Self-confidence as a role model
Luba* now wears her hair open. The 13-year-old girl serves as an example and wants to be seen as different from most of the women and girls in the West African state of Sierra Leone. Luba breaks with a deeply anchored practice in the Sierra-Leone society. She has not been circumcised. ‟I am proud to be an uncircumcised girl with all my body parts intact. It makes me feel good, and I have control of my own body,ˮ she says with self-confidence.
Luba has inspired 120 young girls in the Bumbuna region, a small place in the north of the country, to do the same. They want to be role models and encourage more girls to combat the practice of female circumcision. This is a courageous decision in a country in which, according to UNICEF, about 86% of women and girls have suffered mutilation.
Injurious practice with results
This practice is still in force among the broad population in Sierra Leone as an initiation ritual into the existing social order. The intervention is almost always carried out by female circumcisers, who earn their living with it. There are different forms of female circumcision. One consists of entirely or partially removing the girl’s outer sexual organs – clitoris and labia, usually without anasthesia, with knives, razorblades, or pieces of broken glass.
The results of this operation are manifold. They range from severe pain and shock to hemorrhaging (which can cause death), infections, cysts, and infertility, or even later complications during delivery and psychological problems.
„I am proud to be an uncircumcised girl with all my body parts intact. It makes me feel good, and I have control of my own body.“
Luba
Participant in the project ‟My Body My Rightˮ
My Body My Right
We have cooperated in the partner project ‟My Body My Rightˮ combating the inhumane practice of female genital mutilation since the end of 2020. In 2014 we found a partner ‟Commit & Act Foundation Sierra Leoneˮ which has successfully been engaged in child protection.
Luba and her friends participate in the project along with 800 girls from many different communities. The secret to the broad acceptance of the program probably lies in its comprehensive approach, which includes all important target populations, the girls, their parents and significant others, in the schools, communities, and by means of lobbying at the state level. We provide appropriate education with the trained team on site, promote general education, and present long-term professional perspectives for the girls and temporary ones for their parents. This is the only way to support a fundamental change in societal values in Sierra Leone.
You can help by donating 19 francs
With 19 francs you can help us educate and accompany a girl in the ‟My Body My Rightˮ program. This enables girls in Sierra Leone to lead a self-determined life and to determine their futures themselves!
Education enables the girls to lead a self-determined life
This is what we do. In Luba’s home village, Bumbuna, project colleagues first perform a series of educational events. They explain the multiple injurious effects of female genital mutilation and the current legal paragraphs against it.
They repeatedly emphasize the importance of education for girls. This is continually corroborated by the provision of school materials and financial support for the families of the girls to go to school.
Multiplicators are essential
People who accompany the evolving change in attitudes are also responsible for the project’s success. These include teachers who have been especially carefully educated about the topic of female genital mutilation and can now pass on this knowledge as multiplicators. Our project colleagues and other experts also explain the consequences of female genital mutilation for body and soul to the general public in Sierra Leone over the radio.
They also organize so-called girls’ clubs in the schools, which are led by the project participants and supervised by teachers. The message is: ‟We uncircumcised girls are something special. We are self-confident, modern, and we determine what happens to our bodies.ˮ The teachers report that the girls are no longer stigmatized by other girls, but instead are admired and serve as role models.
Even circumcisers have sworn off the tradition
Luba’s grandmother and even the parents and grandparents of other girls have provided written obligations not to let their daughters and granddaughters be circumcised. To ensure that this agreement will really be upheld, they receive financial support every four months. Female genital mutilation also has an economic component in Sierra Leone. Parents receive a dowry when they marry off their daughters. Female circumcision is often a prerequisite for marriage. It signifies the transition from childhood to adulthood, even when the girls are still underaged, sometimes ever only 12 or 13 years old.
The financial support provided in the project should enable the girls’ families to build up a sustainable source of income, e.g., a small business or stall, and not depend on money from a dowry and therefore have their daughters circumcised. The money provided by the project decreases in steps over time to avoid dependency. During this process, the parents are expected to become self-sufficient with a small business.
Finanzielle Perspektiven schaffen
Provide financial perspectives
New sources of income must also be found for the circumcizers (‟soweisˮ). The girls‘ families traditionally provided the soweis with food, clothes, jewellery, and money during the so-called initiation period. Ever afterwards, they often remain in contact and occasionally give them gifts. We are pleased to report that many of the soweis in the communities participating in the project have uttered regret for having performed this practice and have laid away their tools.
Many have signed up their own daughters for the My Body My Right Projekt, which provides an obvious sign that they wish to overcome this injurious practice. The project has offered the circumcisers a financial perspective to prevent them from returning to their former profession by providing an alternative source of income in agrarian employment since 2022. They receive training and seeds, and land is made available for them to grow food for their own needs and to sell.
Luba’s grandmother is convinced she made the right decision by keeping her granddaughter from being circumcised. She wants a self-determined and healthy life for her granddaughter with an intact body.
* Name changed
Overview of the project
- Our projects are located in the districts Bo, Bombali, and Tonkolili.
- Financial and psychosocial support for 800 girls
- Support for the girls‘ families in building up a small business
- Training for parents, carers, teachers, and in the Girls’ Clubs in the schools
- Advocacy- and lobbying on the national level
- Component for alternative sources of income for 60 soweis
Our partner organization
The emphasis of the independent Sierra-Leone NGO is placed on comprehensive care for survivors of sexual violence, especially girls. The organization has provided advice and support for girls and their parents who have decided against female circumcision since 2014. Commit & Act also operates two shelters for abused girls, the Bo and the Makeni Girls’ Shelter.