Plan International Ethiopia SEE OUR WORLD An essential part of Plan‟s work is to help create spaces for children and young people to discuss together the issues which affect their lives, then ensure adults respect their views so that children may be involved in community decision making. This communication has been prepared with and by children directly and is intended to give a general sense of the kinds of issues children discuss and how they work together.
Fighting Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Dear Sponsor, We are a group of children living in Tiroafeta area. Our area is located in Jimma district which is found in the South West Part of Ethiopia. We are working with Plan on issues that affect our lives in our area. We are 11 in number (6 of us are girls) with age ranging from 11 to 17. We are members of a child protection club called ‘Serbo child right club’. Today, we would like to share with you an important issue that is affecting girls in our area. In our tradition, girls are forced to o through ‘ girizat’ or female genital
mutilation.
What „girizat‟ means ‘Girizat’’ (female genital mutilation-FGM) is a traditional practice of female genital cutting. Using a cutting edge, a part of female genital is removed. It is a traditional practice retained by our community over a long period of time. And every member of our community comply with this norm otherwise they face social outcast. Besides this social value, it is believed that genital cutting would make a girl very disciplined. Our farming community believes that uncircumcised girl misbehaves and breaks household items. So, she not allowed serving elders and community leaders as she may bring embarrassments to her family. It is also believed that uncircumcised girl is like ‘untouchable’. Everything that she touches is considered cursed or vile. It is also practiced to control women’s alleged uncontrolled sexuality and emotional nature. So circumcision makes a girl a good wife and faithful to her husband. The cutting is carried out by traditional practitioners (usually old women) under unhygienic conditions and without any medication and pain killer.
Drawing by a child illustrating the practice of „girizat‟
Keryia Z. age 14 says: “One morning I saw a traditional circumciser in my home. I learnt that my parents wanted me to get circumcised. I started running to escape. My mother caught me and put me in front of the old woman. They held my legs and hands tightly. The pain was immense when she circumcised me. There was blood gushing out and I was panicked. The pain lasts for days and becomes very sharp when I was trying to pee.” Kedija S., age 16, says: “We have been told that our mothers who have been circumcised are suffering a lot during delivery. Our fate will be the same tomorrow if we don‟t escape the cutting today. Thinking of unsafe cutting practice of sensitive organ without any pain killer and the associated sufferings are scaring us day and night.”
How we work to change the situation Children representatives of our area were given training on the negative effects of girizat by health professionals. Following the trainings, we organized ourselves into different child right clubs in schools and villages. With strong support from Plan and the local media, we held different awareness sessions on child rights and FGM for our community. The local community radio has particularly helped us reach many community members and our face to face discussion with community and religious leaders has helped us reach and influence the way of thinking of our community. Previously, we children and our families knew little about our rights, leave aside promoting them. DEC_ETH_FY12