Female Genital Mutilation

"I’ll never forget what happened. I was only 7 years old. I screamed while two other women cut me with the scissors."

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By Ayan Hussein

For those who practice it, female circumcision is a highly valued ritual in which all or part of the female genitals are removed. For some, its purpose is to mark the transition from childhood to womanhood. According to UNICEF, an estimated two million girls around the world, mostly in Africa, are at risk of undergoing female circumcision every year. 17-year-old Ayan Hussein was a young girl when she was circumcised. She sent Youth Radio her story.

I’ll never forget what happened. I was only 7 years old. I screamed while two other women cut me with the scissors. My mother knew the pain herself – so I am wondering why she held me down. Why me?

Now at seventeen, my views of this issue are clearing up. And living in the US, I’m searching for answers. I can’t get them from my mom, so I started asking other women from African cultures to explain, like Rashida Mohamed who is from Sudan. But it’s not easy getting answers...

RASHIDA (on tape)
It's really something we don’t talk about. You don’t discuss it. It’s personal – it’s taboo to talk about sex in general. And to talk about that subject, it's something you don’t discuss it with your friends.
Ayan: Why?
Rashida: It’s part of the culture. It’s just part of what they believe.

AYAN
Our culture is different from American culture. Sex is an open discussion in the US compared to back at home. No one among the community questions female circumcision. African women like Rashida say female circumcision is a right of passage...

RASHIDA (on tape)
My own opinion – it’s like, now you are not a baby anymore.
Ayan: Does that mean that a girl who is not circumcised is a baby?
Rashida: Maybe, I’m not sure.

AYAN
What makes one a woman and not a girl? Surely a part of their private part is not the answer. In fact, my peers here in America like Keosha Morgan think that the girls who went through circumcision have a lot to deal with.

KEOSHA (on tape)
You don’t think their evil or anything, but you really don’t ever think of it happening to people who are very modern. People mostly think of it as like a tribe in the woods, and nobody ever sees them. I never even thought of it as somebody who was like...like me, like I was.

AYAN
I am like any other teenager. Just ask people like Jhavia Etheridge.

JHAVIA (on tape)
She’s still Ayan, this goofy girl. So, I mean she is a good person, she’s sweet. So that doesn’t affect her personality or anything. She is strong. She’s been through a lot.

AYAN
If you met me, you wouldn’t know I was circumcised. You’d be surprised how many smart women still think the practice is good, like a woman Rashida described to me.

RASHIDA (on tape)
I just recently heard that I have a friend whose very well-educated, who has a high position in my country who has two daughters. She circumcised them because she said she talked to the physician there and she told her it's just the little things you have to do and it’s healthy...

AYAN
I don’t agree that it’s healthy. I went through pain physically. Something that to this day I’m still not comfortable going into details with. Just like every other girl from African countries like Hallo Kadir.

HALLO (on tape)
It’s like really bad stuff, you know.

AYAN
Not everybody is open about it like me. Some girls are afraid of bringing shame to the community.

HALLO (on tape)
Yeah, I don’t think they are supposed to do this thing.
Ayan: Did you ask why it was done to you?
Hallo: Uh. Uh.
Ayan: You never wanted to ask why?
Hallo: I don’t know. Do you know why?
Ayan: Yeah. From the people that I talked to. It was an old tradition of our old people, back in the days.
Hallo: So are you trying to say that you are in the United States now, they don’t have to do it again. Is that what you’re trying to say?
Ayan: I’m trying to say that it’s an old thing. Back in the days, they saw the meaning of doing it.
Hallo: So you know all this stuff. You know what it is about. That’s good.

AYAN
Hallo doesn’t know a lot of stuff. She doesn’t talk to her mom, or do research like I do. She says this is the difference between me and her. But I’m not through looking for answers. I love my people and I just happen to have a different belief when it comes to this issue. I will always love my mom. As years passed, I have come to an understanding of what she was thinking on that day, in that room.


-This story was produced by Youth Radio in collaboration with VOX Newspaper in Atlanta, Georgia.