I respectfully ask that you take a few minutes of your time to read the statement for our 2026 advocacy campaign music against female genital mutilation (FGM) song.
Silence is not an option.
I ask everybody here to close their eyes for a moment and imagine yourself as a happy
8 year old girl who has a bright future and happiness ahead of her. Then your mother
who’s duty it should be to protect you wakes you up very early in the morning without
any food in your stomach and asks you to come with her. She takes you to a strange
house where you have never been, and when you arrive there your mother pushes you
into line alongside your older sister, your female cousins and many girls from different
areas of your village who are surrounded by their own mothers. You feel confused by
the situation, you are in fact terrified and your heart is beating so fast you don’t know
what to do, so you started crying. You have no control over this, and one by one you are
asked to enter an open shower where you face six large women who are going to
change your life forever. These women ask each of you to take off your clothes and lie
down on the cement floor, and when you do two women hold down your hands side by
side while two other women spread your legs and hold them down very tightly. One
woman sits on your chest and covers your face and mouth with a thick cloth so that you
can not see anything nor cry out. You are suffocated trying to breathe under the thick
cloth and then another woman comes over to squat between your legs holding a sharp
knife. She tightly holds the side of your clitoris with her sharp fingernails and places a
knife below your clitoris where you feel it slowly slicing through your skin without
anesthesia. She continues slicing through your skin deeply until she gets to other side
of your clitoris, and at the same time you have blood running down your thighs and feel
excruciating pain from your head to toe from the sharp knife slicing through your skin.
You scream under the thick cloth begging for compassion but no one will save you.
Even your own mother who is standing there watching her own flesh and blood being
tortured has no empathy or remorse for you whatsoever. Your happiness as that 8 year
old has come to an end, you will never experience the same happiness again in your Life.
PLEASE WATCH THE MUSIC VIDEO OF THE SONG BELOW
Silence is not an option.
I ask everybody here to close their eyes for a moment and imagine yourself as a happy
8 year old girl who has a bright future and happiness ahead of her. Then your mother
who’s duty it should be to protect you wakes you up very early in the morning without
any food in your stomach and asks you to come with her. She takes you to a strange
house where you have never been, and when you arrive there your mother pushes you
into line alongside your older sister, your female cousins and many girls from different
areas of your village who are surrounded by their own mothers. You feel confused by
the situation, you are in fact terrified and your heart is beating so fast you don’t know
what to do, so you started crying. You have no control over this, and one by one you are
asked to enter an open shower where you face six large women who are going to
change your life forever. These women ask each of you to take off your clothes and lie
down on the cement floor, and when you do two wome hold down your hands side by
side while two other women spread your legs and hold them down very tightly. One
woman sits on your chest and covers your face and mouth with a thick cloth so that you
can not see anything nor cry out. You are suffocated trying to breathe under the thick
cloth and then another woman comes over to squat between your legs holding a sharp
knife. She tightly holds the side of your clitoris with her sharp fingernails and places a
knife below your clitoris where you feel it slowly slicing through your skin without
anesthesia. She continues slicing through your skin deeply until she gets to other side
of your clitoris, and at the same time you have blood running down your thighs and feel
excruciating pain from your head to toe from the sharp knife slicing through your skin.
You scream under the thick cloth begging for compassion but no one will save you.
Even your own mother who is standing there watching her own flesh and blood being
tortured has no empathy or remorse for you whatsoever. Your happiness as that 8 year
old has come to an end, you will never experience the same happiness again in your
life.