Faizah’s Story
They told me that worms would come out of my clitoris if I was not “excised.” I will never allow my daughter to go through the same suffering that I did.
When I was five years old, my family forced me to undergo female genital mutilation in our small village in West Africa. No girl could refuse, and especially not me, because my father was an elder in the village. I remember it vividly—four women held me down as I screamed out in unbearable pain. For up to two months afterwards, my mother poured a painfully scalding hot mixture on my private parts as part of this ritual. I was only a small child to suffer such pain.
But the next time they did this to me, I was a teenager. Because my family and village deeply believed that all women must be excised, I was compelled to undergo frequent examinations. When I was around fifteen, they determined that my clitoris was growing back, and I was forced to undergo the horrible procedure again. This time, my father’s wives held me down, and as before, my genitals were cut with an unsterilized knife and no anesthetic. As before, the procedure was excruciatingly painful, and this time, I bled for an entire day afterward.
Although I continued to experience pain and frequent, vivid nightmares of the procedure, I was one of the lucky ones in my village because I was able to go to school and get an education. In my early twenties, I met my husband Paul, who was a Christian, and I began accompanying him to his church. Paul and I fell in love and decided to marry.
In spite of the happiness we shared, my excisions continued to haunt me. The procedures resulted in physical, psychological, and emotional pain that I have carried my whole life. I endured the pain and heartbreak of four miscarriages. To become a mother, which is all I wanted, I had to undergo very painful corrective procedures in order to give birth to my daughter and son. Even now, after the corrective medical procedure, making love to my husband makes me bleed, gives me excruciating pain, and causes me extreme sadness because it robs me of my ability to enjoy intimacy with the man I love.
After my daughter, Marian, was born, my family told me that she needed to be excised. They believed it was their right to have Marian mutilated, and I knew they would punish me and forcibly excise her if I tried to stop it from happening. I was horrified by the thought and knew that I had to protect my daughter at all costs so that she did not have to suffer what I still suffer.
Paul moved our family to the United States for him to attend school shortly after Marian’s birth. I applied for asylum here knowing that no one in my country would protect us from the harm that we faced if we returned. Many of the police there believe women should be mutilated, and will not interfere in family matters. Thank God for the Tahirih Justice Center and my wonderful pro bono lawyers who took my case. They spent endless hours working on my behalf, and finally, in September of 2008, we won asylum in the United States. I am thrilled beyond belief that my family is finally safe and free. I look at my daughter everyday and thank God that I was able to protect her from the violence that I faced.
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*Names have been changed to protect privacy. The photograph included here is not of Faizah. Photo by Sergio Pessolano.
