic empowerment of girls and women, and therefore, all of us.
But also, it's the families who are poorer and with less education that are more likely to have their daughters cut in the first place. So it's kind of a self perpetuating cycle that, unfortunately, cannot be solved by education alone. Here's Sean again.
[00:16:53] Sean Callahagn: So the education doesn't equal less cutting, but it's kind of a proxy indicator of each other. [00:17:00] In those communities where FGM is linked to child marriage and forced marriage, often what happens is puberty, FGM, marriage, end of education, first baby, all within a year. So if you can increase the number of years of education through a strategy, you effectively postpone the FGM, but you don't necessarily end the FGM.
Because if the community still believes that you can't be a wife and you can't be a woman unless you are cut, rather than cutting you at 12, we're now going to cut you at 18 because you've now finished high school. All that it really means is that you're a better educated cut person. The gender norm hasn't necessarily changed.
[00:17:47] Anna Stoecklein: While it's incredibly important and definitely plays a role, education isn't a silver bullet, because there is no silver bullet for an issue as diverse, complex, [00:18:00] and far reaching as FGMC. And that includes the law.
In terms of ending FGMC, Kenya is a very progressive country with all the legal instruments in place. The prohibition of the Female Genital Mutilation Act, which came into effect on October 4, 2011, is the principal legislation governing FGMC in Kenya. It's a federal act criminalizing all forms of FGMC and is one of the most comprehensive in Africa.
So, the law is there in Kenya and in many other places in the world where FGMC continues. But, as Sean alluded to, education, the law, and any solution can only do so much as long as the underlying gender norms that shape our communities, systems, and world are in place.
[00:18:49] Anne: Just like in so many other areas of the movement for gender equality, the girls and women that have been through FGMC are the ones at the front leading the charge to bring it to [00:19:00] an end. My name is Anne. I'm an elder in this area. I'm a mother, uh, Mama Kijiji.
[00:19:07] Fariha: (Swahili) Hi. My name is Fariha Ali. I'm an activist.
[00:19:13] Christine: My name is Christine. I am 29 years old. I have three children, and I am happy to see you here.
[00:19:22] Anna Stoecklein: Those were the voices of three survivors we spoke with, Anne, Fariha, and Christine. Each one of them shared their stories and how their personal experiences motivated them to become the activists and champions they are today, leading the charge in not only bringing this practice to an end, but also, as Christine puts it:
[00:19:40] Christine: To see a world community where women and girls are free from harmful practices and all get equal opportunities to achieve their full potential.
[00:19:52] Anna Stoecklein: That is the ultimate goal, after all. It's not just to end FGM. It's to create a world where women and [00:20:00] men are equal. That's what each of these survivors are striving for. Anne, Mama Kijiji, has been working on this for 20 years. She is Maasai and the only female elder in her community.
[00:20:14] Anne: I am a leader and a good leader because I am just one of, there is no another woman, just me.
[00:20:22] Anna Stoecklein: In Maasai culture, elders are the most important and respected people who are in charge of making decisions for the whole community. They're the heads of the society and they're pretty much exclusively men. Anne, however, was approached by the elders and other leaders of her wider community because of the great work she'd been doing.
She was even given an office. When we asked about her role as Mama Kijiji, which basically means village mom, she said she stands in the gap to provide a voice for the women and girls that otherwise wouldn't have one.
[00:20:55] Evelyn Wambui translating: Because for the mothers, if their children fall pregnant, [00:21:00] then they're the ones to be blamed, but they don't have a voice as to what should happen and especially even with the FGM. So she comes and stands in that gap and speaks on their behalf to lead the community leaders.
[00:21:13] Anna Stoecklein: Fariha is the activist from the Somali community who we met at the very top of this episode. She's experienced ongoing challenges since the time of being cut at age 10. Pain is the most vivid thing she remembers from that time. And while giving birth to her daughter, she almost lost her life.
Today, she runs a salon and spa, which she uses not just as a place of business, but also one of advocacy, where she speaks with and listens to women about their lived experiences with FGMC.
[00:21:44] Evelyn Wambui translating: So she says she's hopeful that she'll be able to help one woman at a time. And if she's able to help even one child because of her advocacy, [00:22:00] then that's good enough for her. And she says, especially if she talks to a woman and a woman changes, a woman is like an entire community. So if she changes one woman's perspective, then she's able to change the community. And she's hopeful that she can be able to do that slowly. And in the end, all this advocacy will bear fruit.
[00:22:17] Anna Stoecklein: Christine is a 29 year old survivor from the Maasai community whose passion also stems from her own experience.
[00:22:25] Christine: I myself, I have decided to become a champion because of the effect that I went through. I say no one. That is what made me to be a champion, to spread the gospel.
[00:22:39] Anna Stoecklein: And as was the case with all survivors we spoke with, her activism also stems from her desire to create a better life for her daughter.
[00:22:47] Christine: My dreams for my daughter, that she become a better person in life. I will try all my best that she get full education up to university level, [00:23:00] that when she becomes a big person, she can stand for herself.
[00:23:04] Anna Stoecklein: Despite all the hardships they've been through, survivors of FGMC are not sitting back and waiting for their communities to change. They are actively leading the way. Here's Kirigo Njenga again, an Orchid Project advocacy officer who works on the ground with survivors every day.
[00:23:22] Kirigo Njenga: For me, survivors, one, give us a face of what it is to undergo FGM, and not in a negative way, in a way of telling us, this is why we need to stop it.
But second, they also tell us, we come from communities where it is practiced, and we understand the nuances of why it's practiced, why there's some resistance in this place. And therefore, they're bringing insight that I would definitely never have doing legal research from here to kingdom come. But they also tell us, this is what we need.
So survivors are a really critical part of the jigsaw puzzle in terms of how we advocate, [00:24:00] campaign, plan programs on addressing FGM.
[00:24:04] Anna Stoecklein: Survivors have the awareness and understanding, along with the passion and drive. And they're also the ones who will help break the cycle. Here's Sean again.
[00:24:14] Sean Callahagn: We want to be working with those moms, with those grandmothers who are survivors. They are women living with the consequences of FGM. And what we want is for them to make decisions as families, as communities, as parents, as grandparents to break the cycle. So that their daughter is not cut, so that her daughter would be less likely to be cut because her mom's not cut, and her daughter would be very much less likely, you know, so we break the cycle.
And it really is that sort of third generation that we're talking about in terms of breaking the cycle. So the survivors are the program, honestly.
[00:24:59] Anna Stoecklein: [00:25:00] While there is no single story of where, why, or how FGMC happens, the lifelong implications the practice has on a girl's life is evident. It not only holds her back from reaching her full potential, but also limits the potential of her community, country, and the entire world. But the laws are changing, and survivors are out there leading the fight to end FGMC and transform our world.
In the next episode, looking closer at these Maasai and Somali communities, we break down why FGMC persists and begin to explore what it will take to finally bring this millennia long practice to an end.
[00:25:38] Sean Callahagn: What we are talking about is not the ending of an act, of a practice. What we're talking about is the shifting of a social norm.
[00:25:50] Anna Stoecklein: We'll hear more of Fariha's and the other survivors' stories. We'll hear from an ex-cutter about why she went into the profession. And we'll hear from a Sikh about [00:26:00] the role religion plays. Then, we'll look into the future at the bigger mission.
[00:26:13] Evelyn Wambui translating: Over and above FGM, she wants women to be able to be decision makers, to make decision in the home, to own property, and to be able to have a say. So that's where she, she wants, uh, the community to go in for women in our community.
[00:26:28] Sean Callahagn: Continue to move towards a society that's more equal, a society where we're not robbed from what half of humanity can bring to the party.
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