An Egyptian-Italian woman who has
become a community trainer to help steer her peers away from
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) spoke out to ANSA on World
Anti-FGM Day on Thursday.
"I was about 15 years old and I hadn't seen a cousin of mine for
a couple of weeks. One afternoon she came to me and told me she
had a 'cut'. At first I didn't understand what she was referring
to", said Riham Ibrahim, who who has been in Italy since she was
one year old, lives in the South of Milan and attends
university, the last year of chemistry and pharmaceutical
technologies.
Explaining her work as a 'community trainer', she said it was a
figure who builds a bridge between institutions and local
realities, and together with ActionAid she is committed to
raising awareness among foreign communities in Milan to prevent
female genital mutilation, a practice that is passed down from
mother to daughter not for medical reasons but for cultural
ones.
Since 2012, the UN has proclaimed February 6th the International
Day against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) because there are
numerous short- and long-term complications on the health of
women subjected to this custom, including death.
Although FGM is recognized internationally "as an extreme
violation" of the rights and integrity of women and girls,
according to the UN, it is estimated that around 68 million
girls worldwide are at risk of undergoing this practice by 2030.
"I became an activist - explained Ibrahim - seeing the pain of
the people around me. I thought that maybe I could do something.
Something in my own small way, to make their voices heard. We
community trainers go and talk to women, to bring another vision
of things, but above all we want to listen to them. It is always
important not to have any judgmental look".
For Ibrahim, women who bring their daughters to undergo
practices such as FGM or forced early marriages "are not mothers
who hate their daughters, on the contrary. They do it thinking
they are doing good to their daughters, to make them feel part
of a group, to integrate them and make them an expression of
their own identity.
"The practice is prevented when we listen to women, we see their
needs. In dialogue we understand how we can bring them another
vision of things, but without ever judging them".
A great satisfaction for the community trainer was when "a woman
opened up and told me she had undergone mutilation. She did not
feel bad about her condition, but she decided not to cut her
daughter anymore after having discussed it with us. This is a
very powerful thing, because when a woman decides to stop
mutilation, it means that this practice is completely eradicated
for the entire generation of women in that family. A change from
which there is no going back.
"Genital mutilation," Ibrahim admitted, "is still deeply rooted
in some groups, in addition to being linked to the concept of
culture or tradition, it becomes a question of identity.
"And when FGM becomes part of one's identity, it is difficult to
separate it from the rest of the customs. "We at ActionAid
always try, on tiptoe, we try to confront them to make them
reflect that identity can also be something else, fortunately"
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