Mariya  00:00

(Hi I’m Mariya Taher, and this is the Voices Podcast. Welcome to Episode Five, The Uncounted. Please be aware that this podcast includes frank discussions about what female genital mutilation and cutting is and how survivors can be affected in terms of their physical and mental health.)

Comfort  00:28

I think sometimes when you are going through a healing journey, your soul knows what you need to heal, and you just go and pursue it.

Mariya  00:38

(Comfort grew up in Zimbabwe, and now lives in Minneapolis.)

Comfort  00:43

When a woman like myself comes and shares her story about how this FGM practice impacted them negatively, we do have women in our community who say, you know, “you are anti-African, you’re too Western, you’re trying to tarnish our culture.”

Mariya  00:59

(She’s talking about some of the reactions she’s gotten from people in Zimbabwe, to sharing her story in the Voices Project. When she was a young girl, she was taken out into the countryside with a group of other young girls, and they were subjected to a painful cultural practice.)

Comfort  01:16

In Zimbabwe, I would say at least two out of three women are expected to have this practice done to them, the elongation of the, of the labia.

Mariya  01:24

(Every morning, Comfort and the other girls were forced to sit in the ice cold water of a mountain stream while elderly women pulled their labia minora, the thin inner lips or folds of skin that exist on either side of a woman’s vulva, in order to elongate it.)

Comfort  01:41

It is the alteration of a woman’s genitalia at a very young age, which is also very traumatizing, I remember for myself at that age, but then also brings a lot of complications that people in our community don’t want to talk about.

Mariya  01:54

(A paste of herbs is used to soften the labia and make it easier to pull. Before being sent home, the girls are told that to maintain that elongation, they need to do the pulling on a daily basis. They’re taught to use dust, soil, or ashes to prevent their fingers from sliding off the labia when they’re stretching it.)

Comfort  02:16

So health wise, there’s a lot of risks. And then there’s a lot of complications after the fact when a woman is at a childbearing age, because they use a lot of herbs that aren’t meant to be used in that way.

Mariya  02:33

(Clearly, none of this is a good idea when it comes to such a sensitive part of the body. In Comfort’s case, she had a painful allergic reaction to some of the herbs. Each time she applied them, she felt an unbearable burning sensation. Here’s an excerpt from the video Comfort made as part of the Voices Project. She’s talking about how she wanted to stop the pulling, but how she was made to feel that if she did, she would never find a husband.)

Comfort Story Excerpt  03:01

My nanny encouraged me to continue the process. My future marriage depended on it. She reminded me each morning, “men prefer matinji (labia) to be the length of the middle finger.” I kept at it. But each week, the burning increased. I have not heard other women from Zimbabwe talk about being in pain from this. But surely I can’t be the only one. At the time, I did not realize that this process would cause me a lifetime of excruciating pain and recurring infections. Only after 16 years as a result of the complications from giving birth to my son, did I finally connect the dots with what happened to me as a child.

Amy  03:55

(This is Amy, you might remember me from our first couple of episodes. I work with Mariya on the Voices Project. Before we hear more from Comfort, I’m jumping in to mention that what was done to her is not actually classified as a form of FGM/C, but as with the various forms of FGM/C, labial pulling, at least the initial phase, involving the elderly women, is done without consent. And as you heard from Comfort, once they go home, girls are coerced into continuing it themselves. This is how social norms are enforced– not only by the parents or Auntie’s, or grandmothers who agree to have their girls undergo things like labial pulling or FGM/C, or at least turn a blind eye, and not just by the community members who see these things as valued traditions, not harmful practices, or earn status or a livelihood in places where both are hard to come by– but social norms are also enforced by girls themselves. They come to understand how they are supposed to behave, and they go along with these expectations. Just in case you’re not familiar with the term, social norms are the perceived informal, mostly unwritten rules that define acceptable and appropriate actions within a given group or community. Incidentally, storytelling has been identified as a way to help shift social norms, because stories can challenge unhealthy norms, and they can also uplift norms that reflect healthy cultural change. Anyway, labial pulling was included in the definition of FGM/C until 2008. Then a pair of Dutch researchers published a study claiming it did not cause harm. The topic continues to be controversial. Let’s hear more from Comfort now.) 

Comfort  05:44

It is usually presented to us, or it was presented to me, as a rite of passage. And so there’s this glorification of the practice and I think, in my community and in the Zimbabwean community to be specific, it is very much glorified and the women defend it. If a woman is not, does not have that practice done to her as a child, and she gets married, she is returned back to her family. Unfortunately, the justification always has to do with the pleasing of men, at the expense of the woman, right? It is believed that when you elongate the labia because it is very hypersensitive, that, you know, it’s beneficial for the male during intimacy. There’s also myths around hygiene, that it keeps dust and bacteria out, which there’s no scientific research. But the main reason when we were having that done to us or being instructed to do that was about to please your future husband. So it’s the men that expect that.

Mariya  06:41

Yeah, so it’s really about controlling women’s sexuality. But the idea is for the pleasure of men, essentially.

(I asked Comfort, if she knows other women who’ve had this done and have come out against it. She mentioned just one other activist in the UK. The fact that Comfort has been willing to be public with her story is a big deal.)

Comfort  07:05

You aren’t supposed to show your armpits out to the community. Don’t wash your dirty laundry. And so when it comes to practices like this, they have been perpetrated because of the silence, right? 

Mariya  07:14

Yeah. I wonder if you, are there any specific instances when you shared your story, just the reaction that you received from that person, that stick out in your mind?

Comfort  07:27

I shared the video with one of the most famous journalists from my country, and he is a very good friend.  I would describe him as a very open-minded, very progressive, brother, and his reaction just threw me off. He actually went on a very long explanation about the benefits of this practice. And I saw him as a standard or as a scale of, of resistance, and he works with me on anti-violence work, except for this particular silo. He did not agree with me. And for me, that was really, really disturbing. And he upholds it. And as a man, he said, you know, it’s his duty to let us know that is beneficial to him as a man. 

Mariya  08:17

Especially if you showed a video and you’re talking about your health complications, you know, you’re talking about your, what you experienced, but to have this person that you consider a friend as well, just deny that or not want to take that into account. I don’t even know how to react to that. I feel like I’ve come across that, to where people very much recognize domestic violence, or sexual assault, or you know, homicide, that’s all violence. But this– no, no, no, even though what you’re doing is to a minor girl and you’re altering their body, for some reason, it’s not seen as violence. It’s just … it’s very perplexing to me.

Comfort  08:58

I experienced my friend in a very different space. For me, that was really a good experience, because I realized just how badly this indoctrination is. I know for certain that the altering of a woman’s most sensitive, most intimate body part is every part of violating her rights as a woman and as a human being. And those are my sentiments. 

Mariya  09:26

(I agree with Comfort. We wish more groups doing work on gender based violence in the U.S., those working on things like child abuse, sexual assault and domestic violence, would step up to address FGM/C as well. There’s also still not nearly enough culturally-based mental health support in the U.S., or really anywhere in the world, for survivors. This brought us to the topic of the Voices Workshop that Comfort came to.)

Comfort  09:51

I’m so thankful because I know that it’s, we are rewriting our own history to make some change that are going to impact our children and children’s children, for the better. I’ve just come to a place where I, I realized that if I remain silent, I am also participating in this practice. So what it feels like for me to speak up, it’s very uncomfortable, but even in the discomfort, in the fear, I still have a sense of peace about sharing. And I will do it again, if there’s another opportunity to do this. Because I really believe that silence is not golden, when it comes to issues like this. Silence is what perpetuates the worst evils that have happened over the years. So when I’m in discomfort, I still do it because I feel it’s a calling. And I feel that nobody else is going to do it but me, so so the pressure is right there. And I know more survivors will show up, once you give them the permission by sharing your story. That’s kind of my feeling. But the fear is still there, but I do it anyway.

Mariya  11:09

(Stories like Comforts are often not heard because of the comparatively small number of women who’ve experienced what she did, and of course, because of all the silencing she talks about. But there are people within the larger community of survivors of FGM/C who aren’t heard for other reasons.)

Afiqa  11:28

My name is Afiqa and I am a non-binary survivor of female genital cutting.

Mariya  11:37

(Talking about gender can be complicated when it comes to FGM/C. Some longtime activists don’t believe in anything other than the traditional male-female gender-binary. Others don’t understand why non-binary and trans survivors tend to feel left out of the statistics. They say, “well, they were girls when they were cut.” Neither of these attitudes considers that for non-binary and trans people, talking about pre-transition gendered experiences can surface uncomfortable feelings of gender dysphoria. Afiqa goes by either she/her or they/them when it comes to pronouns.) 

Afiqa  12:20

So I come from the Malay Muslim community in Singapore. So I think we’ve practiced like all four types, but the one that’s most common, I think, is type one. Sorry to be graphic, but yeah, so mine was the nicking of the prepuce, or the clitoral hood.

Mariya  12:40

(Here’s an excerpt from Afiqa’s video.)

Afiqa Story Excerpt  12:43

One day, I learned a cousin had gotten circumcised. I asked, “wait, do girls get circumcised?” My mom said, “yeah, you were too. All girls and women in our family are.” I learned boys get it done young, and there’s almost always a feast. It’s very festive and supportive, and I wondered why my circumcision was kept hidden. Then I asked my mom, “why did I get circumcised?” She said, “so you will not be a wild girl.”

Mariya  13:21

I’m hoping that you might be able to talk a little bit more about your experience in the Voices Workshop, it’s been over a year since you took part in it. And I’m wondering if you could talk about how you’re feeling about the story that you shared.

Afiqa  13:37

I think if you attempt to like you know, talk about yourself, like you’re shamed, to like, not talk about it, you’re silenced. So historically for a lot of marginalized people, you know, of the marginalized genders, their stories do not make it to the mainstream narratives, it’s not talked about and, yeah, I didn’t want to be silenced. I didn’t want other people to have power over me. I want to, like, you know, take ownership and power, like, over my own story.

Mariya  14:09

It’s not an easy thing to be an advocate in this area. And I definitely commend what you’re doing in the context and the environment you’re in. Would you mind kind of explaining a little bit about just how FGM/C is viewed in Malaysia and Singapore?

Afiqa  14:25

Like with the older generation probably it’s still like a positive thing to do it, because the way they see it is, this is for you know, like quashing my anxieties of like raising a daughter. Like I don’t want my daughter to, like, have sex outside of marriage and get pregnant, because, okay, pregnancy and, like, having a baby is, like, definite proof that you know, even like sleeping around. So there’s like a lot of slut-shaming, like, so I was like, really uncomfortable. When I first heard the reasoning, and I think with the younger like, gen, they see it as like a hygiene thing, but like, I’m still very hopeful that you know, people are like educating themselves, because I do have friends who have done their own research and they were like, “I have a daughter now, I’m not going to do this to my daughter. I don’t care what my parents say.”

Mariya  15:15

(Afiqa just gave two of the most common reasons why some people say FGM/C is necessary: because they believe it keeps young women from having sex before they’re married, and because they think it helps women have good hygiene. Obviously, neither of these beliefs are true. I really wanted to hear Afiqa’s thoughts about what it’s like to be a non-binary survivor.)

Afiqa  15:37

The reason why I was cut was, okay, so there is an assumption that because my baby has a vulva, she has a vagina, so okay, she’s gonna, she will grow up to be a cisgender woman, right? And I expect her to be a cisgender women, like, as in, you know, as a grown up, okay, she’s gonna marry a man. So like, it’s very, like heterosexual, you know. Because of the procedure, like, because of the, the FGC experience. So you know, like there are these expectations that are, like, imposed on me, like, I didn’t ask for this.

Mariya  16:15

Does your mom know that you identify as non-binary?

Afiqa  16:19

No. I don’t think she understands. Like, okay, so like, my mom was kind of like my gateway to queerness. So I don’t think she realizes it. You know, like, she talks about, like women in a very, like, positive, affirming way, like, yeah, yeah, she definitely doesn’t know it. But, um …

Mariya  16:36

(Just for clarification, in this next part, Afiqa talks about herself and the third person.)

Afiqa  16:45

Okay, so like Afiqa is, she’s definitely queer. She’s, you know, she’s not hetero. She’s not like a cisgender woman. There’s nothing wrong with being you know, like cisgender and like, hetero, obviously, but like, yeah, it’s just not aligned to my lived experience, right? So I think when I first realized it, like, it was, like, really interesting, because it’s just so like, different from my mom’s expectations. I kind of feel like I’m disappointing her a little bit, you know, because I remember, like, kind of feeling a little bit sad. She still has, like, her prejudices, which you know, she learned from society.

Mariya  17:26

(Afiqa’s comment about society reminded me that prejudice and hate towards queer people is still commonplace. The movement for civil rights for LGBTQ communities has accomplished so much over the past 20 years. But if you haven’t noticed that the backlash has become heated, you haven’t been paying attention. Believe it or not, state-level laws in the U.S. banning FGM/C have been weaponized by the conservative right in a misguided effort to deny care to queer youth. To date in 2023, over 100 pieces of legislation have been introduced in various states to ban aspects of gender affirming medical care. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott conflated gender-affirming surgery with FGM/C, calling the surgery “a form of mutilation.” The state is now one of over a dozen states that restricts transition- related care for trans minors. In Idaho, legislators attempted to amend the state’s existing law on FGM/C to ban hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and sex reassignment surgeries. When this failed, they introduced an entirely new bill to ban gender affirming care, which was signed into law last April. Legislators in these states claimed gender affirming care and FGM/C are both medically unnecessary, but gender affirming care has very clear medical benefits. In fact, denial of this care could more accurately be called child abuse, because doing so fails to address serious mental health needs. FGM/C, on the other hand, often leads to long term health problems, not to mention post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and so much more. Okay, let’s come back to Afiqa and her story.)

So I wanted to ask, you know, your story is a beautiful reflection on the alienation and the challenging relationship that can come up between mothers and their children in the context of FMG/C, particularly in situations where a mother might support the practice and then the child does not. And that was the case in your story, and your life. Have you shared your digital star with your mother?

Afiqa  19:49

I haven’t shared my story with my mom because I don’t think she would understand it the way I do, and I don’t expect her to. So like for my mom, who does not have, like, a formal education, I don’t know how to like, talk to her in a way that you know, she would be receptive. That’s a really big conversation. Yeah. Cuz I’m happy with, like, the cordial relationship I have with my mom, because like my mom is almost like 70. So I don’t know how to approach it with my mom in a way that doesn’t make her feel guilty for, like, how she’s been raising her children. 

Mariya  20:25

Yeah, no, I get that. I, I’ve had a complicated relationship with my mom as well. And we’re two very different people with two very different views of life. And she is someone who very much is embedded in the culture and the community she was raised in. And along with that, the pressures of like what other people will think and expectations of, “this is how you’re supposed to behave.” And we have a good relationship now, and I don’t really want to rock the boat. 

(Afiqa and I talked about how glad we both are that they shared a story. And then I remember that when we did an online screening of the stories from her Voices Workshop group, they decided to be a panelist and answer questions from the audience.)

Afiqa  21:17

Yeah, I was like, really shy, but but I also felt, like, I guess I felt like, you know, proud of myself for, like, giving myself the opportunity to, like, be vulnerable, you know, I mean, obviously, in a safe way, right? I feel like you know, I’m, I’m a part of like, something really important.

Mariya  21:45

(The fact that they are non-binary is not the only way Afiqa’s story is underrepresented. There’s still a common public perception that FGM/C only occurs in African countries. Although this is slowly shifting, it’s not well known that cutting is done in Singapore, where Afiqa lives, that it’s also done in India, where my parents are from, and yes, it’s done even here in the United States– remember the Michigan case we talked about in our last episode? But what may come as a surprise, though, is that it also occurs in white Christian communities. In recent years, we’ve had two U.S. born white women share their stories. Here’s one of them, Jenny, talking about what it was like for her.)

Jenny  22:28

I was very nervous, it was going to be my first time of really sharing my story in a group setting or with people that I didn’t know. So I think like, all the way there– I was driving there– and I think all the way there like I was thinking, “I can’t do it.” I mean, so many times, I was like, “I’m just gonna go home. And I’m not going to do this.” And I was shockingly surprised when I got there and was able to share my story with the people that were there. There were so many similarities between our stories, even though we came from different backgrounds, and we came from different cultures and everything. I wasn’t expecting that. I just left feeling like I had climbed a mountain.

Mariya  23:15

(When they were little girls, one weekend without any warning, Jenny’s father took her and her sister from their home in Kentucky and traveled with them by plane to a place they had never been. The next day, one at a time, they were led down into a basement, forced onto a metal table, and cut.)

Jenny  23:33

My sister was the biggest reason that I started to even ask questions and to even begin to find out that FGM/C wasn’t something that happened everyone.

Mariya  23:47

(Jenny’s sister died of an accidental drug overdose. They had never talked about what they went through as children, on that trip. Her regret and loneliness after her sister’s death led Jenny to start looking for others to talk to.)

Jenny  24:02

She was my best friend, and we did everything together, and not having her in my life made me venture out.

Mariya  24:07

(Jenny had assumed that all the women in her conservative Christian community were cut, just like she and her sister were.)

Jenny  24:14

And I was able to find a couple of people that I felt comfortable enough to start asking questions and eventually asked if they’d had FGM/C done. And I realized at that point that, that what I had believed most of my life wasn’t true. And then I was struck with tremendous guilt and tremendous grief over my sister’s loss. And I often wondered if we had been able to have a conversation about the struggles we were having, if the outcome for her life would have been different. And that kind of prompted how I did my story.

Mariya  24:50

(So Jenny wrote her story as a letter to her sister.)

Jenny  24:53

I said the things I never got to say to her. 

Mariya  24:57

(Here’s an excerpt.)

Jenny Story Excerpt  25:07

When I think about who I am, where I’ve been, I think of you too. There’s so much I wish I could say. Did you have the same confusion and pain that I felt every day? Did you get in trouble in school for going to the bathroom too often? Or taking too long? I already had five kids when my new obstetrician asked, “what happened to you?” Did anyone ever ask you? Did you ever wonder why God made it a sin for girls to share? Did you learn you were different in human anatomy class too? After it happened, I heard you scream in the night sometimes. I’m sorry, I didn’t tell you that what was done to us invaded my dreams too. I’m sorry, you never got to share your story. I miss you every day. Keep dancing sister. Keep being free.

Mariya  26:18

(I first met Jenny years ago in Washington, D.C. at a meeting about FGM/C and mental health. I assume Jenny was a nurse who might work with survivors. When she said she had been cut, I was shocked. I could tell others in the room were, too. Even though I had learned that FGM/C was more global than anyone had previously recognized, the fact that Jenny stated she was a survivor made me realize that our understanding of who was subjected to FGM/C was still wrong. Right after she came to the Voices Workshop, Jenny started working with legislators in her state to sponsor a bill criminalizing FGM/C.)

Jenny  26:59

When I came home, and I was happening to meet with legislators here, I think having done that already in a group setting prepared me to do it in a room full of legislators. And I think that helped a lot. I think it would have been a whole lot worse of an experience talking to them if I’d never done that.

Amy  27:18

(Before we hear more from Jenny, maybe you’re wondering, if there’s a federal law in the U.S. against FGM/C, why are laws at the state level also needed? So federal crimes are prosecuted by Assistant U.S. attorneys and investigated by Federal Officers such as FBI or DEA agents or special prosecutors. State crimes, on the other hand, are investigated by county sheriffs or local police officers and prosecuted by state district attorneys or city attorneys. In general, most criminal cases are investigated and prosecuted at the state level rather than the federal level. Specific state anti-FGM/C laws send a strong message. Advocates against cutting know anecdotally that parents from practicing communities who actually oppose cutting, but face pressure from pro-FGM/C family or community members, have pointed to state laws as the reason for why they will not cut their daughters. To date, 41 states have passed these laws in the U.S. You might also be wondering the same thing that I wondered when I first started learning about the legal landscape related to FGM/C in the United States: why don’t child abuse laws cover it? Most of those laws include a provision about intent to harm, and because the people who support FGM/C really believed they’re doing it for the good of the child, that piece about intent would be almost impossible to prove. Let’s get back to Jenny. When a news article about the Kentucky FGM/C bill came out, it included quotes from her. And that’s when a woman from a similar religious community reached out to her.)

Jenny  29:02

It’s been word of mouth and women talking to other women. And you know, I had one woman reach out to me, and it’s kind of grown from there. And we’re at 41 women right now that have, that said that it happened to them. And they’re asking questions. Most of them homeschool. So that’s kind of their community and the way that they’re able to communicate with each other, because the men aren’t involved in the homeschooling. So that’s their opportunity to talk to each other about things that they would not feel as comfortable talking about with the men around.

Mariya  29:33

(Just like in lots of religious traditions, all the leaders in Jenny’s Christian community are men. They’re the ones who decide everything, who control everything. And just as with Comfort’s and Afiqa’s experiences, this “everything” includes controlling women and their sexuality.)

Jenny  29:48

My grandfather was a minister, and my dad was minister, and we were in a religion where they voted on you every two years. So everything that my mom or my sisters or I, you know, anything that we would do was a reflection of my dad. So if we did anything that was seen as wrong, then, you know, we were essentially homeless and my dad didn’t have a job. So I think there was a lot of pressure on leaders to make sure that their lives and their families were in line. So I think that those at risk were more women and girls that were within leadership families, just more so because the expectations were more. They felt like the FGM/C prevented us from being tempted to sin, and they also felt like the– that pleasure for a woman was a sin. So they felt like if we eliminated that temptation that we wouldn’t have that temptation and we wouldn’t sin.

Mariya  30:56

(The men in the church might have heard about FGM/C being done in countries outside of the U.S., or they could have been aware that up until the 1970s, it was part of standard medical practice here in the U.S. For most of the 19th and much of the 20th century, female sexuality was thought of only within the constructs of heterosexual marriage. Behaviors that strayed from this, such as masturbation or lesbianism, were deemed quote, “symptomatic.” Physicians removed the clitoral hood or performed clitoraldectomies, basically type one FGM/C, to treat hysteria, depression, nymphomania, and frigidity. These procedures continued well into the 1970s, and astonishingly, they were covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance until 1977. As Jenny learned more about FGM/C in fundamentalist Christian communities, she wondered how many women in these communities have been cut.)

Jenny  31:55

You know, I was curious, like, how many churches there were within the United States itself, that would be considered as conservative as what I grew up in. So I called headquarters and I, you know, I know there’s over 7,000 of these churches that I grew up in in the United States, and they said, probably 30% of the churches would be considered as conservative as what I grew up in. And that was a bigger number than I expected. So I was shocked.

Mariya  32:26

(If these women come forward to speak against FGM/C, they can be excommunicated and forced to leave their families and the only homes I’ve ever known. So being an advocate in this context is incredibly brave. When Jenny testified in support of the bill banning cutting in Kentucky, which incidentally did become law, she shared the fact that more than half a million women currently living in the U.S. are at risk or have been cut. This figure from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was based on 2012 census data and also on immigration patterns to the U.S. from the 32 countries where the UN collects data. So it’s most likely an undercount.)

Jenny  33:15

There’s no telling, but I know that there’s more, a lot more of us. And it just hit me one time when I was talking before legislators that you know, that didn’t include me and didn’t even include my sister, and it didn’t include all the other women that I know that it’s happened to, and so we kind of have our own name then, we call ourselves “the uncounted.” So that has been my mission is just to educate and raise awareness that it’s happening right here. It’s happening, you know, this year. It’s not a thing of the past. It’s an issue that we have right now.

Mariya  34:03

(Women who are cut in the Dawoodi Bohra community, the community I’m from, and from other Asian countries are also left out of this statistics. Women like Comfort, who experienced little known and understood practices, are left out too. And people who are cut as children and identify as non-binary or queer as adults are not counted. There are still so many stories that need to be heard.)

Amy  34:47

To watch the digital stories created by Comfort, Afiqa, and Jenny,  visit our website at voicestoendfgmc.org. This episode of the Voices Podcast was created by Amy Hill and Mariya Taher, with editorial and production support from Kristel Mendoza Castillo. Thanks to Hunter Kessous for her thoughts on non binary and queer survivors. Featuring the music of Blue Dot Sessions.

Mariya  35:14

Special thanks to Comfort, Afiqa, Jenny and everyone who has told a story in a Voices to End FGM/C digital storytelling workshop. We hope you’ve enjoyed the Voices to End FGM/C podcast. If you are someone who knows a survivor seeking emotional support, or if you’re a child welfare or health care provider looking for referral resources, please call 1-877-751-0880 between the hours of 9am and 5pm U.S. Pacific Time. Trained advocates knowledgeable about the diverse cultural contexts where FGM/C occurs can provide a listening ear, offer care and support, and connect you to additional information and needed services.