FGM: The pest behind the flower

Nairobi, Kenya: To travel the world and find out that this doesn't happen [to all women] and what happened is wrong is one experience a young girl, now 48 Waris Dirie had to go through and stand out strong.

Waris Dirie an energetic and enigmatic woman and a mother of four, who flew from Somali by foot is a victim and a campaigner against FGM. In her book the Desert Flower she explains that, FGM denied her the pleasure of sex and left her as a tool to please a man.

Female Genital Mutilation refers to “all procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. It is pure violence on Women.

Waris was only five when she underwent the practice which was done by the “gypsy woman.” With all due innocence and mental fear, she had to undergo the cut; she could not comprehend how godly it is for her to perceiver all the pain. She argued to her mother did God hate her so much, and if so she does not want that God.

In Africa where 19 of 29 countries where FGM/C is practiced, most girls and women think it should end, but what makes it not to end is the big worry.  Majority Africans just like Waris family, will not let go of traditions. The 20th century conflict a lot with tradition, due to technology, advanced education and civilization. Ethnicity also got a strong impact on FGM but however the society has got to let go of either; tradition or development, and the answer to that is obvious especially now that majority have embraced diversity unlike Waris time.

It is debatable that; if it is necessary as so why wouldn’t FGM be done after one is mature enough to decide for oneself, why did she have to go through it in young age, why should it be done as a secret, and most importantly does it occur to them that its murder once a victim dies of blood loss or infection? All these questions are left unanswered because it’s clearly evident the practice is unacceptable and against humanity.

Previously women from the Eastern part of Kenya held a protest over official women against the practice. It is only clear that they believe they are a subject to men, victimized by the same notion that Waris had and left with no choice. The practice comes along with pain, regret hatred and low self-esteem as she explains in her book, but you will never find men discuss about the practice, they just sit back and watch us women conflict morality with immorality.

Her mother whom she dearly loves, told her after the practice she will grow up "clean with honor" she however does not blame her mother for her ignorance, but instead says that she was just being a good mother in the Somali culture, and that was a norm she wouldn’t have gone against as a parent.

In 1996 the Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, appointed Waris Dirie as UN special Ambassador for the elimination of Female Genital Mutilation. She has worked very hard to see the heinous act is eliminated which happens to 3 million girls every year in Africa. Aside from the intense pain and risk of infection at the time, it carries lasting consequences: difficulty urinating, sex is painful and pleasure-free, and childbirth can be fatal both to the baby and the mother. Botched FGM can leave women doubly incontinent and ostracized by their communities.

Waris states that it doesn't help that the practice is so hidden. "As long as the problem stays undercover then nothing much happens, or at least not fast enough. If we put it into the open, if it's on TV and in the newspaper, if we have politicians and religious leaders talking about it and saying no, then we will fight it together."

Last month, in Berlin, Waris Dirie opened the first of what will be several medical centers to offer women who have endured FGM reconstructive surgery. Over the next year or so, she hopes to open other clinics in Kenya, Ethiopia, the Netherlands and Switzerland. But she says, "I don't want to put too much focus on it, because the whole point is to stop this mutilation in the first place. We don't have to have special hospitals to reconstruct a God-given thing.