Tribute at the Passing of Efua Dorkenoo, Valient Warrior Against FGM

 

Efua Dorkenoo OBE,
whose many achievements include co-founding FORWARD in 1983, writing the key
text on FGM in 1994 and campaigning on the issue through her time at the WHO
and Equality Now. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian 

 

 

Efua Dorkenoo,
widely seen as the mother of the global movement to end female genital
mutilation, has died after undergoing treatment for cancer, her family have
confirmed. She was 65. Dorkenoo – known affectionately to many as “mama Efua” –
was a leading light in the movement to bring an end to FGM for more than 30
years, campaigning against the practice since the 1980s.

 

Efua
Dorkenoo, widely seen as the mother of the global movement to end female
genital mutilation, has died after undergoing treatment for cancer, her family
have The girls’ and women’s rights campaigner saw the progression of the
movement to end FGM go from a minority, often ignored, issue to a key policy
priority for governments across the world. Proof of this arrived with the
launch of The Girl
Generation on October 10 – a major Africa-led campaign to tackle FGM across
the globe, run by a consortium of charities and organisations and funded by the
department for international development. Dorkenoo – the natural choice to lead
the consortium, wrote simply on the day of its launch: “ Finally, The Girl
Generation: Together to End FGM is here, and I hope you like it.” A week later
she died in hospital.

 

Dorkenoo
was born on 6 September 1949 in Ghana, but moved to London when she was 19 and became a staff nurse in various London hospitals from 1977. Working with African women in the UK, she became aware of the health and mental complications
that result from FGM and began campaigning against the practice with the human
rights organisation Minority Rights Group.

 

She went on to gain
a masters degree from the London
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and was an honorary senior research
fellow at the School of Health
Sciences at City University, London.

 

In 1983 she
co-founded FORWARD (The
Foundation for Women’s Health, Research and Development), which became a
leading organisation in the battle to raise awareness about FGM. The procedure,
which still affects more than 125 million girls and women worldwide and is
widely practised in 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East, was outlawed in
the UK in 1985. She published a seminal text on FGM – Cutting the Rose: Female Genital Mutilation: The Practice and
Prevention, in 1994.

 

Dorkenoo was
instrumental in getting FGM on the agenda in ministries of health while working
at the World Health Organisation from 1995-2001, and went on to become the
advocacy director and then senior advisor on FGM at the human rights
organisation Equality Now.
She was awarded an OBE in recognition of her campaigning work against FGM.

 

End
FGM campaigner Nimko Ali – who worked closely with Dorkenoo at the Girl
Generation and is an FGM survivor – said the veteran campaigner had been the
inspiration for much of her own work against the practice.

 

“Efua
was an amazing woman – that term is used lightly but her passion and commitment
to the cause were truly amazing,” she said. “She started campaigning so that girls
like me would not be cut in future, and thanks to her generations of girls in
the future will not have to go through FGM.”

 

Dorkenoo
had not only changed policy in the UK and overseas, she had made a personal difference to many
survivors’ lives, she added. “She was a giant on whose shoulders we stand, she
prepared the way for us, and even though she did not see the end of FGM in her
generation, it will end – and that is thanks to her.”

 

Leyla Hussein,
co-founder of Daughters
of Eve with Ali, said the formation of an African-led movement against FGM
was Dorkenoo’s lifelong dream and despite ill-health her last months were spent
visiting everyone from politicians to village leaders across the world. “The
Girl Generation was Efua’s baby and she had been trying to make it happen for
30 years,” she said. “Last week Efua gave birth to it, with every last breath
she had she worked to make that happen. She was an incredible African female
warrior and she never gave up.”

 

Brendan
Wynne, media manager at Equality Now said: “Efua literally changed the course
of history, but she made you feel like you could do so too. She banged on doors
for decades – usually by herself – but never gave up. She was the most amazing
friend you could hope for and now has a dedicated network of inspired and
driven people to take her work on and finish the job she started.” Dorkenoo
leaves behind her husband Freddie and sons Kobina and Ebow.

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FGM – CAMPAIGNERS AGAINST FGM FACE
ABUSE, VIOLENCE, DEATH THREATS, & INTIMIDATION

 

Women who speak out against barbaric operations against young girls face
danger and abuse from their own ethnic groups

 

 

Efua Dorkenoo says women face
abuse, physical violence and sometimes have to move home if they speak out
against FGM.

By Amelia Hill – The Guardian – 8
May 2013

 

Girls and women
who speak out against female genital mutilation are being attacked, abused and
harassed by members of their communities determined to keep the crime a secret.

 

The Guardian has spoken to women who have received death threats, been
publicly assaulted and who have had to move house after speaking out about FGM,
which involves cutting away some or all of a girl’s external genitalia and can
include sewing up the vagina. It is mostly carried out on girls some time
between infancy and the age of 15.

 

Nimko Ali, a
29-year-old British-Somalian, was taken to Somalia for the procedure when she was
seven. “I never told anyone I had FGM, not even my best friend, because I
saw what happened to women in the UK who did speak out and saw it as a warning
sign,” said Ali, who has set up a group called Daughters of Eve to
campaign against the procedure.

 

“I only decided to go public very recently after seeing other girls
put themselves in danger by speaking out. The weeks afterwards were the most
horrifying of my life. I lost friends – one even offered to kill me for
£500.”

 

The abuse, Ali said, had not waned. “A man recently threw a liquid in
my face in the street . I was terrified; I thought it was acid. He was
screaming that I was ‘a slag’ and needed to learn some shame.”

 

FGM is not condoned by any religion. It is illegal in the UK to carry out
the procedure, take a British citizen abroad to have the operation, or assist
in carrying out FGM abroad, whether or not it is against the law in that
country.

 

But although almost 160 incidents were recorded in the 2008-09 British
crime survey, there have been no convictions since it was criminalised in 1985.
Although FGM is incorporated into child protection, at present no data is
collected on the number or type of social-work cases involving it in the UK.

 

Efua Dorkenoo,
a director at Equality Now,
regularly receives death threats aimed at stopping her campaigns against FGM.
“I’m told my offence in speaking out is greater than that of Salman
Rushdie and that I should die,” she said.

 

“Any woman or girl who speaks out against FGM is in very serious
danger from extended members of their family, their neighbours and from their
community, especially from so-called gatekeepers of their community who control
and harass them if they raise their voices.

 

The intimidation is extreme. Girls and women are physically attacked in the
street and followed at night. The windows of their houses are broken. They
receive anonymous phone calls from men shouting intimidation and threats.

 

One woman was pushed to the ground and kicked – she had a child who was
threatened too, and she ended up having to move house.

 

“You can’t speak out against it without risking your life. I’m aware
of three young girls who are currently in care for this very reason.”

 

Dorkenoo says
the backlash against women who speak out is getting more extreme. “It’s
getting worse for young girls because social media means they can be threatened
and harassed by people outside of their community, including by family members
back in Africa who are told what they’re
doing.”

 

The first and
only major piece of FGM research at a national level was in 2007 by the charity
Forward, in collaboration with the London
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the department of midwifery at CityUniversity, which was funded by the
Department of Health.

 

The research, which used the 2001 census, found there were at least 66,000
women with FGM estimated to be living in England
and Wales.

 

It identified around 21,000 girls aged eight or younger at high risk of
FGM. It also found that more than 11,000 girls aged nine or over had a high
probability of already having suffered FGM.

 

Muna Hassan, an
18-year-old member of the charity Integrate Bristol, a
charity that helps young people from other countries and cultures, has suffered
for her outspoken support of the group’s campaign against FGM. “Men harass
and intimidate us girls all the time,” she said.

 

“We made a film about FGM called Silent Scream and they spread rumours
that we were being paid to make a pornographic film. They rang our fathers
anonymously and said we were humiliating our families in public.

 

“It horrified our parents and quite a few girls weren’t allowed to do
the project any more because of it.

 

“These are people who promote themselves as community leaders and
elders. The scary thing is that these are the people that councillors and
politicians go to when they want to discuss community issues.”

 

Last week, prosecutors and police announced that they were to reopen
investigations into six alleged FGM incidents between 2009 and 2012.

 

A separate inquiry is under way into an alleged conspiracy to carry out FGM
on a girl in London. An eighth
case, in which the Met police say they have clear evidence, is being considered
by prosecutors.

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