Authors: Hibo Wardere
I felt the loneliness of every child that my colleagues mentioned they’d come across over the years. Many of the girls they talked about were in Year Two or Three, the same age as my
Ikram, and that thought alone was enough to turn my stomach inside out with horror. Now they’d heard my story, more and more stories of their own began to surface, and so did more and more
questions.
‘Is it a religious practice?’ someone asked.
‘No!’ I said. ‘There is nothing in the Koran that says girls should be cut. It is purely a cultural practice and it is one hundred per cent child abuse.’
The weight of that statement settled in the room, and I knew it changed everything. Perhaps people had tiptoed around the subject thinking that they needed to respect a religious belief, but now
that they knew the plain truth, I could see their understanding of it grow in a second. This was not a religious command, it was a choice, and just as Yusuf and I had made the choice not to have
our daughters cut, so too could every other mother and father.
‘Religion should never be used as an excuse for abusing a child,’ I told the staff, and they nodded. I felt liberated and empowered. And I realised that by talking about it, I stood
a chance of saving one more girl.
Finally, the talk was over, and as I left the stage, staff came up to me one by one to congratulate me.
‘You were so brave to speak out,’ one said.
‘I had no idea,’ another said.
My colleagues were incredible and so supportive; they had made me feel safe to tell my story. Many of them came to hug me, some were in tears, others angry that this could happen to little
girls, but all of them were determined that this message needed to be heard.
‘You have to talk to staff at other schools,’ my head teacher said.
The other teaching staff nodded.
‘They need to hear about this too, Hibo,’ someone else said. ‘It’s so important.’
I decided there and then that I would use my own trauma to educate others. I’d spent my whole life feeling sad that FGM had shaped so much of my story, but in that moment, as the staff
filtered from the room, energised, determined and grateful to me for my honesty, I realised it could be a blessing too, because my own experiences might just change another girl’s future.
13
I
t had been barely three months since I had first addressed the teaching staff at Mission Grove School, but here I was, on stage again,
staring out at rows of attentive faces. The council chamber I was about to speak to was only meant to hold 100, and yet it was alive with the expectant hum of nearly 300 people. I had already given
another talk to teaching staff at a school in Leyton, and I felt now the growing wave of action picking up more and more momentum as my story rolled off the platform. These were all people who were
rallying themselves in the fight against FGM; who sat up in their chairs that little bit higher when they realised that FGM wasn’t just something I knew about, but something I had gone
through myself. And the shame that I’d felt at being potentially labelled a freak had long since been erased by the numerous emails praising me for being brave enough to speak out. But what
pleased me most was that people were willing to listen.
My friend and school counsellor, Claire Colgill, had arranged the talk today, and the pair of us sat on the stage as she began to interview me about my own story. I answered her questions with
absolute honesty, not missing out one bit of my account. I saw people shift uncomfortably in their seats, I saw them cross and uncross their legs, and often I saw their tears, too, as they imagined
themselves in the place of a six-year-old girl who had been pinned down while her own flesh was sliced off in front of her bulging eyes. I wanted them to hear those details, every single one of
them, no matter how hard it was, because I wanted my words to leave my mouth and fly across the council chamber, pricking at their consciences in the hope that they might in turn protect another
girl. The council chamber that night was packed not just with teachers, but with people from the education department, social workers, police officers and members of the general public as well.
Four months had passed now since we’d sat in my head teacher’s office with Halima’s parents, and she hadn’t been returned to school as they’d promised. The return
air tickets that they produced later turned out to be fakes. They also took their eldest daughter from secondary school without the school’s consent. Neither of those girls ever returned. The
best I could hope for was that their parents, fearing an intervention from the school or social services, had moved away. The worst fear was that their slight bodies had succumbed to shock or
infection in a hut not unlike the one in which I had lain. But at night, when I flopped into bed beside Yusuf, exhausted from a day at school and then another talk at a council chamber or school, I
only had to think of them in order to feel reinvigorated about the fight. I wondered why the pull of this cultural tradition was still so strong for some parents, when I’d been able to turn
my back on it so easily. Draining as it was, speaking to a room of people about my personal experience seemed a small sacrifice to make compared to the danger these girls faced, and, in a way,
vocalising what had been done to me was my own form of therapy.
Soon, the local newspaper was contacting me, asking me to write a piece about my own FGM and the work I was doing with schools to educate teachers about the signs to look out for. My head
teacher had told other local principals that I had an important message which they needed to hear; so, often at the end of the school day, I’d hurry to the other side of Walthamstow,
sometimes with my children in tow, to speak in front of another assembly hall full of teachers. ‘Thank you for listening this afternoon,’ I’d tell them, so much more confidently
than the first time I’d had to talk into a microphone. And then professionals further afield heard about my work in Walthamstow. The Metropolitan Police contacted me at the school to ask if
I’d give a talk to some of their officers.
‘I don’t know if I can do it,’ I said to Yusuf. ‘What will I talk to the police about?’
‘You can,’ he said. ‘You’ll think of something.’
I met with an officer from the Metropolitan Police, just one at first, and I gave her the same talk as I had everyone about the basics of FGM and what was done to me. And then I moved on to the
law.
‘I realise this practice has been illegal since 1985 in this country,’ I said. ‘But the key to stopping FGM isn’t just prosecutions.’
She sat up in her chair and listened.
‘What you have to remember is that the mother who has it done to her daughter is a victim too, even if she doesn’t know it. She was also abused as a child in the same way and she
doesn’t realise it’s bad; she only thinks she’s doing the right thing for her daughter – not to cause her pain – but to better secure her future. The police fight
against FGM has to be more about prevention than anything else, because even the ones who carry it out are victims themselves, and the best thing you can do is help them to see this.’
Next came the medical professionals: midwives wanted me to speak to them about FGM, and this meant so much to me. I remember the first day I arrived at King’s College Hospital in London to
give a talk. The smell of the sterile corridors, the doors to the wards kept firmly shut, and staff shuffling between them, all reminded me of the birth of each of my children, and especially of
Abdinasir’s delivery, when I arrived in hospital knowing hardly any English and went through such an intimate experience without anyone explaining to me why I looked different, or even
acknowledging that I did, instead just writing it in my notes – it was as if I wasn’t even there. After I explained the basics to the group of midwives who had come to hear my talk, I
told them about my own births, about what would have helped me.
‘You are clinical professionals,’ I told them. ‘But you need to remember that you’re also human and you’re dealing with other human beings. You need to talk to the
women as you would a friend, ask them what happened to them – don’t ignore it.’
I think this was one of the first times that these midwives had been encouraged to communicate about FGM; it was as though I’d given them permission to talk to their patients, assuring
them that a lot of these women would actually be
pleased
if they had someone to talk to. In those early days that was one of the most empowering talks I gave, knowing how much I’d
suffered giving birth to my own children; it was an incredible feeling to think that I might make a difference to even just a few women who were about to go through pregnancy and birth having
undergone FGM.
Each sector I engaged with would have their own important contribution to make, from the teachers who could look out for the warning signs at school, to the police who would realise that mothers
are victims too, to the midwives who would see these women through one of the most personal moments of their lives and hold on to their hands a little tighter knowing what they’d been
through. These developments and changes in attitude all stemmed from one thing: education. And as more and more secondary schools in the area started contacting me to ask if I would speak to their
teachers, my determination to spread the message grew stronger.
But the reaction wasn’t all positive.
I’d met my friend Maryam when I’d moved into our first flat in London. She was Somalian too, around my age, and we both had young children. We’d take the kids to the park
together, celebrate Eid together; we went to the cinema, and we chatted about almost everything. I knew she was cut, not because we spoke about it openly but because, when her husband left her, she
wondered if it was because she couldn’t give him a satisfactory sex life.
‘It’s because of what was done to me as a child,’ Maryam said, cursing her parents for putting her through it, convinced that this was why her husband had been living as man
and wife with another woman for a number of years. I could see how upset she was. ‘I’m here for you, whatever you decide to do,’ I told her, unsure as to whether she might
consider taking him back at some point.
But when news of my activism spread, it seemed I couldn’t expect the same loyalty from her. I hadn’t told Maryam what I was doing at first, not even the little things like speaking
at my school, but then I didn’t tell anyone. Perhaps, somewhere deep down inside, I knew that she would disapprove; perhaps I didn’t want her or anyone else pouring scorn on something
that made me feel so alive, so engaged. Perhaps I wasn’t ready to be challenged about my decision to speak out, so I’d just kept it to myself, following my own heart. The biggest thing
for me was that Yusuf was on my side, nobody else mattered.
My confidence grew as I saw the reaction of people inside the education system, and realised the level of support there was for me out there, so one day, as Maryam and I sat having coffee and
biscuits in my house, I cleared my throat and decided it was now or never. Maryam and I shared everything together – we were similar, strong, outspoken women – so I took a deep breath
and before I knew it the words had left my mouth.
‘I’ve been talking at my school about FGM,’ I said. ‘Telling the teaching staff exactly what it is and why it is done.’
Maryam stopped, her hot cup of coffee hovering somewhere between the table and her mouth. Her jaw hung open, her eyes wide, and I swallowed down my coffee, feeling it burn the back of my
throat.
‘What?’ she said.
‘I’m telling them about
gudnin
, what they did to us.’
She put down her coffee cup.
‘But people will be against you,’ she said. ‘They won’t like what you’ve done.’
I looked at her then, my friend, and in that instant I felt betrayed. How could she immediately think of what others thought instead of how important this was?
‘I don’t care what people think of me. Teachers need to know the truth, pupils need to know. We need to stop this.’
Maryam was brushing down her skirt as if suddenly she was ready to get up and leave.
‘We should talk about this, Maryam,’ I said.
But she was muttering about all the things she needed to get on with at home and rounding up the children.
After I shut the door behind her, I felt disappointment reverberating in my chest.
‘What did you expect?’ Yusuf said when he came home and I told him about Maryam’s reaction. ‘Not everyone is going to feel the same as you, Hibo.’ But I expected
that Maryam would. Or at the very least that she would have listened to and supported me. I didn’t see her for a few days after that. I invited her over, eager to talk, but she made excuses
that she was busy. Then the weeks passed and even the replies to my text messages started to dwindle. We always used to go along to weddings together, but now if Maryam was invited, I would only
know about it if I spotted her heading out, all dressed up in a colourful
hijab
. I got the message, but it still stung. I stopped trying to invite her for coffee; I told the children she
was busy when they wanted to play with her kids.
Meanwhile, news of my activism was making its way around Walthamstow. National newspapers wanted to write about my talks; it was surreal to sit at the breakfast table with my children as they
hungrily spooned cereal into their mouths while my face stared up at us all from the
Guardian
or the
Telegraph
.
‘You’re famous, Mum,’ Ikram grinned up at me. I could see I was making them proud and so I had to push thoughts of Maryam from my mind. My activism started to take on a life of
its own and I was proud of myself too.
Many weeks now went by without Maryam and me setting eyes on each other, and, living as close as we did, that was no easy feat. But when I heard her daughter Naima was in hospital with
pneumonia, I wanted to be there for my friend when she needed me most. Yusuf and I took our youngest two children to the hospital to see her, but the welcome wasn’t a warm one.