On June 2, 2019 in Vancouver, Canada, civil society organisations, champions, survivors and other grassroots representatives came together at Women Deliver 2019 to unite voices around a global Call to Action to end female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C).

The pre-conference was an unprecedented gathering as a sector working globally across the issue to discuss what is needed to accelerate ending FGM/C by 2030. The event put grassroots voices at the centre and worked to strengthen our unified community of practice to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 5.3. (eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation).

“Uniting forces to make female genital mutilation/cutting a practice of the past: A gathering for global civil society actors” involved more than 100 participants in Vancouver. More than 270 additional participants shared their expertise and experience through an online survey. The event was co-ordinated through a core group of globally representative organisations that managed logistics:  Amref Health Africa, Coalition on Violence Against Women, End FGM Canada Network, End FGM European Network, Equality Now, Orchid Project, Sahiyo, The Girl Generation, The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices, The US End FGM/C Network,There Is No Limit Foundation and Tostan. 

Participants in Vancouver endorsed the following Call to Action:

PREAMBLE

• FGM/C is a violation of the human rights of women and girls and must be ended in all its forms

• We need to make FGM/C a global priority, in the same way the global community responded to other global epidemics, such as HIV/AIDs 

SUPPORTING CHANGE FROM WITHIN – CHALLENGING SOCIAL AND GENDER NORMS

• We share a vision of a world free from FGM/C and will work in partnership with each other, all communities, governments, donors, multilateral bodies and others to end the practice by 2030 in line with the SDGs

• Whole communities must be mobilised and empowered at the grassroots level if we are to end FGM/C – women and girls, men and boys, traditional and religious leaders, health workers

• Ending FGM/C requires addressing the root causes of gender inequality at the community level, including gender stereotypes, unequal power relations, and negative social norms

STRENGTHENING THE EVIDENCE BASE THROUGH CRITICAL RESEARCH

• Fill the knowledge gap on FGM/C survivors’ specific needs, impact on economic empowerment, and behaviour change around emerging trends such as medicalisation and lower ages of cutting

• Use community-based participatory approaches within research efforts and ensure that research results and data are synthesised for communities to use

• Create, test, and implement standardised universal indicators that are informed by context specific measures and demand country-level reporting

IMPROVING WELLBEING VIA SUPPORT AND SERVICES FOR SURVIVORS

• More support is needed for survivors in various forms, including security and protection for survivors, targeted research and resources to enable health and emotional wellbeing

• Enable the transformative power of survivors and survivor-led networks through support to connect with each other, other gender-based violence movements and capacity build 

ADDRESSING EMERGING TRENDS AROUND FGM/C 

• We need an integrated, intersectional approach to ending FGM/C recognising the connections with other forms of gender-based violence and linking with existing movements 

• We are committed to working with religious leaders, health workers and governments to respond to adaptations to the practice which continue to violate women’s rights, such as medicalisation, cross-border practices, and lowering the age at which FGM/C is carried out

INCREASING RESOURCES TO ACHIEVE THE GLOBAL GOAL

• We call on all stakeholders to prioritise resources towards grassroots and community-led programmes. Funds should be more flexible, sustainable and accessible for communities and grassroots and capacity building should be provided as well as networks

• Investment is needed in better research into what is working and what is not to end FGM/C. This research needs to be participatory and involve multiple stakeholders and should be made available and accessible

• We are focused on coming together and working collaboratively to address what existing gaps there are, what are the costs of FGM/C, and what do we need to end this globally

See call to action as PDF here.

Further Women Deliver blog posts:

• Joint Press Release: Ending FGM/C BY 2030: Uniting forces to make FGM/C a practice of the past

• Multiple events on FGC hosted at Women Deliver in Vancouver

On  March 18th 2019, the Muslim American Leadership Alliance (MALA) hosted a parallel event on “Addressing FGM in the USA: Safeguarding Survivors and Protecting Victims“ at the UN Commission on the Status of Women 63rd Session in New York. The panel took place at the UN Church Center. The panel convened survivors, policy makers, non-profit leaders, and community organizers to facilitate the dialogue on what necessary steps are needed to ensure ‘zero tolerance’ towards FGM for both survivors and at-risk women and girls.

Speakers included: 

• Mariya Taher, Sahiyo Cofounder 

• Mary Franson, Minnesota House of Representatives

• Andrea G. Bottner, J.D., Senior Advisor- Independent Women’s Forum

• Asad Zaman, M.D

• Zehra Patwa, WeSpeakOut Co-Founder and Sahiyo Vice-Chair of the U.S. Advisory Board

This panel analyzed the practice of FGC in the United States through a medical, psychological, and legislative lens. The panelists collectively suggested a variety of approaches to bringing communities together to gain knowledge and organize.  

The event was incredibly popular, with the room at full capacity and more guests listening from the hall.    

These types of events are essential towards our progress in creating a world without FGC. 

On July 16th, Sahiyo Cofounder and U.S. Executive Director, Mariya Taher was invited to attend the 3rd Annual Intersections of Violence: 

Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, and Child Abuse Conference in Hampton, VA and host a break-out session on female genital cutting (FGC) in the United States. The conference is dedicated to enhancing the effectiveness of victims service professionals and brought together law enforcement, prosecutors, victim advocates, child advocates, and other allied professionals to highlight promising practices and emerging issues to effectively respond to domestic violence, sexual assault, andchild abuse in our communities.  

Mariya’s presentation, the only one of its kind at the conference, covered an overview of who is affected by FGC, interventions used to address FGC, and how to work/respond to survivors. Most attendees had little experience with FGC and so throughout the presentation, survivor stories, from Sahiyo Stories project were shown to participants to help contextualize that FGC was an issue within the U.S. affecting women of all different backgrounds, including religion, ethnicity, socio-economic status, education level, citizenship status, etc.

Apply to be a storyteller here!!

In November 2019, Sahiyo and StoryCenter will partner with The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health to host a digital storytelling workshop in Washington, D.C. Sahiyo is advocating for the abandonment of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), while StoryCenter supports organizations in using storytelling and participatory media for social change.

The November workshop will focus on health and female genital cutting. With that focus in mind, Sahiyo extends an invitation to: 1) women over 18 years old, living in the United States, who have undergone FGM/C and who have a story to share about receiving healthcare in the U.S. or 2) health providers in the United States, of all genders (i.e. physicians, nurses, midwives, etc.) who have provided services to women who have undergone FGM/C.

Together these groups can highlight stories about the enduring impact of FGM/C on women’s health and/or inform health professionals of the kind of care and best practices health professionals need to be aware of when working with FGM/C survivors. The resulting short digital stories will be used to better educate health professionals on how to support survivors living in the U.S.

In 2018, Sahiyo, in partnership with StoryCenter, launched an inaugural digital storytelling workshop. Nine women’s stories have since elevated the conversation about FGM/C in the U.S. and globally. The stories were distributed online and via media channels, as well as at live community screening events. They are being used as educational tools to support discussion among survivors within their communities, with a focus on challenging the social norms sanctioning FGM/C, and encouraging an end to the practice.

About Sahiyo:

Since 2015, Sahiyo has been advocating for the abandonment of FGM/C through dialogue, education and collaboration. Sahiyo conducted the first-ever international online survey of Dawoodi Bohra women on the subject of FGM/C. Read the full report here.

About StoryCenter: 

StoryCenter creates spaces for transforming lives and communities, through the acts of listening to and sharing stories as a vehicle for education, community mobilization, and advocacy. They collaborate with organizations around the world on workshops in story facilitation, digital storytelling, and other forms of participatory media production. Individuals are encouraged to register for storytelling workshops. 

About The George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health:

GWU has been working closely with survivors and health care providers to develop a living virtual educational toolkit (fgmtoolkit.gwu.edu).

If you would like to participate in the workshop, apply by October 14th via this link:  http://bit.ly/DC_VoicesEndFGMC.

View informational flyer here. 

Photo above is from Sahiyo Inaugural Storyelling Workshop.

 

By Alifya Sulemanji

Age: 45

Country of Residence: United States

I was looking forward to attending the second Sahiyo Activist Retreat as it is a great platform to meet more women who are standing up for the abandonment of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). I was happy to meet women from different parts of the United States. It was a great experience to hear different views of women of all age groups. It is encouraging to see more and more women join every year. 

FGM/C has always been a very sensitive issue for me, as I had been through this atrocity myself and would never want another innocent child to go through it. 

As I mentioned in my prior post about the first retreat, I have a very vivid memory of being cut at the tender age of seven. It felt  like my body was being violated. Even when I was just 7 years of age, I knew something wrong had been done to me as I was told that this thing was a dark secret I was not supposed to tell anyone about. As I grew up I found out that none of my other friends had this religious ritual done, and it confirmed that what had been done to me was wrong. In the past few years, I learned that many other women like me felt the same way. 

The Sahiyo Activist Retreat gave me insight into how I can talk to other pro-FGM/C people and how I can convey my thoughts on FGM/C to them in a positive way.

Sahiyo has created a strong platform for women like me to come out and express their grief and opinions to create awareness.

The issue of female genital cutting (FGC) is usually told from a woman’s perspective – for obvious reasons. Women around the world have spoken up against this practice that has gone on far too long, and we commend those who have made their voices heard. At Sahiyo, we know that while a lot of progress has been made, there is still a lot to be done to ensure that girls and women no longer undergo FGC. We know that more voices need to be heard, and that’s why we launched our male ally campaign.

Last month (July 2019), we issued a call-to-action for men to speak out against FGC. We know a lot of misinformation exists about FGC, and that men may not be aware of what goes on, or they may be misinformed about what FGC does to a child or a woman. We asked men to submit short videos, audio files, quotations, or blogs that share one thing in common: taking a stand against the practice of FGC and denouncing it.

 The response we received was amazing. Dozens of men across the globe from Ghana and Kenya to multiple regions of India and the US stepped up to answer our call. Many shared their personal experiences with FGC, involving their wives, daughters, sisters, or friends being cut. Others described why FGC needs to end and how harmful it is. Each one made their thoughts known and told us and everyone why the practice of FGC needs to end for girls and women worldwide. This took place in several formats, such as quotes, audio entries and videos (see examples below). In addition, we took this campaign to highlight the thoughtful blog pieces written by our male allies over the past few years, such as this powerful letter from a father.

To watch more video entries of this campaign, check out this Youtube playlist. 

We greatly appreciate all of you who took the time to send in a blog post, video, quotation, or audio file.

We will be posting these submissions throughout August and September on our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn pages. If you missed the deadline for submissions or would like to add more of your thoughts, we will be using the hashtags #MenToEndFGC, #SahiyoMaleAllies, and #MenEndFGM in our posts. If you use these hashtags or tag @sahiyovoices in a post, we may repost it!

We know that we must stand together and unite to end FGC. These men stepping up and speaking out against FGC is a step in the right direction, and we hope it inspires more men to use their voices to help end FGC for all girls and women.

As Sahiyo’s U.S. operations and programs have grown, we invited various individuals from a host of backgrounds and professions to join our U.S. Advisory Board. The advisory board provides strategic advice to the management of Sahiyo and ensures that we continue fulfilling our mission to empower communities to end female genital cutting and create positive social change through dialogue, education, and collaboration based on community involvement.

This month, we are pleased to highlight Joanne Golden who graciously serves as a member of our U.S. Advisory Board.

 1) Can you tell us a bit about your background?

 I was born and (mostly) raised in Massachusetts, but I got the travel bug at age 4, when my dad was in the U.S. Army and stationed at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Belgium. My mom, brother, and I were able to accompany him and we lived there for three years, where I attended school with children from other countries, learned about different cultures and languages, and traveled between most Western European countries (not Eastern Europe, as it was still during the Cold War). When I returned to the U.S., I knew my perspective was already broader than that of my peers and I became curious about history, politics, geography, and languages. I was determined to be the first female Secretary of State in the United States! Well, that didn’t happen, as Madeleine Albright beat me to it, and other opportunities came my way. I attended Boston University and received my Bachelor of Arts in International Relations with a minor in French (1990), spent my junior year abroad in Grenoble, France, and I was invited to my friend’s wedding in Egypt, where I spent six weeks as a guest of her family and friends. I could not have been happier! 
My career trajectory did not go as planned as I moved towards financial services, rather than the foreign service, and I worked for 15 years at State Street Corporation in Massachusetts, during which I attended Boston University Graduate School of Management and received my Masters in Business Administration (1997). However, after serious reflection and research, in 2006, I decided to change the direction of my life and pursue a career in public service by going to law school, and I graduated with Pro Bono Honors from Suffolk University Law School in 2009 and was the 1st recipient of the Suffolk Law School Pro Bono Exemplary Service Award. During law school, I focused my electives on civil and human rights issues, particularly on human trafficking, children and women’s rights, for which I wrote a paper entitled “Impact of China’s One Child Policy and Cultural Gender Preference on Girl Child Discrimination and Mortality In China.” For a year after graduation, I worked with two NGOs and the Massachusetts Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition, in order to support state specific anti-human trafficking legislation, which went into effect in 2012, and to study the demand-side of sex trafficking. I am currently a federal attorney for the Social Security Administration’s Office of Hearing Operations since 2010, an active member of the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts (WBA). Since May 2013, I am part of a working group that researched, drafted, and advocates for state-level legislation to ban the practice of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) in Massachusetts. 
I am also a fierce Boston sports fan. I study the Irish language and violin in what little time I have left over, and I recently got married to Greg, who regularly tells me how proud he is of the work I do. 

 2) When did you first get involved with Sahiyo and what opportunities have you been involved in?

 I first became involved with Sahiyo about three years ago, through my interactions with Mariya Taher, who joined the WBA’s FGM/C legislative working group to help us advocate for state-level legislation to ban the practice of FGM/C in Massachusetts. I was introduced to Mariya on a monthly phone call led by Equality Now, which was trying to bring together a coalition of legal and medical experts, non-profits, federal and state law enforcement, and victim-survivors across the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries, to eradicate FGM/C by 2030. Mariya brought valuable insight to our working group as a non-attorney, survivor, and founding member of Sahiyo. She showed us the human side and cost of FGM/C for girls and women. It is through Mariya that we made deeper contacts within the Bohra and Somali communities in Boston. We have new contacts with American-born women who are also cut, and we garnered more legislative support for the Massachusetts FGM/C bill with her testimony and willingness to tell such a deeply personal story. With Mariya and Sahiyo, we also successfully initiated a change.org petition to support the MA state legislation with over 300,000 signatures. I have admired her efforts to give a voice to girls and women through the Sahiyo Stories project. I also became a member of the Sahiyo U.S. Advisory board last year, and participated in our successful Boston FGM/C roundtable in April 2019.

 3) How has your involvement impacted your life?

 As I explained previously, in 2006, I decided to change the direction of my life and pursue a career in public service by going to law school. I followed my head, my heart, and my conscience to law school and focused on issues of civil rights, children and women’s rights, during my studies, but I could never have known that it would lead me here. When people ask me what I do, I always reply that I am an attorney for the federal government. But I also add that I fight for the rights of women and children against being trafficked and being irreparably harmed, physically and mentally, by FGM/C. I am proud and humbled by Sahiyo’s mission and that Mariya asked me and trusted me to be part of the Sahiyo U.S. Advisory Board. 

 4) What pieces of wisdom would you share with new volunteers or community members who are interested in supporting Sahiyo?

 If you don’t know what you can do, then ask, “How can I help with this cause?” and someone will answer. Also, success is not a straight line from A to B. There are steps backward and forward, abrupt changes of direction, and even some side trips down a rabbit hole that you did not see coming. It is all necessary and all worth it. Be humble and open to what others have to teach you. Lean on each other for support. In my example, I had heard of FGM/C while I was in law school, but my focus and energy were on anti-human trafficking efforts and opportunities. Once the Massachusetts state human trafficking bill was passed in November 2011, and went into effect in 2012, I wondered, “Now what?” The answer did not come until May 2013 with the Women Bar Association’s FGM/C working group, and that group morphed as members came and went, but I feel our mission came into real focus after the first legislative session, in which our bill did NOT pass, as we expected it to. I was deflated at first, but then I met Mariya through Equality Now, and I was blown away with her advocacy experience. Mariya and Sahiyo clarified for me “who” we were advocating for, and I have learned how to be an advocate for change, and not just an arguer of legal facts because real change begins with people and the healthy, productive relationships you build in life. I am happy and proud of the relationships I have made within the Sahiyo community and with our mutual commitment to the full and equal participation of women under the law and in society by advocating for the abandonment of FGM/C in the U.S. and abroad.

——

By Anonymous
Country of Residence: United States
Age: 35

I knew that feeling of being surrounded by Bohra women, for two full days, chatting, laughing, crying and sharing experiences of what it means to be Bohra. That sense of community, that inspiration that came from hearing everyone’s stories, and that deep desire to want to make change happen for the better. I had experienced it at the first Sahiyo Retreat and was grateful to have the opportunity once again this year. 

The retreat is like a sacred space: a space where you can just let go, where you can heal and allow others to heal, where you can learn from each other, and together find solutions. The answers to solve problems in our community are all within, but talking to each other helps bring that clarity. 

I have been volunteering with Sahiyo for a few years now, and I felt that the retreat helped reinforce my commitment to continue to speak up against female genital cutting.

To read more articles about Sahiyo’s Activist Retreats, click here.