“All girls anxiously await their circumcision, but nobody talks about it. I thought about Nadifo and Amal. They had boasted and spread the word that they were beautiful and pure, and the rest of us were dirty….

The voice of my mother calling: “Dont scream like that. Dont shame me. Be a big girl” …

When I awoke the next day, my whole body ached. Although I was aware of every limb, none seemed to belong to me. We were no longer a whole…..

Now you’re a clean girl” my mother said and stroked my cheek. “You’ll glow. You’ll shine” .

The stink of pus and rotting flesh began to spread. I tug on the bindings, but my mother shoved my fingers aside. I felt as if I were being boiled alive with the heat and the pounding, the hammering inside me, the swelling ever louder roaring. My face burned. Hellfire. Everywhere….

I had been deceived. Everything promised had turned into illusion, rotten, nothing but dust in my hands. They had betrayed me. I had not become beautiful. I didn’t radiate. Instead I had fallen into an abyss. And now upon landing there to meet me was the cold blue pain that my body never forgot.” - Fadumo Korn

Personal Testimonies

“Not only were my clitoris and labia removed, but I was also sewn up. It is a common practice in my country, the Gambia. Seventy-six percent of women have been cut. But we are not unique.”

“Every year, for cultural, religious, and economic reasons, at least twelve million girls are married before they reach the age of eighteen. This amounts to twenty-eight girls every minute.”- Jaha Dukureh

A woman with curly dark hair smiling and wearing a white top, blue lace necklace, gold cross necklace, and small earrings.

“Suddenly, Germany was talking about FGM. Women friends asked me about my experience, hesitantly at first, then more freely. I talked to acquaintances and neighbors, and got in touch with my friend Waris in Ausburg. It was as if the dam had broken. And yet, it made me angry that the whole word called what happened to me “mutilation”. Yes, I was certainly damaged- but “mutilated” referred to casualties of war, so some who’s arm or leg had been blown off by a grenade. I was not an invalid. I remained a woman”.- Fadumo Korn

Fadumo Korn

Woman with black hair wearing a blue headscarf and a blue dress with a decorative neckline, against a dark gray background.

 “Men’s fear and hatred of the female body- our sexuality- are pervasive  in societies around the world, including in the United States, as is the desire to control it. FGM is the literal physical expression of this pathological control”. - Jaha Dukureh


A woman with braided hair speaking to multiple microphones, with a news headline overlay reading "1997 CNN Burden of Proof."

“When my aunt told me she had arranged my marriage and that I was to be cut, I was terrified because I had known girls who had died from having it done. My mother’s own sister had died from it, and I’ve heard my parents speak of this event with horror. But my “husband“ Like most men in our tribe, wanted me to be cut, so that would be “clean“ for him. So my aunt had arranged for the woman who did it to come to our house. I’ve heard that during the procedure four women spread your legs wide apart and hold you down so they can’t move. And then the eldest woman takes a knife that is used to cut hair and scrape your woman parts off. There are no painkillers, no anesthesia. The knife isn’t sterilized. Afterward, the women wrap your legs from your hips to your knees and you have to stay in bed for 40 days so the wound can close. After the 40 days you were “reborn“ for your husband, and delivered to his house to begin your new life as his wife” - Fauziya Kassindja