Sister Fa and Female Genital Cutting
Over the last week or so it’s been easy to be dragged down and disheartened as rape culture in our society seems to be as strong as ever and women get abuse for drawing attention to it. On Monday night (6th Feb) however, I had the privilege of going to see Sister Fa at the Union Chapel and was left feeling inspired and motivated by the work that women can do.
It was a night organised by The Orchid Project as a celebration of the progress being made to end Female Genital Cutting (FGC) and took place on International FGC Abandonment Day. The Orchid Project work with partners to ‘deliver sustainable, community-led end to female genital cutting’ and Sister Fa is an amazing example of how this can work. She grew up in Senegal and did herself go through cutting or excision as a girl. As she explained on The Guardian this week she didn’t understand why her mother was doing this to her, and believed she was trying to hurt her. As she grew older, she realised her mother was doing what she believed was best for her daughter. Girls who have not been cut cannot marry, serve food or engage fully with their community. What choice did she have? Sister Fa takes this understanding of a complex situation and through her music (she is a hip-hop artist) she goes to communities like Thionck Essyl (where she lived as a child) and speaks to the men and women there to try and open their eyes to how unnecessary the procedure is.
FGC is considered a women’s issue, and one that the men will rarely discuss or get involved in so her efforts to include men are really interesting. It is in the women’s hands to end the practice but reassurance is needed from the men in their communities that if the practice ends the girls won’t be treated as they are now.
FGC is a complex issue and Western men and women arriving in communities like this and telling them it’s wrong will never end the practice, and smacks of cultural imperialism. For this reason the use of the word ‘cutting’ rather than ‘mutilation’ or even ‘female circumcision’ is a deliberate one. Tostan (one of The Orchid Project’s partners) wrote a post about the language last year, which is really worth reading. In it, they remind readers that it’s not useful to tell women who’ve been cut that they’ve been mutilated as it will only further stigmatize them. In addition, it implies that it was done to harm them intentionally. While the repurcussions of being cut can be extremely serious (risk of Tetanus, difficulties in childbirth etc.) the reasons for cutting girls is not to hurt them, but to protect them in society. It is often practiced out of love.
The UN estimates that 3 million girls are cut every year in Africa alone but wishing for an end to FGC is not an imposition of Western values on people who practice it. It is a wish for an end to the pain girls experience when it happens, an end to the risk of death, an end to the complication in childbirth which can lead to the death of both mother and baby, an end to the infection that can be a result of it. Sister Fa sees this and can speak to communities like the one she grew up in to help them see it too.
In spite of the seriousness of the topic however, Monday night really did feel like a celebration. After some folksy tunes from Eliza Shaddad, we were shown a 40 minute film about Sister Fa and her return to Thionck Essyl to speak to the people there. One thing that really came across was how much she loved both that town, and Senegal. She was clearly overjoyed at being back there and expressed how much she loved the people and the culture of her country. Her conversations with the village women and groups of school children were fascinating and the performance she did for them seemed to endear her to them even more - I know how they feel. Having seen her perform later in the evening her passion and joy in singing and dancing was clear. She had us all joining in by the end of the evening -she’s a woman of such charm and grace that you simply couldn’t say no.
Sister Fa taught us all something that night. That understanding and grace can get you further than fighting and shouting. That talking with reason and passion can break down barriers more effectively than bashing with fists or angry words. That being constructive is far better than being destructive. She’s a true inspiration and a wonderful woman and I feel privileged to have met her.
*photo taken by Tina McCloskey and published here with her permission
