“The easiest way to open the conversation among families is through the children,” says Hibo Wardere, a 42-year-old activist campaigning against female genital mutilation (FGM) .
“I was on a bus the other day and this lady was really angry with me for going to her daughter’s secondary school and speaking about FGM. Her daughter told her she could go to jail and that there were horrible health complications.
“But the fact that the daughter went back and spoke to her about it and her mother now realised the effects and consequences of it is exactly my goal.”
As the UN’s worldwide 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence comes to an end on Thursday, the Somali-born teaching assistant and community mediator for Waltham Forest council in London led an FGM-awareness event in London as her contribution to the campaign.
16 Days of Activism is designed to galvanise action to end violence against women, and for Wardere, the only way to ensure people are aware of the consequences of FGM, which she has lived with since the age of six, is through education.
Wardere remained silent for decades about the trauma of being pinned down and brutally cut as a young girl, something she was never allowed to mention, or even discuss with her mother. But after fleeing Somalia in 1980, the mother of seven finally became able to open up about her experience and has found solace in her ability to educate a younger generation about FGM as a community mediator.
She first opened up about her own experience of FGM four years ago after staff at the primary school in Walthamstow where she was a teaching assistant began discussing how to teach the children about the issue. She wrote to the headteacher to explain that she had herself suffered FGM and he decided to make it a part of the school’s awareness programme. Wardere now leads workshops to school pupils, professionals and within local communities.
This week’s event, Rise Against FGM, was the first of its kind for secondary schools in Waltham Forest, says Wardere. Hosted by Kelmscott secondary in Walthamstow and also attended by pupils from nearby Willowfield and Frederick Bremer schools, the day showcased work that had emerged from FGM workshops led by Wardere. Presentations included music, dramatic performances and a fashion show.
Chelsea Ives, a facilitator for the Youth Independent Advisory Group who organised the event, said: “We went to a talk by Hibo last year and we were all so affected by her story. We realised it was such an important issue that people needed to be more aware of so we decided to do this as our contribution to the 16 Days of Activism. Some students are even including this event as part of their GCSEs.”
Speaking about what the event meant for her, Kira Copland, a year 10 pupil at Kelmscott, said: “This is important because FGM is still happening. This event has helped educate me and my friends, and our parents and teachers.
“We began talking about it more, because we don’t know the health and emotional consequences of it very well,” she said. “So, in some ways, this has given us insight in how to deal with it properly if we find out someone has gone through it.”
Maya Sokolowska, 15, created a video as part of her GCSE in digital art to raise awareness of the issue in her school. She said: “Hibo showed me her own videos on FGM, and I was so inspired I decided I want to make my own to educate other young boys and girls on this issue.
“I think that unless you have been through it, or know someone who has been through it, not many people know about it,” she said.
Kelmscott’s headteacher, Lynette Parvez, told the Guardian: “I know there are children at this school that have been through FGM, and perhaps we can’t change it for them but we can for the next generation.
“If a child feels like they are in danger, they can talk about it. Then if a mum is worried about culture pushing her to do this, learning from her child might give her the power to step out against years of ingrained culture.”
FGM is defined by the UN’s World Health Organisation as “all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons”. Although it was outlawed in England and Wales in 1985, there has never been a successful prosecution. The law was broadened this year under the Serious Crime Act to protect girls taken out of the country to undergo FGM. There is also now a duty on all teachers, doctors, nurses and social workers to report child cases of FGM to the police.
Yet according to a study by City University London and Equality Now, there are an estimated 137,000 victims of FGM in the UK.
The Guardian reported earlier this year that between April and June, there were 1,026 new cases of FGM reported in England, in a study done by the Health and Social Care information centre.
Wardere’s hope is to go back her roots in Somalia and fight FGM there, but for now she said: “My aim is to continue to run educational programmes in the UK, because I think it is so important to ensure that people are aware that young girls are affected by this practice in 21st-century London too.”
The Guardian launched a global media campaign last year to help end female genital mutilation – working in the UK, United States, The Gambia, Kenya and Nigeria. Click here for the latest news and updates from the Guardian Global Media Campaign to End FGM.
- This article was amended on 10 December 2015. Equality Now contributed to the study by City University.
