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30 years of struggle |
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This is about children who are hurt, who we hurt
children raped by the worst kind of rape
in their present and in their future.
With a knife, a stone, a razor blade, a piece of glass,
in a holiday atmosphere, or one of terror, or even in a hospital,
millions of babies, girls and adolescents are sexually mutilated.
In 1977 we broke this taboo wide open.
In this never-ending fight, the girls are the winners.
Irreversibly.
The bush fire that we have lit will not go out.
Edmond Kaiser
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1976. On reading the book by Benoîte Groult «Ainsi soit-elle», the future founding members of Sentinelles discovered the horror and the extent of the personal, physical and spiritual drama suffered by millions of little girls subjected willingly or by force to sexual mutilation. Faced with this massacre perpetrated in indifference and general silence, Edmond Kaiser would, until his death in 2000, put all his strength into fighting for its abolition:
1977. In order to break the taboo surrounding female sexual mutilation of which African girls and women are victims, an international press conference was held in Geneva. In the dock, the World Health Organisation (WHO), which had shamefully protected these practises for more than twenty years, more respectful of «social and cultural concepts» than of the life of girls or the health of women. Forced by the numerous pressures that this conference provoked, for the first time in 1979 the WHO included the problem of female sexual mutilation on its agenda at its seminar on women’s health held in Khartoum.
- The publication and distribution of two information packs: «Female Sexual Mutilation»
1980. Founding of the Sentinelles movement, devoted primarily to harassing international and national authorities and supporting all private or joint initiatives or associations capable of breaking the silence, increasing knowledge and spreading the fight against this practice that has been massacring girls for thousands of years.
- The publication and distribution of an information pack «Female Sexual Mutilation and Early Marriage»
1983 to 1985. Visit to a large number of African heads of state from countries where female genital mutilation continues, with a view to obtaining their support for this fight and abolition on their soil.
Countries visited: Burkina-Faso, Mali, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal, Benin, Ivory Coast, Niger, Togo, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Zaire, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone.
- The publication and distribution of an information pack «Female Sexual Mutilation. An African Struggle»
1985. In collaboration with the government of Guinea, the organisation of an international seminar in Conakry on «The integrity and well-being of women».
1988. Public condemnation of the Italian government whose Minister of Health on the 8th January authorised Italian hospital structures to carry out sexual mutilation on little African girls. Under pressure from the media, the Italian government rescinded this authorisation on 4th February.
1988 and 1989. With the financial and logistical support of Swiss Co-operation, the organisation of a national seminar in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, followed by a provincial seminar in Ouahigouya on «Traditional practices affecting the health of women and children»
- The publication and distribution of an information pamphlet «Against excision».
1998. Egypt. Obtaining an audience with Sheikh Tantaoui, Grand Imam of Al Azhar (Islamic University of Cairo), who had just issued a fatwa at the request of the Minister of Health, stipulating clearly that the excision of girls is not advocated in any authenticated religious text. Translation into French of this Fatwa and its distribution.
1999. Setting up of a concrete and direct rescue mechanism for young girls and women in West Pokot, an extremely isolated region of Kenya, where the worst form of sexual mutilation, infibulation, is still practised: the ablation of the clitoris and the small lips, laceration and closing of the large lips. Infibulation precedes marriage, often early marriage, which also wreaks havoc on the girls’ genitals, often forced open with a knife or a goat’s horn during the wedding night, as well as on their reproductive organs due to premature pregnancies and difficult childbirth.
The present day
Sentinelles’ work of saving girls and women subjected to the violence and the outrage of such practices has continued in West Pokot. The work is co-ordinated by a head of programme in Lausanne and a permanent delegate in Kenya. The Kenyan team is made up of an administrator, a secretary, a social worker, an income generating activity officer, a driver, a nurse, a volunteer gynaecologist, a facilitator responsible for the organisation of seminars with the assistance of 5 activity leaders specialising in family and community information (the VAMs or «Village Advocacy Members»).
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Young girls and adolescent girls in danger of being mutilated
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Excised and infibulated, then often subjected by force to early marriage, sequestered, beaten, raped. In West Pokot, often the first of these customs fatally precedes the second and it is sometimes around the age of 11 that the girls run away from their family to escape one or other of these violent acts, taking the risk of finding themselves with nothing and no-one. For each one of them, we have the duty to provide immediate help, then a lasting accompaniment permitting the preservation of her safety and her integrity.
- Ensuring the girls’ security, in a safe place, in a foster family, or in a boarding school.
- Family mediation, led by a team in the presence of the village Chief. The aim is to inform the parents of the meaning of their daughter’s flight, as much for her, on a personal, medical and family level, as for them as to the legal consequences that they will incur.
- Parental agreement, which seals the mediation session with the signature of the parent responsible and that of the Chief of his village on a document through which he agrees to no longer subject any of his daughters to one or other of these customs.
- Following the girls until we are sure that they are definitively safe and to reinforce their determination: support in their schooling, regular visits to their place of residence and work; organisation of activity and information workshops; granting micro-credits.
Annual activity
51 new girls were helped in different ways and 192 others needed a follow up with a view to reinforcing their security. Following the 51 family mediations that took place, 43 parental agreements were signed. 3 activity workshops were organised, followed by 50 young girls.
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Young girls and women victims of fistulae |
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Sexual mutilation or infibulation, early or forced marriage, difficult deliveries in the bush – sometimes repeatedly – of babies that are often stillborn, they have survived one or several of these violent events. They remain with the pain and the shame of continually leaking urine. The discomfort is aggravated by the nauseating smell, which leaves no-one in ignorance of their problem. To their physical handicap, their intimate and solitary distress, is often added rejection by their family, for whom they are now just a burden and useless. It is up to us to repair them in order to give them back a liveable life at last.
- Medical treatment: to seek, discover and ensure access to suitable surgical interventions for each one. Sometimes several operations are necessary. They are possible on the spot, but only for those who have the means. We must organise operating sessions and provide the logistical as well as the financial means for these operations.
- Awareness raising: to make the most of the operating sessions to inform the women concerned (and those close to them) about the origins of their problems in order to prevent the causes and therefore their effects from being repeated for them and also to modify the behaviour of those around them towards girls and women.
- Accompanying the women: to attend to the strictly medical follow up of each of them and to ensure their harmonious reintegration into their family and society. When necessary, provide them with the means to carry out a lucrative activity suited to their situation and their personal capabilities.
Annual activity
96 women were followed on a personal level and 41 young girls and women received medical treatment. 30 surgical operations were carried out during 4 operating sessions.
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Information and awareness-raising |
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Female sexual mutilation and early marriage are practised in the whole of West Pokot. It is therefore necessary to inform the largest possible number of women and men, young people, adults and old people of the consequences of these devastating customs and the serious and irremediable damage caused to the health of girls and women and in consequence the harmful effects on their family, their community, their region. We must also inform the players in the society at all levels, from the simple citizen to the representatives of the authorities. Information and awareness-raising are conducted:
- with all of the girls and women who have been rescued, treated and accompanied
- with their families, parents and/or spouses
- within their community: holding 5-day village seminars to inform separately the women, men, elders, traditional midwives and the excisors and in this way to set free the words so long suppressed by the women’s sex. The seminars close with a meeting and a declaration from the community and the appointment of a village “sentinel”, who will continue the information whilst ensuring the protection of the girls.
- by symposiums in schools, training centres, in marketplaces etc.
- by one-day information sessions with village chiefs and other members of the civil, legal or military authorities capable of bringing a personal or professional contribution to this struggle.
Annual activity
In addition to the information given directly to girls and their families through family mediation, more than 7000 young people and adults were informed by the awareness-raising programme, thanks to 16 one-week seminars in the communities, 8 meetings in primary and secondary schools, 3 one-day information symposiums with representatives of the authorities (village chiefs, district chiefs etc.) and 3 meetings with villagers. |
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SALOME
«In 1994, when I was 12 years old, I was circumcised with a few friends. There where I live, if a girl is not circumcised no man will marry her.
The day before my mutilation, two barrels of alcohol were prepared and people danced all night in two of our houses. We were 15 girls, adorned with different pearls and we danced all night.
The next morning, they took us to the river, where we were covered with oil and cleaned before the operation.
When you are operated on, you are completely undressed and sat firmly on a stone, legs open and face turned upwards. The operation was painful, as a large part of my vagina was cut. Those women who operate use the same knife and the same razor on all the girls. Later, they use the same knife to clean the parts badly operated on.
When a girl is operated on, it is completely forbidden to show cowardice and if she shows signs of fear, the people leave the operation place immediately. The father, the mother and the brothers of the girl carry knives and sticks and at the least sign of cowardice, they stab or beat her all over.
When I was operated on, my father refused to accompany me, as he feared that I would not bear it. My mother and the other family who accompanied me covered me with pearls after the operation. One of the fifteen girls operated on with us did not remain firm enough during the operation. She blinked her eyes and the people ran away shouting, even the woman operating. They abandoned us until midday when the women who operate came back to clean the parts of the vagina that had been left. Her mother wanted to hang herself, but the people stopped her and took her away from the tree in which she had climbed. Her older sisters, who had been operated on before, had been brave and had not shown signs of weakness. She was the last born in the family. Until now, she has not married, as no man would want to marry a girl who has not been brave during the operation. She has children by different men, as no man will accept her as a legal wife. She is the laughing stock of the community.
The girls are covered in mud during the operation and are not allowed to shower until the end of the operation period.
After the operation, they gave us an injection, the same syringe for all the girls operated on. The person responsible for the injection lives a long way away and if he cannot be reached, the girls are not vaccinated against a haemorrhage. One girl bled to death as her veins had been opened. We could not walk for two weeks. They gave us traditional medicines in order to clean the wounds. Two weeks later, we washed our hands in alcohol specially prepared for the occasion and they asked us to do some domestic chores, covered from head to foot in animal skins to hide us from the view of men of our fathers’ age.
Back home, we stayed out of sight of our fathers until the end of the circumcision process.
To mark the end of the operation, all the parents of the operated girls prepared traditional alcohol. People sang and danced, while they took us a long way away to be smeared with oil. Our fathers saw us again for the first time since the operation. They took off the skins covering our heads.
Today, I strongly advise girls who have not yet been circumcised not to do it.
After being circumcised I returned to school. After a time, I stayed at home because my parents had no money for the school fees. They made me understand that they would no longer pay for school.
In order to have my dowry, they decided to give me in marriage to a man that I never loved. A man came, but refusing the marriage, I went to the market in Chipleng, to my grandfather’s. My cousins came to bring me home, where I was beaten and forced to go to the man.
I was married and I fell pregnant. I was not happy, as my friends were at school. I carried the pregnancy to term.
When I gave birth normally at home, at night at about 10 o’clock, they cut me with a knife used to bleed the cows, as they had no razor. The next afternoon, at 3 o’clock, the child died.
My parents were informed. They came and the child was buried. I told them that I wasn’t going to stay there. I couldn’t walk for two weeks. I stayed with my husband, but his parents complained that the child had died from a curse made by my parents. My husband started to beat me.
One market day, the Chief of the region came to see me and asked if I was happy with my husband. I replied that I was not and told him about my desire to return to school. He advised me to go in spite of the lack of money. I went the next day, for I was young and all my friends were there.
I am determined to stay in school. My friends are now in 7th primary and I have become the first in the class with 470 marks. I prefer to go without soap and clothes to have money to pay for school fees. At the moment this is the major problem for me.
When school closed, I went to my cousin, so that my parents could not force me to return to my husband, where I will suffer. I don’t know what is happening at home, I have no soap, nothing, but I am determined to continue, as when I go home again, they will force me to return to this man.
I am good in studies and I appeal to have the means to carry on. Apart from my education, I have no other projects. Even if another man comes along, I will never give up my studies.»
2006
It was Salome’s courage and determination that triumphed. She is well and has found her smile once again. She is no longer afraid to go home; the Sentinelles team made her family more aware of her situation and her father has agreed to sign the commitment not to marry her by force again.
She was able to finish her secondary school studies and is now working as a secretary in our offices in Makutano. Passionate in her struggle against sexual mutilations and early marriage, one of her main tasks is to welcome those girls who come seeking protection and support.
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