Warrior women: Finding the strength to be vulnerable

Social activist Nimco Ali speaks about female genital mutilation and supporting its survivors.

KARACHI: Female genital mutilation (FGM) has no religion or culture; it is about gender, according to social activist Nimco Ali.

"[FGM] is about control and ownership," she explained during her visit to WOW Karachi festival earlier this month. "You could say it's a form of ritual marking, as if to say these are our women and this is what they should be doing," she added. FGM has nothing to do with religion, Ali told The Express Tribune.

Ethiopia has a 90% prevalence of FGM and that's among people of all faiths but the commonality between them is that women are being targeted, she explained. "My campaign is trying to bring back the issue to gender as opposed to religion or culture."

The World Health Organisation defines female genital mutilation as procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to female genital organs for non-medical reasons. Globally, 200 million women have been genitally mutilated, the health risks of which include death from bleeding or tetanus, urinary incontinence, infections and chronic pain.

"We can end this globally, within a single generation, so a lot of the work I've been doing has been about the positive narrative —this not an African issue, just like honour killing is not a South Asian issue — I want to link it to violence against women and gender inequality," said Ali.

She described FGM as a form of oppression that carries onto society. Her organisation, Daughters of Eve, advocates for FGM-related laws and provides support to its victims. None of the work I have done has ever necessarily been about community, she explained. "It's been about the state and conversations within the media and getting us all to have dialogue," she said. "We need a global conversation; when we're talking about international development, let's talk about the rights of women."

Ali believes in the power of positive narrative and its impact on society. "I can tell you about the 200 million women affected worldwide, but those are just statistics. I can also tell you there's one girl in every generation that can break the cycle," she explained. According to her, it is about getting to that generation where women have never experienced FGM, where it is something they have read about in history books. "This is the reason why it's so important to talk about [FGM], because unlike rape, sexual abuse or equal pay, which need massive structural change in society, FGM needs one single act that can take an individual or community to end it."

"I do what I do, not only because I want to end FGM, I want girls to be free of all forms of gender-based violence and I want girls to be freely educated," said Ali.

Expounding on her point that legislation is needed to influence social change, she gave an example of smoking in the UK. In the UK you would assume that no one ever smoked in a restaurant but as recently as in 2008 it was fine to smoke, she explained. "The first thing they did was to impose a ban, then there were signs and conversation and then it became a norm and people said that's just not something we do," she said.

"[If] FGM and domestic violence are ignored by the state and perpetrated by the media, then they become a norm," she said. "If we don't have conversations like [at the Women of the World Festival Karachi] about things like domestic violence, FGM, or rape then we think it only happens to us," she added.

Her advice to Pakistan is to keep having conversations. "It's about sharing your stories," she said. It is about women like Mukthar Mai talking about rape and giving women the strength to go on, Ali said. "I've come to Karachi and met some amazing women and shared a space to say hey we're all survivors and trail blazers," she said. "You've got some bada** women in Pakistan and [should] celebrate those women and assure them the candle they carry will be carried on."

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2016.