As Kadijatu Balaima Allieu walked to a neighbour’s house in her village in Sierra Leone, she had no idea that what was about to happen would alter the course of her life for ever. It was a beautiful September morning in 2016 and Allieu, 28 at the time, had gone to resolve a dispute she had with another woman, who belonged to the Bondo society, an influential and secretive group of women.
Shortly after she arrived, she was forced into a room and the door locked. Her hands were tied. She was beaten, blindfolded and gagged. Then a woman sat on her chest while others forced her legs apart. She was forcibly subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM), the partial or total removal by cutting of the female genitalia.
