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Award winning Leyla Hussein is helping to inspire the next generation of girls to fight back against the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM).
Leyla first started speaking up about FGM because she wanted to protect her daughter from the practice.
She was adamant that her daughter shouldn’t have to go through the same unimaginable pain that she and over 65,000 girls in the UK each year are at risk of enduring. Around the world at least 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone a form of female genital mutilation.
Leyla said: “Just imagine a child pinned down by the people they trust the most and then a part of their body is mutilated. You don’t own yourself anymore. You belong to them. Your whole body is in pain, the scream that you scream ... I remember I lost my voice for a couple of days.
“Here in the UK it happens during the school holidays, known as the ‘cutting season’ when young girls are promised a holiday, a fun time, but when they get to their destination they are pinned down. Then they are brought back to the UK and often within just a few weeks, if they are lucky enough to have had that much time to heal, they are back at school not allowed to talk about what has just changed their entire world.”
A month or two after Leyla gave birth to her baby girl a nurse said to her that she didn’t want to make an assumption but that she knew she was from a part of the world where FGM is practiced. Leyla realised that before that point no health professional had said anything to her – and it was from then on that she became driven to change the attitude and break the code of silence.
It has not been an easy journey as Leyla explains: “You’re taught that you just don’t speak about it. Full stop. What I ended up doing is opening up this big Pandora’s Box. I think that’s why I have had a lot of backlash”.
But Leyla and other inspirational women like her are working hard, standing up along-side other survivors as well as girls and women who have not been cut – who are speaking out and saying ‘NO’ to FGM.
Part of this work is with the Dahlia Project, run by Manor Gardens Centre, which receives funding from Comic Relief to help provide a specialist support group and counselling for women who have undergone FGM. The project provides a safe, confidential and non-judgemental space where women can share their experiences and recover from the trauma.
Today is International Women’s Day, a worldwide campaign which aims to raise awareness of women’s rights and stories across the world. Comic Relief is supporting International Women’s Day and celebrating the achievements of women who have made an impact to communities in the UK and around the world.
