FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION - Awareness and Prevention

FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION

The IRF set out to support the “mostly unknown” human rights issue called Female Genital Mutilation (“FGM”), also known as “cutting”. This barbaric removal of an infant or young girls’ vaginal clitoris and also often the sewing closed of the vaginal opening is “supposedly performed” to eliminate an adolescents’ desire to have premarital intercourse, ensuring her “virginity” to her husband and or to remove her desire to “roam” and have extramarital affairs after marriage. 

Much is unknown about the origins of FGM.  What we do know is that, depending upon who you ask, it’s origins are from Central African states, parts of the Middle East, Islamic beliefs and/or Arabic beliefs.

This procedure is performed by a designated woman called the “cutter” who is either is a community member or family member of the victim. The cutter is assisted by the other female members of the victim’s family to hold the victim down and to follow up with post cutting bleeding and trauma.  Cutting is usually performed in dirt floor slums with no anesthesia or antibiotics. These victims usually range from 6 months to 10 years of age and experience excruciating pain, shame and suffering and at times death from their continuous bleeding and infections. The cutter may use a shard of glass, piece of metal or razor blade for the clitoris removal and inner labia skin folds removal.  In some regions, thorns from trees are used as sutures while the child victim is tied with legs spread apart in their tent or hut, until the vagina grows closed with just less than a 1cm opening for natural feminine discharges. 

HOW CAN SOMEONE HELP?

Where do you begin to change the culture and practices surrounding such a taboo subject and practice?  Who are we to say this is wrong in another country or within another region or religious area?  This practice of cutting is almost always performed by women within the victims’ family, usually because “this is what was done to them”.  Does this make it acceptable?  Certainly, the Inti Raymi Fund team of two men were in a very precarious position to help change this practice in the FGM Region.

With the aforementioned issues in mind, the Inti Raymi Fund set out to work with the best-known agency for FGM change in Djibouti. We traveled 36 hours to Djibouti and visited several communities, meeting with over 15 women to discuss extensively this issue which personally affected them, and to listen and respond as effectively as possible.  One of the women had her six-month-old daughter die six months after being cut due to continuous bleeding and infections.  Her daughter was taken by the grandmother against the mother’s knowledge for the procedure at this young age to ensure it would get done!  We listened compassionately for hours to these women explaining their stories and listening to how they are trying to change this tradition locally.  Often the cutter would quit if they had another source of income.  In one case the cutter in one community reportedly quit in exchange for the payment of $300USD used for entrepreneurial seed money.  It was told to us that the women have community gatherings to expand this awareness campaign to stop cutting regionally. Their program reportedly included reaching out to the local Imams, (Islamic leaders) to ensure every measure has been taken to change the paradigm of cutting.

GOING SIDEWAYS

After multiple discussions in 40C+ degree humid heat with flies buzzing all over us, we realized that the numbers and stories were not adding up. Most of this organization’s and donors’ materials were up to 10 years old, with accounting records inaccurate at best and patient binders from decades of work showing only 10 people per year supported when their verbal accounting revealed a much different story.

Through these discussions, it was disclosed that almost 100% of women’s efforts was “volunteered” time.  Don’t get us wrong, we are totally in support of as much volunteer time people will give, but these women desperately needed financial support too. These women revealed they often had to pay out of their pockets, the difference between what they received from the NGO compared with the activities’ costs.  They must take care of their homes, cook meals, and care for their children too. Most important, this agency which is supposedly coordinating these programs is getting millions and millions of International Foreign Aid dollars annually for this “merchantable hot topic” of FGM.  It was disclosed at one community meeting that they only received $2,200USD for 2017 and nothing received as of June 2018.  This $2,000 represents less than 1% of this NGO’s reported annual donations received from agencies like UNICEF and multiple nation states who try to support the FGM elimination programs.   Where is the money going?

THE REALIZATION OF A SCAM

After we became “too smart for our own good” and asked too many questions and knew too much, the dialogue became forced and awkward.  The director was yelling, pointing and waiving her hands violently at these innocent marginalized and oppressed women volunteers, shutting down and criticizing their painful honest disclosures of what’s really going on.  We soon realized these community visits were merely just “theatrical dog and pony shows” for potential donors to give more funds if they hear these pathetic stories of FGM and see how these impoverished People live in Djibouti. What we realized is that this dog and pony show has been going on for years under the possible collaboration or at least blind eye of UNICEF employees and other donor agencies.  Millions of dollars are donated annually apparently evaporating, without making any visible change to these Peoples’ economic livelihoods. Our enlightenment of the ineffectiveness of this NGO’s programs came to light when we asked eight women working on FGM issue for years…”If you could have money to use in any way you could choose , what would you spend the money on?”  Six of the women said they would use the money to start businesses, one said she would use the money to restart school programs in their community where currently the education is pathetic, and the last women said she would use it for educational programs for the youth. This discussion tells us that if you leave it up to women, they would want to take care of their own financial matters themselves.  It also reveals to us, they would not put their own money into this agencies’ FGM programs and initiatives.  They don’t believe in these programs designed by “others”.  Don’t get us wrong, we are not saying these women don’t want FGM to stop, what we are saying is that it is not their “top priority if given a choice and voice”.  Through economic empowerment and improvement, women become better educated and improve their own lives, allowing them to rise up and change issues like FGM, domestic and sexual abuse.  If you truly want to be effective in philanthropy, you must Respectfully listen and respond in an appropriate and Respectful manner, otherwise NGO programs are really just about the agency’s agenda.

GETTING SHUT DOWN BY THE NGO

After many meetings, the directors “explicitly” told us we were not allowed to directly support these vulnerable, impoverished and subjugated women in their communities. They demanded that we donate only to their organization which controls all donations, pays grotesquely high salaries and funds the paltry program budgets.  They would not allow us to help these communities.  “Doing good is a good thing”, right is right and anyone with common sense and a willingness to help people in Africa knows that more money into a community the better, unless you are purposefully keeping the recipient controlled for the benefit of yourself.

FLIGHT TO SAFETY

Upon this realization that we were being shut down or worse, we immediately took the next flight out of Djibouti for our safety.  It breaks our hearts knowing these wonderful women and children in the communities appear to be exploited for capital gain and that they are not allowed to receive our financial support to better their lives themselves.  We honestly fear retribution against these women by the NGO because these women revealed more than they should have only in hope of a better life through our support.  As we see time and time again at the IRF, abuse of power and corruption is the leading cause of disparity among the poor marginalized and oppressed People of the world. We fear the worst but hope for the best for these women and children of Djibouti who we cannot help.

WHAT THE INTI RAYMI FUND DID

Due to the politically sensitive nature of this project and our serious concern of retribution against these women we initially met with and tried to help, the Inti Raymi Fund was forced to abandon those women. This required us to locate another group of women in a different community to meet with and support.  We did just that. We found a new group of impoverished, deserving women on our own, asking these eight women, “What do You need?” and “How can we help You?”. With unanimous vote, each of these women requested cash to start their own enterprises.  Their businesses will financially as well as emotionally empower these women and allow them to take charge of their own lives for the first time, giving them Dignity and Respect. Further, with this newfound confidence and financial advancement, education will now be in reach for themselves as well as their children (roughly 5-7 per mother). With education, these women and their daughters in their community will have the independence and backbone to make the difficult but right decision to abandon this barbaric ancient tradition of Female Genital Mutilation. We believe financial and educational empowerment is the only way to stop this insidious practice.  We will stay in touch with these precious women to follow their couragous journey.

To protect the innocent women we helped in Djibouti, we purposefully altered the GPS location of the women and community we helped.