I was 14 when my mother and grandmother announced that I was going to have my clitoris, my labia majora and my labia minora cut out. They said that if I resisted I was a coward. In my culture, the worst thing you can be called is a coward.
I was never naive. I grew up as a Maasai girl in Kenya in the 60s and 70s. At some point in my childhood, I became aware that there was a rite of passage into womanhood. I was to have my vulva mutilated by an elderly woman using a blunt instrument. But I was also part of the first generation of Maasai girls to be sent to school, where I met girls from communities who didn’t practise female genital mutilation (FGM). I learned from them that you can grow to be an adult with your vulva intact. That was what I wanted.
I went back to my family and explained I would not be mutilated. My father sided with me: he said it was not necessary. But the village taunted me and said they did not know what to call me if I was not cut: “Would we call you a girl or a woman? Do you want to remain a child all your life? Whom will you marry?”
On the day I was mutilated, I was woken up at three in the morning and taken outside, naked, because the villagers believed that if I felt the morning breeze on my body it would cool me and I would bleed less. I saw that the object they would cut me with was not sharp. I was not offered any anaesthesia, but I was told not to cry – your father is in the house, they said, and he should never hear you cry.
I was determined to show I was not a coward, so I tried very hard not to show any emotion. As a result, I was cut deeper and I could not stop bleeding. I drifted in and out of consciousness and I was extremely dizzy when I woke up.
What replaces your vulva after FGM is extreme scar tissue. I was forbidden from putting my legs together, since the scar tissue could fuse. They tied my legs apart with rope so that they would not touch, even when I slept. I had to remain like that for days as I healed.
After being mutilated, I made myself a promise: I would do everything I could to stop this ever happening to another girl. My daughters, and all the daughters of the Maasai, would not be cut.
In 1975, the overwhelming majority of women in Narok county in Kenya were genitally mutilated. So, when I and some others decided to act, we knew we had to approach this fight carefully. Usually, a girl is mutilated as preparation for an early marriage, so we went from village to village explaining that, if girls went to school and were not married (and mutilated) at a young age, they would be able to earn money and support their family.
We explained that vaginas are sufficiently elastic to squeeze out a baby – but scar tissue cannot stretch in the same way. When a woman tries to push a baby through this scarring, the baby often becomes trapped and is deprived of oxygen. As a result, a disproportionate number of children from communities that practise FGM are brain damaged. We told people that this would be much less likely to happen if we stopped FGM.
We continue to run education programmes and workshops, talking not only to women, but also men. If we do not persuade men – and teach them to love their women and their bodies – we cannot win.
V-Day, the precursor organisation to One Billion Rising, helped me to set up a safe house for girls and young women who refused to be mutilated. I have run it for almost 20 years. When I began this work, some people reacted with fury. There were times when I was afraid for my safety.
Not long ago, I got a call from a woman who told me of a young girl who wanted to resist cutting, but was being forced by her parents. By the time I arrived, she had been buried in a shallow grave after bleeding to death. I made sure the police investigated. Her father is now serving nine years in prison for manslaughter – but I know we need to do more.
When women stand up and defend themselves, it works. According to the 2014 Kenya Demographic Health Survey, 21% of women continue to experience FGM – a huge drop over the past 50 years, but still far too many. No woman is free until all women are free.
I am one part of a global struggle – one that unites the 1 billion women across the planet who have been beaten, raped or mutilated. I invite you to join us.
Agnes Pareyio is an activist for One Billion Rising and V-Day, the founder of the Tasaru Ntomonok Initiative and V-Day Safe Houses for the Girls. She is the head of the Anti-FGM Board in Kenya and is running for the Kenyan parliament
