FGM survivor who nearly died after being cut by dirty razor says she is “free” after life-changing surgery

Transcript

00:00FGM is done under no anaesthetics. In my case, it was done by an old lady, known as the village

00:06cutter I guess, so she goes around and cuts girls. She will usually have a blade, a rusty

00:12that has been used on about five different girls, or maybe one, or you know, depends

00:16on when your turn is. So yeah, a blade and then equipments to stitch and things to put

00:23inside, so then when she stitches there is a gap space left for the urine to travel down

00:28underneath the scar tissue and exit through the last part that they leave open.

00:34So yeah, it's done under no anaesthetics. It's usually done in a village at home,

00:39so at the girl's home, so at my home for example in my case. So yeah, you're forcefully held down

00:47on the floor by about five different women or even six sometimes, depends on how strong you are.

00:52They usually do it between the age of four to fourteen. I don't know any girls that had it

00:56done at fourteen where I came from, usually we had it done at a very young age. I think Max is

01:00like six years old, because older than that you'd put up a fight and they really don't want you to

01:05put up a fight. These are all the types of FGM, so there are four types right. Many people practice

01:10it in like so many different ways. In my example, it was type three. Now type three can be done

01:16with partial or total removal of the clitoris, of the labia minora, or it can be done like how

01:25it was done to me, where they removed parts of the labia minora and kind of stitched it together

01:33to allow for scottish uniform, so it just shows off the area. And then type four is basically

01:39just anything like just the wounding of the clitoris, the just like scratching of the labia

01:48minora, and yeah some people just remove the clitoris and leave everything else,

01:53and some people just, yeah they just scrape off everything and they kind of, you know,

02:01stitch it together, which is extremely traumatic and it has many many consequences. Like

02:08when you're taking all these things away from a girl, you're taking away her ability to feel

02:12pleasure and feel sensations down there. It can affect your fertility due to repeated infections

02:17and it can also, you know, cause you to pass away when you're giving birth or immediately

02:23pass away due to immediate complications, like immediate serious infections that could happen

02:27to a girl straight after this has happened to her. And just because we're so young when this happens,

02:32where our bodies are very weak and fragile, and just from all the shock and the fear, a lot of

02:38us don't actually make it past that point. You know, where I came from, a lot of girls in Sudan

02:44sadly passed away from this, and the parents still continue to do this, which really

02:51really breaks my heart and makes me so angry. Giving birth whilst being stitched up like this

02:56with type 3 FGM was very difficult and it was considered a high-risk pregnancy by the midwife, so

03:04I was kind of given an option to have a c-section. Obviously they can't force you to have a c-section,

03:09but they did tell me all the risks that came with natural birth, just the risks of having

03:14stillborn due to the stress caused to the baby and to the mother as well. And as we know,

03:20baby feels everything that mama feels, so however you feel, baby's going to pick up on that

03:25basically. It's going to affect their kind of, you know, transition period from the womb to

03:33the outside world. So I didn't want her to come out stressed and I didn't want to

03:36pose any risk to her, so we went ahead with the c-section and it was a planned c-section and

03:42it was a very good experience to be honest. The midwives and my midwife during the whole

03:46pregnancy, she was absolutely incredible. She was like the mother I never had. This woman was

03:54so positive and so encouraging and so kind to me. Every single appointment she'd just,

03:59you know, come back home feeling so positive, feeling so good and feeling so reassured because

04:03of her. Yeah.