By Mariama Jobarteh
I did not know your name, but you knew mine. I can almost
hear you calling it that day — softly, as if in celebration.
You must have cradled the tiny soul I once was, walking
toward the place where little girls stop being little girls.
You betrayed my trust.
I was only two weeks old. I do not remember. But I
remember my friend’s story. She said it was her time. That
she would be clean, a woman, ready to make her family
proud. You told her it was tradition — that every woman
before her had walked this path. That the pain would fade.
That she would forget.
She did not forget.
She remembers the hands that pinned her down. The whisper of a blade, sharper than her mother’s kitchen knife. The songs, the claps, the drums — beating to drown out her screams, so no one would hear.
She remembers the blood.
She did not understand why she had to endure such agony. Had she done something wrong? Had she laughed too loudly? Played too freely? Danced when she should have sat still?
They told her she was clean now — that she was no longer a Solima. But what is purity, if it means she cannot walk without pain? If it means she will be haunted for life? What is it worth if it means she will never feel whole again?
I know you did not mean to hurt her. I know that once, you too were a little girl on the same mat, under the same blade, with the same silent tears. That the elders told you this was the way. That no man would take an uncut woman. That an uncut woman was promiscuous. That she was a shame to her family. But do you not hear us crying? Do you not see the girls who bleed to death? The women who suffer in childbirth? The wives who feel nothing when their husbands touch them? Have you not heard of the ones who ran away — who chose exile over mutilation?
Do you not see us?
We are not asking you to abandon our traditions. We are asking you to let us be whole. To honour us as we are born, not as we are cut. We are asking for a world where our worth is not measured by how much of us has been taken away.
There are other ways to mark our passage into womanhood. Teach us the songs of our ancestors — not the silence of our pain. Show us how to braid wisdom into our hair, not how to bleed in the name of honour. Let us keep our bodies. Every part of them.
To those who still hold the blade, I beg you — listen.
Listen to the mothers who have buried their daughters.
Listen to the fathers who have lost their little girls.
Listen to the husbands who say they do not want their wives cut.
Listen to the women who were cut and now stand before you, broken but still pleading – End this.
She was a child. She had dreams. She wanted to be a doctor, a teacher, a dancer, a writer. Now, all she is, is pain. Pain that should never have been hers.
Please, do not let another girl write this letter.
FGM is a form of sexual and gender-based violence. It is not a cultural relic; it is a human rights violation. The voices of survivors must be heard, and action must be taken. Protect the next generation. End FGM.
