Hartford, CT – In Honor of International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGMC), State Representative Jillian Gilchrest and State Representative Nicole Klarides-Ditria along with the Connecticut Coalition to End FGMC will hold a press conference to raise awareness about this critical issue, discuss ongoing advocacy efforts, and highlight House Bill 6596: An Act Concerning The Prevention Of Female Genital Mutilation, a proposed bill to prohibit the practice of FGM/C in Connecticut. Connecticut remains one of only nine states without legislation banning this harmful practice.

An art installation visually representing the number of women and girls who have undergone or are at risk of FGM/C in Connecticut will be installed on the lawn of the State Capitol before the press conference and will be available for viewing all day.

Event Details:

• When: Tuesday, February 4, 2025, at 10:00 AM
• Where: Hall of Flags, Connecticut State Capitol

Agenda Highlights: 

• Opening Remarks: Representative Jillian Gilchrest & Representative Nicole Klarides-Ditria will welcome attendees and outline current legislative efforts to pass a law protecting all girls from FGM/C in Connecticut
• Remarks from the Lieutenant Governor: Susan Bysiewicz will read the Governors proclamation and make a few comments
• Survivor Testimonies: Hear from survivors Zehra Patwa and Mariya Taher, who will share their lived experiences and perspectives
• Medical Expertise: Dr. Kate McKenzie, Director of the Yale Center for Asylum Medicine, will provide insights into the medical and psychological impacts of FGM/C
• Legislative Call to Action: Bipartisan leaders will discuss the importance of uniting to enact protective legislation
• Q&A Session: Media representatives will have the opportunity to ask questions and engage directly with speakers

Why This Matters: Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting is a grave violation of human rights, with devastating health consequences for millions of girls and women worldwide. Despite its global recognition as a harmful practice, FGM/C remains a concern that demands urgent attention and action.

Members of the press, advocates, and the public are invited to attend this critical event to learn more about the fight against FGM/C and how Connecticut is taking a stand.

For additional information or to schedule interviews:

• Rep. Jillian Gilchrest (D-18 district) Phone: 860-240-0492 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
• Rep. Nicole Klarides-Ditria (R-105 district) Phone: 860-240-8700 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
• Rosemary Lopez, CWCSEO Women’s Legislative Policy Analyst Phone: 959-900-5805 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Join us in standing for a future free from FGM/C in Connecticut. Together, we can make zero tolerance a reality.

Related:

• Interview with Zehra Patwa of the Connecticut Coalition to End FGM/C
• The Connecticut Coalition to End FGM/C Interview Series: Caitlin LeMay

By: Emily Lerosion

Each year Sahiyo hosts an annual Activists Retreat to gather anti-FGC activists in a safe and supportive space, where they can engage in meaningful discussions about FGC. These retreats aim to foster collaboration, share insights, and strengthen efforts to eliminate this harmful practice. The retreats include educational programs, self-care activities, and presentations from professionals engaged in anti-FGC advocacy initiatives in their communities. Below Emily Lerosion, who participated in the 2024 retreat, reflects on how the experience at the retreat has impacted her healing journey and advocacy work.

Why did you want to attend the retreat?

I wanted to attend the Activist Retreat because I believed this was a space where I could start my healing journey. It was not until I began my advocacy work that I realized I had a big problem speaking out about an act that is completely inhumane, and that robbed me of my confidence as a woman. In my life, I have been struggling with the  shame that is associated with female genital cutting. I come from a community that is patriarchal. Because of this, my work as a women’s rights activist has been really difficult as I couldn’t openly speak about the practice. I was very optimistic that the retreat would help me move forward in the journey I started years ago. I wanted to  interact with other survivors and learn how they have released the shame and gained acceptance of their being whole again. 

What have you learned or most enjoyed at the retreat?

I have learned that FGM/C shouldn’t pin me down or suppress my voice, but rather inspire me to speak up against the practice to ensure future generations do not experience the same thing. I have gained so much confidence in speaking out against the practice and sharing my experience. Sharing my story, I believe, is the best way to speak out so that I can add my voice to the fight against FGM/C. I have also gained a family from the beautiful souls that I met at the retreat, and everyone’s story made me realize how strong I am, and we are as women. This inspired and motivated me even further in my advocacy work. 

How and why are you involved in the movement to end FGC? 

I am involved with the movement to end FGM/C because I believe women are complete and very valuable without the cut. I believe FGM/C is a demeaning act and needs to be ended since it deprives women of their human rights in so many ways. I am advocating to end FGM/C directly in my community both in Washington and through the Network to end FGM/C, and in my homeland of Kenya. I do this through my organization The New Dawn Pacesetter, where I act as the director uplifting the voices of women and girls. I also will attend the Commission on the Status of Women to use my voice as an advocacy tool. 

How do you think this retreat will inform your work as an activist?  

I believe this retreat will inform my work as an activist because my story will be essential in advocating for the end of this practice. This retreat will also inform my work as an activist since it has given me more strength, power, and a network.

What work are you doing currently or hoping to do in the future?

I am having conversations with both my friends and survivors of FGM/C here in the States and internationally. I am also holding girls mentorship camps in  Kenya, mentoring girls about what their rights are and how to advocate for themselves. This is with the involvement of all community stakeholders, including parents in the practicing communities, religious leaders, schools, governments, girls at risk, and survivors just to mention a few.

Recently Sahiyo’s Editorial Assistant Megan Seaver sat down with 2022 Voices to End FGM/C Alum Ibtisam  to discuss the screening of her Voices digital story at the 2024 Trauma-Informed Film Festival, Leeds, UK.

Voices to End FGM/C is a collabortive project between Sahiyo and Silence Speaks mobilizing a critical mass of storytellers and activists from across the globe by bringing people together to share and heal from their experiences of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), connect and grow as leaders in their communities, and create short videos calling for an end to this harmful practice. Below Ibtisam speaks about her experience at the screening, and how sharing her story has opened her up to new forms of activism and change.

1. Why did you feel compelled to submit your digital story to this film festival?

I felt my piece was a perfect match with the festival's theme because it is about a trauma that I went through. But most importantly, I wanted to submit my video to this festival because FGM/C is just something that’s not on people’s radar. There’s very little awareness, and so I wanted to shine a light on the issue by submitting my film.

2. How was your experience at the screening and what was it like sharing your story in that format?

It felt really surreal. I’m a big film buff, so to see my own film to be projected in the cinema hall – I just don’t have words for it. Also, to see what I had shot on my little iPhone in the Ingleborough caves – to be put up on a huge screen with all the other films – was amazing. 

To be sitting in the audience with no one else knowing that it was my film up there, but I could hear people's response, like the gasps, It felt larger than life. It also brought back memories of when I made the film. I felt that I had gotten some distance from it over the years. Suddenly, it felt up close and big, reminding me of the impact that the experience had on me. Seeing it in the big dark cinema hall made the impact of the film even greater for me. 

3. What was the reaction to your story at the screening?

Well, I didn’t know anyone in the audience, I don’t have a specific memory of people's reactions. What I do remember is that after everyone's films were shown, they called us up on stage and I remember I did not want to go up as I was quite shy. But there was another participant, a transgender man who had shared his film, who was very confident and he said, “What, I am going up alone? No one is with me?” and immediately after he said that I thought to myself, “Ok, I’m just going to do it. I’m going up there.” And then all of us followed him up onto the stage together!

All of us standing up there, it made me feel like we were healing our trauma collectively. That it does not have to be one person's voice, but many who stand together against trauma.

4. How was the process of submitting your digital story to this festival? Would you recommend it to other Voices alumni?

I think if people are comfortable with it, and if the opportunity comes, trust your gut and take it. I think I did a bit of both, I didn’t overthink it, but at the same time I was mindful of what I was getting myself into. I was also showing my film in a setting that spoke about trauma and the audience understood that. We were in a curated safe place, so I would just say to anyone wanting to do this —just make sure you're sharing in a safe space.

Sharing my story at the film festival gave me the courage to speak out about FGM/C more in my life. I always say that courage needs encouragement. In order to be open about this, we need support.

5. What do you hope people learn from your story?

First of all, I hope my story provides more awareness around FGM/C, because for most people it’s not even known. Also, my story will be included in the film festivals program at other screenings, so it’s going to reach even more people hopefully and it will take on its own life and journey.

When I made this short film two and half years ago, I never would have thought that something like this would happen. The whole process of creating this film was amazing as well. In a lot of ways, I feel that the caves called to me and that I was meant to include them in my story. I just can’t believe the ways in which this story has come to life. When I was first submitting this project, I was asked whether or not I wanted to include my name, and I decided that I was ready for that – I was ready to own my story.

6. Is there anything else you would like to add?

I just wanted to say that all of this is a part of the journey. In any movement you may feel that there are times when you have “done your bit”, and then you take a backseat, but there will come a time when something else pushes you to be more involved. I also want to congratulate the founders of Sahiyo, as they continue to do this work and the advocates and activists, who are doing this work in different ways. 

I also want to highlight how this experience has changed my perspective on my story. Before submitting it to the film festival I had a lot of time away from the video. I hadn’t watched it since the release, so seeing the film again made me realize that for myself, some parts of me had been healed, others had been revealed, and some parts of me got exposed. It made me see that trauma has almost this beauty to it, because understanding your trauma can, in a way, help you to better understand yourself. I don’t wish trauma on anyone, but if you have trauma you need to understand it in order to know who you are. I didn’t become a therapist because of FGM/C. I became a therapist because I wanted to give others the space and safety that was denied to me. For me, it’s about the shame around traumas. We know that for shame to exist there has to be three parts: secrecy, silence, and self-criticism. We can’t solve all three at once. I may have conquered the silence, but I’m still dealing with the secrecy and the self-criticism.

I want people to know that FGM/C is just one aspect of the larger, collective trauma of gender-based violence  we're talking about in the world, and that is what I would lend my voice to. Sharing my story and my voice is about something so much bigger than just me.

On January 13th, the Connecticut Coalition to End FGM/C hosted a legislative briefing at the Legislative Building in Hartford, CT. The briefing was held in partnership with Sahiyo, Equality Now, and the U.S. Network to End FGM/C. The briefing provided an opportunity to learn more about the topic of FGM/C and the need to pass a law protecting children from it.  

Speakers included: 

• Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz
• Mariya Taher
• Representative Jillian Gilchrest
• Siminesh Comollo

The speakers discussed the importance of increased awareness of FGM/C as an issue local to the state of Connecticut, and the need for a specific state law against FGM/C. 

The briefing was intentionally held at the start of Connecticut’s next legislative session in order to introduce and pass a comprehensive bill protecting children from FGM/C and to create resources to support survivors.  The Lieutenant Governor and Connecticut Representatives highlighted that pressure and advocacy by local, national, and international actors would help to make passing legislation possible.

(Mariya Taher, Sahiyo U.S. Executive Director, and Connecticut Lieutenant Governor Susan Bysiewicz)

By Sophia Lynn Jones

As a Maine resident, I was surprised to learn that my state is one of nine left in the U.S. without any laws protecting children from female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). Upon doing more research, I discovered Maine’s complicated history of attempting to pass anti-FGM/C legislation, as well as the intersectional issues surrounding the two bills and one ballot initiative, on FGM/C that had been introduced in the state. Both bills had bipartisan support, however, after the bills were introduced to the State Senate and House floors, the issue of passing the legislation addressing FGM/C became highly partisan. A large point of contention was whether there should be criminal consequences for any parent or guardian who knowingly consents to a minor undergoing FGM/C. 

Timeline of Proposed Legislation:

Bills 2017- LD 745,  and HP 525, were introduced in 2017. Both laws would have made it a Class B crime to, (a) perform FGM/C on a minor “for nonmedical purposes,” (b) for a parent or guardian to consent or permit FGM/C to be performed, and (c) for a parent or guardian to remove the minor from the state for the procedure. Despite a Senator attempting to bring an amendment to the floor that removed the language making it a crime to consent to the procedure, the bill did not pass by one vote and later died between the House and Senate.

Bills LD 1819, and HP 1261, were proposed in 2018 and sponsored by Representative Heather Sirocki & Cosponsored by Senator Mason. These bills would have made it a Class A crime to, (a) perform FGM/C on a minor, (b) knowingly transport a minor outside of the state for the procedure, and (c) knowingly consent to the procedure. The bill also called on the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to develop a program that includes: community-based education, outreach and provision of support service to victims, training for mandated reporters, and distribution of educational materials about the health risks, emotional risks, and legal prohibitions/penalties of FGM/C. Although this bill passed in the Senate, it later died in the House.

Another reason that led to the bill’s death, was that in 2018, emails were released that showed State Representative Heather Sirocki, was in contact with the national office and local chapter of ACT! For America, to garner support for an event she was hosting to promote her anti-FGM/C bill. ACT! For America, is an anti-Muslim hate group founded in 2007 that is known for promoting “anti-Sharia” legislation, pushing anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, and spreading fear of Islam within America. There were concerns that having ACT! For America presenting at an event promoting anti-FGM/C legislation would promote false stereotypes that FGM/C is connected to Islam, and target immigrant communities in Maine. A report by the American Immigration Council reported that in 2021, 3.8% of Maine’s population consisted of foreign-born individuals, and 1.4% of native-born Americans had at least one immigrant parent. 

Representative Sirocki denied reaching out to ACT! For America, claiming that the emails only show her responding to a request for information about the Bill. Sirocki also claimed to have anecdotal evidence that FGM/C was actively occurring in Maine. Then Governor Paul Lepage, stated during a press conference that the MaineCare health program paid out numerous claims for mutilation-related care, including treatment for children injured in Maine. The Maine DHHS refuted these claims stating that the treatments described were for conditions that wouldn’t likely be for children but rather for adult survivors of FGM/C. These controversies surrounding proposed FGM/C legislation in Maine and, overall, the intersectional nature of the issue of FGM/C, have made it challenging to move legislation forward. 

In addition to the two bills being introduced, a potential ballot initiative was introduced by petition to be included on a 2020 ballot that would have allowed citizens of Maine to vote on the issue, and if passed would have become a state statute. This approach was taken following the previous failed legislative initiatives, demonstrating the desire of citizens to pass this legislation. The 2020- Maine Crime of Female Genital Mutilation Ballot Initiative would have criminalized FGM/C being performed on a minor with a punishment of up to 30 years of incarceration and up to a $50,000 fine. However, the initiative did not even make it onto the ballot because the initial petition failed to gather enough signatures from Maine citizens to be considered by the ballot initiative deadline. 

Even with all these challenges, the initial bipartisan support that has been given to this issue in the past gives me hope that in time and with the right political climate, and with survivors pushing the way, Maine can eventually come up with agreed-upon language for a bill that addresses FGM/C holistically and comprehensively. One day, our state will join the 41 other U.S. states protecting girls and women from the harmful practice of FGM/C.

Lisa is currently a high school student at Colleyville Heritage High School in Dallas, Texas. At school, she participates in DECA business competitions, fundraises for the Asian Food and Culture Club, and likes physics and math. In her spare time, she enjoys figure skating, spending time with her family, and reading. Lisa hopes to make a positive impact on her community regardless of the career path she takes. She is excited to help make positive change for women all around the world through this opportunity with Sahiyo.

When and how did you first get involved with Sahiyo? 

When I first discovered the internship position, I was immediately drawn to Sahiyo's mission. At that time, I had never heard of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), but as I read more about it on Sahiyo's website, I became deeply troubled by this form of gender-based violence. I was especially shocked to learn that FGM/C affects girls of my age in the U.S. I felt compelled to contribute to the efforts to end this issue, and this internship provided the perfect opportunity to do so. 

At the time I applied for this position, I was still exploring potential career paths. I wasn't sure which direction to take yet, so this internship presented a unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the nonprofit sector while aligning my work with a cause I felt passionate about. I saw this role as a way to not only contribute to a mission I believe in, but also to explore the field of social justice and advocacy, which has become a growing interest of mine. 

What does your work with Sahiyo involve?

As a Fundraising & Auction intern, I assist in finding funding opportunities to support Sahiyo’s programs. One aspect of my work involves conducting research to find relevant grants for Sahiyo and drafting grant applications. Over the past couple of months, I’ve had the chance to develop my grant writing skills by working on smaller grants, and I am now gaining experience in completing more complex, larger-scale grants. Additionally, I actively solicit donations for Saiyo’s annual Silent Auction, curating compelling travel packages to attract contributions from generous donors. 

How has your involvement with Sahiyo impacted your life?

As someone with no personal connection to FGM/C, I initially questioned whether I had a place in this movement. Additionally, as a high school student, I felt under qualified to make real, impactful change alongside experienced adults. I was anxious my age and lack of knowledge of FGM/C would prevent me from being able to contribute meaningfully to a global cause.

However, I quickly discovered that the community working to end FGM/C is open-minded and welcoming to anyone who shares the common goal of addressing this critical issue. My peers on the Development team, seminar panelists, and other members of the community have consistently been responsive to my questions—whether about FGM/C, activism more broadly, or professional development. Their patience has shown me that, regardless of the fact that I’m a young person without extensive experience in a professional setting, the community will help you if you’re willing to learn about FGM/C and put in effort to end it.    

Regardless of the career path I ultimately pursue, the work environment I’ve experienced at Sahiyo has provided a valuable example of a compassionate yet results-driven workplace. Moreover, my enhanced understanding of gender-based injustice, both globally and domestically, has equipped me to prioritize inclusivity and cultural awareness in any field. I now feel confident that I can contribute meaningfully to social justice work, and this experience has reinforced my commitment to advocating for marginalized communities, no matter where my career takes me.  

What words of wisdom would you like to share with others who may be interested in supporting Sahiyo and the movement against FGC?

If you’re on the fence about volunteering, interning, or working with others in this movement to end FGM/C because of a lack of skills, personal connection, or any other reason, please know that everyone in the community is more than willing to teach, support, and collaborate with you. Whether you’re just beginning to learn about FGM/C or you’re already well-versed in the issue, your willingness to engage, ask questions, and put in the effort to make a difference is what truly matters. The most important step is taking that initial leap to get involved—and once you do, you’ll find a community that is eager to welcome you, teach you, and work alongside you to make a real impact.