đ§ Listen to the episode
[00:00:00] Section: Teaser
[00:00:00] Evelyn Wambui translating: Before she just used to know it's part of culture. So that's what they did because she went through it. But now with education, she's been able to understand how bad it is, how difficult it is for people who've been cut to get children, how difficult it is for them to heal. And now she's one of the people who goes house to house to tell people and to tell people to stop and to end FGM.
[00:00:22] Section: Podcast introduction
[00:00:22] Anna Stoecklein: Hello, and welcome to a very special special, first of its kind episode 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.
[00:00:59] Section: Episode
[00:00:59] Evelyn Wambui translating: She [00:01:00] has a spa and a salon, and there is where she meets a lot of the women as she engages with them in the process. A lot of the women talk about the challenges they went through with FGM and the impact it's had on them. And that's when she starts talking to them and asking them why do they want to expose their children if they underwent such challenges themselves.
So that's where her activism started, while hearing the plight of other women coming to her salon, coming to her spa, talking about what they went through, but also talking about how they feel it's important for them to take their children through the same process because of the safety that it gives. So she asks them, what safety is this?
[00:01:43] Anna Stoecklein: This is Fariha, the Somali survivor and activist we met in the first episode, who runs a salon as a place of business and advocacy. Safety is the reason women in her community tell her they've taken their daughters through the cut. Especially for those of us on the outside of this [00:02:00] practice, that can seem quite confusing. How will a practice with a long list of physical, psychological, and economic implications keep their daughters safe?
In the first episode of this series, we broke down what FGMC is and how, despite the fact that there is no single story of this issue, there are many known harmful implications for the individual girl, for every community that practices it, and for the entire world. In this episode, we'll explore why, despite all of this, the practice continues.
[00:02:37] Sean Callaghan: I think that communities want the best for their kids.
[00:02:39] Anna Stoecklein: This is Sean again, the Head of Research and Capacity Strengthening at Orchid Project.
[00:02:44] Sean Callaghan: There's that line in the Sting song, "I hope the Russians love their children too," you know, which was kind of from the Cold War era. And I think that's true. I think any community that practices FGM, love their kids, and this is the best [00:03:00] thing for my kids to secure their future.
[00:03:02] Anna Stoecklein: So we asked, given this context, why do people continue the practice? Why is it seen as the safe, secure choice?
[00:03:10] Sean Callaghan: Maybe we can break it down into three big buckets that FGM is about marking you as belonging, as identity. So think about eighth day circumcision within Judaism, of boys, it's a mark of identity, going all the way back to Abraham.
And so in certain communities like Nigeria, where it's practiced within those first few weeks of life, it's connected to the naming ceremony. So your name waits for you to be born, then you're born, then you have the ceremony where you get your name and you're cut, you know. And so it's about identity. It's about who you are and who you're a part of.
On the other extreme, in some communities, like in the Maasai community in Kenya, it's a rite of passage into womanhood. It's about becoming. So if this one's about belonging, then this [00:04:00] one's about becoming. Becoming a woman, becoming an adult, becoming a wife, it's that passage into.
And so even here where you have certain context where maybe a community has walked away from FGM, the real question is, have those girls become women or are they 45 years old and still see themselves or are still seen as girls in their society?
And you see the same things in Xhosa culture in South Africa with the boys, that the boys go through a rite of passage where at that same age of puberty they are circumcised and they become men. And so again, you see that parallel happening.
And then there's a third group that it's much more about chastity. It's much more about purity. It's much more about managing sexual desire. You know, that group often cuts just before puberty, just around puberty.
In some communities the cut is also linked to marriage, so [00:05:00] you have to be cut before you're married. And so if that time of cutting is younger, then the time of marriage is younger. But clearly a Nigerian cutting at three or four weeks is not cutting to be married.
And then there's health concerns and aesthetic concerns, and you know, there's a whole bunch of other sort of stuff that sits around that, but broadly it falls under those three buckets of belonging, becoming, and being.
[00:05:25] Anna Stoecklein: Belonging, becoming, being. At the end of the day, isn't that what all of our social norms are about? Sean putting it this way helped us really start to understand. As did speaking with the survivors and members of the Maasai and Somali communities whose motivations for continuing this practice are not the same.
[00:05:45] Evelyn Wambui translating: So the only reason why the women are very keen on having their daughters cut is so that they can curtail the sexual urge because they believe [00:06:00] that when girls are not cut, then they will go outside and they will be promiscuous.
[00:06:05] Anna Stoecklein: That was Layla, a 37 year old Somali survivor and mother of two girls. In this Somali community, and it's important to specify that we're just talking about this Somali community and not all, the cut tends to happen a little before puberty and is commonly linked to the being bucket: being pure, being holy, being ready for marriage.
[00:06:28] Evelyn Wambui translating: She says it's because they want their children to stay the way they did, at home, until they're ready for marriage. So they believe that the reason they stayed as mothers, the reason they stayed until they were married is because they went through the cut and they believe that if they expose their daughters to the same, then their children will also not go out and be promiscuous. They'll stay at home until it's time for them to get married. So that's the most important reason why.
[00:06:57] Anna Stoecklein: So it's more important than everything that they [00:07:00] went through?
[00:07:00] Evelyn Wambui translating: They said they went through it and they're okay, so their children should also go through it so that they're able to preserve themselves until they get married.
[00:07:09] Anna Stoecklein: And then in this Maasai community, the cut happens at a slightly older age and is more often linked to the becoming bucket, a girl's transition into womanhood.
[00:07:23] Evelyn Wambui translating: It's a long story, but the bottom line is it's a rite of passage. It has to happen. It's happened over the years. For those people who decide not to have it, they end up being castigated from society. And if a girl is not married with her age set, then she's ostracized. So you may want to say no, but then the consequences are hard.
So for them, this is important. If they are to move from being girls to being women. It's also like the [00:08:00] key to getting married. So you have to go through the cut for you to get married.
[00:08:06] Anna Stoecklein: That was Saitote, a Maasai community leader we met in the first episode. Though the buckets are different, they stem from the same place: concern for the safety and future of their children, and fear that their daughters will be ostracized from the community, which carries not only the possibility of severe economic consequences, but also psychosocial ones.
One of our greatest desires as human beings is to belong, and I think anyone listening will understand firsthand how hard it is to go against the traditions and culture of your community.
It's a bit like a fish trying to swim the opposite way of a river's current. Culture is a bit like a river. It moves us in a certain direction to make choices about what we wear each day, how we spend our time, and what's best for the future of our children. But often, we don't even realize it's what moves us.
[00:08:58] Evelyn Wambui translating: Cutting [00:09:00] is a cultural thing.
Because it's a culture.
Because it's our culture.
[00:09:08] Christine: It was not my will. But so it was done to me because of the belief of the culture. Because we were told stigma will come in the village because they neglected those who are not cut. So it was their belief. So it, it was a must. Has to be done. So we were innocent. We didn't know anything.
[00:09:28] Anna Stoecklein: So, for an individual person, when it comes to going against your culture, there is first having the awareness and understanding of those invisible forces at play, the deeply ingrained ways of belonging, becoming, and being within our families and communities.
And then there's having the determination and strength to choose a different path, despite the repercussions.
[00:09:58] Evelyn Wambui translating: She received a lot of backlash, [00:10:00] and even especially from her own parents, that there's no practice, there's no culture like this.
The community was really against them. And they isolated them and said, you know, don't even talk to that family. That's the family that does not allow their girls to be cut.
So she says that she received a lot of backlash from her family, especially, you know, them telling her that she is following other people's culture. She's not following her culture.
[00:10:26] Anna Stoecklein: Even the girls themselves can be ostracized.
[00:10:29] Evelyn Wambui translating: Her children went through a bit of backlash, even from fellow girls in school. There's this name that they call girls who've not been cut, which she says is called Ndoieye.
So they really received a lot of backlash because of it. Sometimes they segregate those who have gone through and those who haven't. So they just take themselves and go into a corner, those people who've gone through the cut, and discuss. And they don't include those who have not.
[00:10:54] Anna Stoecklein: Men can be ostracized as well. Here's Saitote again, who decided to lead [00:11:00] by example and marry an uncut woman.
[00:11:02] Evelyn Wambui translating: He says, when he made that decision, it was very difficult to tell his parents. And when he did tell his parents, his parents said, then, you know, you will die because there's a specific name that is given to women who are uncut. And if you marry them, then you will die.
[00:11:17] Anna Stoecklein: You will die. To some, your life is basically seen as being over if you step outside of this tradition. That's how strong the current of culture can be.
So there is culture, and then there is religion, which is inextricably linked to culture. Here's Sean to explain.
[00:11:37] Sean Callaghan: You know, culture and religion are not two things. They really are one thing. And if you're Jewish, you're Jewish, you know, if you're Catholic, you're Catholic.
And that talks to not only if you're Kenyan, there's a whole package of Christianity that sort of wraps around Kenyan. If you're Somali, there's a Muslim culture that wraps around that. Your cultural heritage and your religious [00:12:00] heritage are very interwoven. And so what is acceptable in your culture is often what's acceptable in your religion, or your religion has packaged up what's acceptable, you know, those things are interplaying all the time.
[00:12:14] Anna Stoecklein: So how do we see this play out within the Maasai and Somali communities?
[00:12:18] Sean Callaghan: Within the Maasai community, the practice is driven more by this sort of cultural norm and a cultural expectation of this is what we do as Maasai. This is what it means to be a Maasai woman. In the Somali community, it is more driven by, this is what our faith teaches us, calls us to do, and this is what we do because we are faithful to the faith as Somalis.
Because other people who are faithful to the faith don't do this, but equally other people who are faithful to their culture don't do this. So, you know, it's very nuanced with inside those communities.
[00:12:58] Anna Stoecklein: But no matter which bucket a [00:13:00] community falls in:
[00:13:01] Sean Callaghan: 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 that is, this is who we are, and this is how we do it, and this is how we've always done it, and this is what makes us us.
[00:13:19] Anna Stoecklein: If you'll remember in the first episode, Sean gave us an example of a caricature that those of us living outside of these communities often create around FGMC. He said we create this caricature that it's a religious requirement and that the girl is probably wearing a hijab. This is another common misconception we'd like to address.
As a reminder, FGMC spans across all religions. And, this is not a religious requirement like it's so often thought to be. We spoke with Osman, a Sikh from the Somali community who's a religious leader, teacher, and spokesperson. This is what he shared.
[00:13:56] Evelyn Wambui translating: FGM has no place in the community and it has no place in [00:14:00] the Qur'an. The Qur'an allows for boys to get circumcised but not girls. There's no place where it has been written, the prophet, has indicated that girls must be cut. It is not in the Muslim religion and it's something that happens especially among the Somali community, but it's not something that's in the Muslim religion.
[00:14:23] Anna Stoecklein: Noticing that FGMC happened in his community, but not in other Muslim communities, was one of the ways Osman came to understand the difference, and began to speak out publicly about this distinction.
[00:14:35] Evelyn Wambui translating: He's from the Somali community. So he says growing up, he saw a lot of this happening in his community. But when he traveled to other places, because he went to school in the coast, he saw people in Mombasa, their girls are not being cut. Of all the Muslims, it's just their community where girls are cut. So that's when he started questioning, why is it that our girls [00:15:00] are the only ones being cut?
[00:15:01] Anna Stoecklein: After noticing this, and seeing first hand differences in the lives of the girls and women themselves, Osman began speaking out publicly and has been at it for 10 years now. His message is clear.
[00:15:13] Evelyn Wambui translating: He continues to tell people from the Somali community that a cultural requirement does not mean it's a religious requirement. Those are two different things. And if they are following the words of their prophet, their prophet clearly indicates that FGM should not happen to girls.
[00:15:32] Anna Stoecklein: While many religious leaders like Osman do speak out against FGMC, not all do. Sean explains.
[00:15:39] Sean Callaghan: That's always, all of us are interpreting the text. As Christians, we're interpreting the text. Did Paul really say to Timothy, have some wine to settle your stomach, or did he mean have some grape juice to settle your stomach, you know? We interpret the text through our cultural lens. And in the same way, that's happening within Islam.
And so, different scholars are interpreting the text to say, it [00:16:00] says, this, that FGM is required, and then others will say, it says, you should not harm a person, and this is clearly harmful, so you shouldn't do it. You know, and those two interpretations are simply that, they're interpretations. But it's very hard to say no, when the argument is God said.
So while some scholars will say, God didn't say, other scholars that God did say, and then it's at the household level, at the family level, what did God say? And what do we believe God said? Because if this is what God wants of us, and this is what our community wants of us, and this is what's required of us, and this is what's expected of us by our community, and to not do this is to be rejected by our community, and our sense of belonging, and our sense of being, and our sense of identity is tied to us being part of. If we bring that concept of Ubuntu into this, that sense of 'I am because we are', my [00:17:00] identity as a father is dependent on the fact that I have children. If we hold that, then to say, I walk away from that to say no to something is incredibly hard to do.
[00:17:12] Anna Stoecklein: So the underlying culture is a big part of what drives the Maasai and Somali communities, and the human need to belong, become, and be within those cultures. In this context, we can begin to understand just how difficult it would be to decide not to continue the practice.
To be that fish that swims upstream, especially when upstream appears to be an unsafe and insecure future for your child. But what about those who join in and help carry out the practice? Those who add momentum to the current and help ensure its flow?
We spoke with Pauline, a woman who used to be a cutter in the Maasai community. Despite the many differences between the Maasai and Somali communities we visited, one similarity was the type [00:18:00] of person that tends to do the cutting. And that's the women from the community themselves.
[00:18:05] Evelyn Wambui translating: She has 12 children, and she was a cutter, mostly because she didn't have any other thing to do, and she needed income generation to take care of her 12 children, so that's why she was a cutter.
[00:18:18] Anna Stoecklein: As we heard Sean say in the beginning, people who practice FGMC love their kids. Pauline and others like her are no exception.
[00:18:27] Evelyn Wambui translating: She has five girls, and three of them have been cut, before she knew about the hazards. So the first girl, when she was cut, another lady is the one who came and cut her girl, and she was not happy because, in her opinion, it was not done well, she cut too much, and her daughter really bled.
So she told the husband, I'm going to cut the other girls. I don't like the way the other lady did it. So when she cut her girls, she cut them just a small piece and they didn't bleed, the two girls. So word spread [00:19:00] in the village that she's doing a good job, she's not cutting too much and girls are not bleeding.
So more people started coming to her and telling her, please do the same way you did for your daughter. And that's how she became a cutter.
[00:19:16] Anna Stoecklein: To, in her eyes, protect her daughters, as well as to feed her 12 children. And of course, she herself had been through the cut as a young girl, same as all the other women in her family and community.
But thanks to the COVAW team, Pauline not only started swimming against the stream, but she's doing everything she can to help others turn around as well.
[00:19:39] Evelyn Wambui translating: Before she just used to know it's part of culture. So that's what they did because she went through it. But now with education, she's been able to understand how bad it is, how difficult it is for people who've been cut to get children, how difficult it is for them to heal.
And now she's one of the people who goes house to house to tell people and to tell people to stop and to end [00:20:00] FGM.
[00:20:05] Anna Stoecklein: So even though it's nuanced and varied depending on the community, the powerful current of culture and tradition plays a big role in the continuation of the practice. As an individual, it's extremely difficult to even recognize that you're in the river, let alone to have the determination, resources, and overall ability to turn around and swim the other way.
But what about as a collective? What about the river itself? Why does it continue to flow when there are measures in place to stop it, such as the law? Here's Kirigo, an advocacy officer from Orchid Project.
[00:20:44] Kirigo Njenga: If you live in a community where there's cultural laws, let's loosely call them, and national laws around a certain issue, again, the belonging, living in a community where you really do not want to just feel like an outsider, [00:21:00] people feel more inclined to follow sort of cultural laws or cultural norms, whatever you may want to call them, as opposed to national laws, because they feel a little bit detached from the national laws.
[00:21:11] Anna Stoecklein: And often, when the law changes before the culture does, or when certain advocacy messages get through but the underlying culture remains, the issue at hand evolves rather than disappears.
With FGMC, we've seen that happen in a few ways.
[00:21:26] Kirigo Njenga: So what we tend to see happen is that where a community has not bought into the social norm of change in terms of completely eliminating the practice, you'll find that what happens is that communities start finding alternatives to continue the practice and one of those is medicalization.
[00:21:41] Anna Stoecklein: Medicalization of FGMC is when it's performed by any type of healthcare provider in a public or private clinic, at home, or elsewhere.
[00:21:51] Kirigo Njenga: So, campaigns started off in the 80s, saying FGM is negative, it has negative medical consequences, and therefore [00:22:00] people started shifting to medicalization.
And the idea was we're saying it has negative harmful health consequences that everyone's like, oh my health, because that's a really important, you know, aspect for everyone's life. So everyone's like, oh no, we don't want to do that. But we still want to keep this aspect that's, that defines me as a Maasai that defines me as a Somali.
I still want to keep that. It's important. It's frowned upon if I don't do it. So how do we do this? Oh, medicalization. So now we have medics performing it in, not even necessarily health centers, because I guess you carry your skills as a medic wherever you are, but it's supposed to reduce harm. But does it?
[00:22:41] Anna Stoecklein: Despite the fact that FGMC carried out in this way carries the same physical and psychological risks, according to Orchid Project's research, about 17 percent of women aged 15 to 49 and 16 percent of girls aged 10 to 14 report having been cut by a healthcare professional in Kenya. That [00:23:00] places Kenya in the top five countries for cases of medicalized FGMC.
Similarly, in some communities the data has shown a shift in the type of FGMC that's carried out. With some communities changing their practices to cut less skin, for example, believing that this will help reduce the negative health consequences while maintaining the tradition.
Another way we see the implications of what happens when there are legal changes, but not cultural ones, is by the increased number of people we see crossing the borders to carry out the practice.
[00:23:33] Kirigo Njenga: So when it comes to cross border FGM where communities take their girls across borders in countries where they share borders, for example, Kenya Tanzania, Kenya Uganda, Kenya Ethiopia, and Kenya Somalia, the girls would be taken over to either side of the border where it is felt that the implementation and enforcement of the law is not as stringent as in their own country.
[00:23:54] Anna Stoecklein: And this doesn't just happen between these countries surrounding Kenya, but all over [00:24:00] the world. Here's Sean:
[00:24:01] Sean Callaghan: Diaspora cutting is an interesting one. The data would suggest that most of the women living with FGM in the diaspora were cut before they migrated. 80%. But there are some women and girls living in the diaspora who were cut after they migrated.
There are those who look at that way that girls are in the UK and say, well, not my girl. So there's part of that in terms of the purity narrative. There's also those that say, she will never be a woman unless this happens and I really want her to be a woman. Or she would never be able to be married unless this happened. Or if my mother, my aunt, my sister knew that, oh, we'd be in so much trouble, you know. So there's all of that pressure. So the social norm doesn't end when you leave, it's just a bit more distant.
[00:24:55] Anna Stoecklein: So, when laws change before the culture does, there are a multitude of ways the issue [00:25:00] can transform. We've seen that with FGMC with some communities moving toward medicalization, shifting the type of FGMC they practice, and an increased number of those crossing the border to carry it out.
And with cultural change, there's always a backlash. As we've heard, there's a backlash that happens for individuals within their communities and families. And then there's the backlash we see at the national and global level, the kind of backlash that happens with any attempt of social change.
Here's Kirigo to talk about one of the ways we're seeing this happen in the region.
[00:25:33] Kirigo Njenga: I think the most poignant for me is the attempted repeal of the Women's Act 2015 in the Gambia that criminalizes FGM. If that law was repealed, then it would mean that FGM would be legal in the Gambia. And luckily, as of July 2024, that bill was upheld and it means that FGM is still illegal in the Gambia.
[00:25:56] Anna Stoecklein: Backlash like this doesn't just impact Gambia, and it doesn't [00:26:00] just impact the issue of FGMC.
[00:26:02] Kirigo Njenga: It's a scary time, not just for what you would quote unquote call FGM advocates, but for people that work towards gender equality and ensuring that women and girls are protected.
One, because it's, there are certain countries that have not passed an FGM law, not just a specific law, but anything within any of their legislation that bans FGM at all. Somalia being one, Sierra Leone being another.
And so if the Gambia was to repeal this law and, you know, FGM is free reign and everyone can do it, then we are saying that others are emboldened. Even those that have laws and think that we shouldn't have laws. So it creates a precedent where we don't want to go back to.
And it claws back the advocacy and the efforts, sweat and tears, of a lot of our predecessors in terms of the work that they've done to really bring out the issue of FGM being harmful, right?
[00:27:00] It brings out the idea that women don't have agency. Women and girls don't have agency. They don't have bodily autonomy. They don't have the right to life because you don't know if you're going to be among the one that's cut and bleeds to death. This is exactly what they are saying by repealing that law from where I sit.
[00:27:18] Anna Stoecklein: Those that have been following the issue of abortion closely may see parallels to what's been happening there, with Roe v. Wade being overturned in the U. S., leading to one state after another passing harsher and harsher anti-abortion legislation, and countries around the world following suit.
FGMC, like abortion, like the gender pay gap, are, at the end of the day, all manifestations of the same problem.
[00:27:46] Sean Callaghan: In pretty much any society in the world, men hold power. You know, we have a lot of hangover of patriarchy in our systems.
[00:27:56] Anna Stoecklein: No matter who we are, where we [00:28:00] live, or what year it is, patriarchy underlies just about every single one of our cultures, greatly influencing the streams that we swim in.
Depending on our immediate culture and what year it is, we see this manifest in many different ways. And over time, as we work to rid ourselves of the human rights issues this system has created, we see the issues transform and evolve, as they face backlash and progress, backlash and progress, backlash and progress.
No matter the larger issue, addressing one single part of it won't be enough to bring it to an end. With FGMC, we've seen this in the way messages around health and safety have led to increased medicalization and a shift in the type of FGMC that's carried out, but not necessarily a decrease in the overall numbers.
New laws may deter some, but have also helped to create more porous borders and new hotspots for the practice. If you remove [00:29:00] all the people like Pauline who carried out FGMC for a living, but the demand is still there, the culture is still there, someone else will step in to fill that gap.
And even though it happens, it's incredibly difficult for one little fish to come into awareness of the river that it swims in, and then to make the decision and have the determination, resources, and ability to turn around and swim the other way.
So, as with every social issue, the progress of FGMC is not linear, and it will take time because we aren't talking about just ending a practice, we're talking about shifting a social norm, shifting a culture, shifting which way the current of the river flows, shifting the patriarchal system itself.
So then, how do we do this?
[00:29:57] Evelyn Wambui translating: The thing that he wants to happen now is more [00:30:00] awareness. Because with more awareness, they will get education and they will go into the communities and teach people about the effects of FGM.
[00:30:08] Christine: We were brought together, women and men. So when we were brought together, there was not, nothing which was hiding.
[00:30:16] Anna Stoecklein: In the next and final episode of this series, we'll explore what progress looks like, what works best in getting us there, and why we continue to have hope for the future.
[00:30:27] Nalang'u: They will be the first one to go for higher education. And to fly, if she will succeed to go for outside the country, she will be the first in our community or in our family to go outside the country.
[00:30:42] Evelyn Wambui translating: She wanted to be a teacher and, uh, she was unable to finish school. If she was able to finish, she would have been a teacher.
God has, your teaching did not just end up in the blackboard, but you're now doing bigger to the community.
[00:30:57] Anna Stoecklein: To the [00:31:00] world. Big community.
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