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ban. Others have encouraged women to not join in. Time for Our World. The | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
following programme contains graphic accounts of female genital | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
mutilation which some people may find upsetting. Kurdistan, the | :00:07. | :00:18. | |
safest and most prosperous region . Many have been caught in the name of | :00:19. | :00:24. | |
religion. Few in the outside world knew that female genital mutilation | :00:25. | :00:28. | |
existed here. That is until a charity launched a campaign with the | :00:29. | :00:33. | |
help of local campaigners to tell stories. TRANSLATION: I.e. Pick up a | :00:34. | :00:39. | |
big rock and threw it at the midwife's had. I am here to find out | :00:40. | :00:53. | |
about the fight against FGM. Women talk about the impact of FGM on | :00:54. | :00:58. | |
allies. I will ask if enough is being done to stop the practice in | :00:59. | :01:32. | |
Kurdistan. Kurdistan, a remote and mountainous region with a sleepy | :01:33. | :01:42. | |
pace of life. There have been dramatic changes. This is one | :01:43. | :01:47. | |
village in Kurdistan to have banned FGM. Traditionally, watermark was | :01:48. | :01:56. | |
the time that girls were circumcised by the village midwife. Now, this is | :01:57. | :02:02. | |
nothing more than the start of a school term. Two years ago, they | :02:03. | :02:09. | |
agreed to stop cutting women and girls. It is one of seven FGM`free | :02:10. | :02:19. | |
villages in Kurdistan. There is an incentive to uphold the band. The | :02:20. | :02:24. | |
Mayor tells me he thinks the government only started paying | :02:25. | :02:30. | |
attention providing the village with a school in electricity because of | :02:31. | :02:34. | |
the interest generated by banning FGM. TRANSLATION: We believe that | :02:35. | :02:44. | |
your body is yours and the cutting part of it as an act of violence. We | :02:45. | :02:49. | |
are very proud to be the first to start this campaign. The Mayor and | :02:50. | :02:59. | |
his wife seemed to have a genuine commitment to the cause. They | :03:00. | :03:02. | |
stopped their youngest daughter from being cut years ago. Her big sister | :03:03. | :03:08. | |
was cut in secret by her grandmother while her parents were out of the | :03:09. | :03:15. | |
house. TRANSLATION: Venue I wouldn't want to cut hair so they did it when | :03:16. | :03:19. | |
I was out. It couldn't be done on done. `` wouldn't be undone. She is | :03:20. | :03:27. | |
unhappy. She asks me, why couldn't you stop it? I wanted both of them | :03:28. | :03:37. | |
to not be cut. Most of the cutting in villages like this is done by a | :03:38. | :03:43. | |
midwife using unsterilised tools. With three hours of it that `` three | :03:44. | :03:51. | |
Hours Drive away, none of the girls would have medical assistance they | :03:52. | :03:55. | |
needed it. All they have it as a razor blade and some ash to seal of | :03:56. | :04:04. | |
the wound. The man has come too late for most of them here. Almost every | :04:05. | :04:08. | |
woman and girl spoke to had already had what . They are keen to tell me | :04:09. | :04:18. | |
about a subject that was too but when they were growing up. Who here | :04:19. | :04:29. | |
has been cut? Everybody here except you? TRANSLATION: I am unhappy that | :04:30. | :04:46. | |
I have been cut but bassist hasn't. I feel very sad about it, very sad | :04:47. | :04:50. | |
that she has been cut. She would have felt pain like all of the | :04:51. | :04:57. | |
others. I wish she wasn't cut, a wish she was like me. Do any of you | :04:58. | :05:14. | |
remember it? TRANSLATION: I was very little and I was playing with a | :05:15. | :05:17. | |
friend when my mother grabbed me and set the man who sells fruits and | :05:18. | :05:20. | |
vegetables is here in the village so we are going to buy you something. | :05:21. | :05:23. | |
We were taken to a house and that is when a hat to have it done. You | :05:24. | :05:27. | |
didn't know that you were going to be cut? TRANSLATION: No, if I did, I | :05:28. | :05:40. | |
wouldn't have gone. Can you tell me what it was like being taken into | :05:41. | :05:45. | |
that room? TRANSLATION: It was very painful. Two woman healthily down. | :05:46. | :05:50. | |
Our bodies belong to ours. Why did they take something that was mine? | :05:51. | :05:54. | |
Why did they cut a piece of me that was mine? Kurdistan has been in | :05:55. | :06:13. | |
autonomous from Baghdad since 1991. It is more recently enjoying an oil | :06:14. | :06:17. | |
boom that has brought security and foreign investors are known in the | :06:18. | :06:26. | |
west of the country. When FGM was uncovered, it sent shock waves | :06:27. | :06:31. | |
through society. Too many, it was" that this ancient tradition could be | :06:32. | :06:35. | |
going on. It was discovered by chance. In 2004, following the fall | :06:36. | :06:46. | |
of Saddam Hussein, a local charity centre teams into the villages to | :06:47. | :06:52. | |
provide support. The refugees never arrived but the charity started | :06:53. | :06:54. | |
coming back with stories of young girls being cut. People ask them | :06:55. | :07:08. | |
about FGM and if they cut, and how they cut. We were quite surprised. | :07:09. | :07:14. | |
We knew that it existed but we didn't know that the practice was | :07:15. | :07:21. | |
continuing. They reported that 60% of the women they interviewed on | :07:22. | :07:27. | |
mutilated or suffer from mutilation. He took his findings to the | :07:28. | :07:30. | |
authorities who were shot with the idea that FGM could still be | :07:31. | :07:33. | |
happening in Kurdistan. `` who were shocked. At first, it was denied and | :07:34. | :07:40. | |
then there was a challenge. We needed to prefer it was existing or | :07:41. | :07:48. | |
not. `` needed to prove. In an effort to persuade the government to | :07:49. | :07:52. | |
believe it was happening, they started to ask women to document | :07:53. | :07:54. | |
their stories. The stories they came back with were | :07:55. | :08:15. | |
like nothing hurt before. Heard. TRANSLATION: It is forbidden to | :08:16. | :08:25. | |
discuss this. The story that made me to fight FGM was a story of one girl | :08:26. | :08:35. | |
who got cut when she was about six. They said, let's go to another | :08:36. | :08:39. | |
village, the house and your auntie, don't wear trousers, don't put on | :08:40. | :08:42. | |
your underwear, your blouse is enough. Two woman took me away and | :08:43. | :08:47. | |
said, you will style your hair. Certainly, both women held my legs. | :08:48. | :08:57. | |
One said, hold her leg, come and cut hair. I picked up an eye. I said to | :08:58. | :09:02. | |
them, leave me alone or I will stab you. They said, we will cut you. I | :09:03. | :09:07. | |
still had the knife in my hand and said, let me go! They let me go and | :09:08. | :09:16. | |
I ran away. She is telling her story briefly to the camera of how she was | :09:17. | :09:21. | |
fighting. A midwife and her mother wanted to cut hair and nobody was | :09:22. | :09:27. | |
there to help her. After a third of the story, it influenced me. I said, | :09:28. | :09:31. | |
from now, we will defend these younger girls. TRANSLATION: I picked | :09:32. | :09:38. | |
up the big rock and threw it at her head. WADI launched a campaign to | :09:39. | :09:52. | |
end FGM. They worked with a filmmaker travelling from village to | :09:53. | :09:56. | |
village, filming women's stories and gathering data on the level of FGM. | :09:57. | :10:03. | |
The filmmakers gained access to it being practised. They filmed these | :10:04. | :10:07. | |
upsetting images of young girls being cut. Women are told to Burma | :10:08. | :10:22. | |
FGM involves cutting a young girl's clitoris. Most of them say they felt | :10:23. | :10:28. | |
obliged to do it to make them pure. FGM isn't mentioned in the Koran. I | :10:29. | :10:36. | |
have asked him and he says it is pure to perform at so we have to | :10:37. | :10:46. | |
follow his words. In some regions, WADI found every single woman over | :10:47. | :10:51. | |
60 have been cut. For teenagers across the country, it was almost | :10:52. | :10:56. | |
half. On average, they found the level of FGM was higher than first | :10:57. | :11:14. | |
thought. In the beginning we were surprised because this was hidden. | :11:15. | :11:20. | |
For me, I didn't do. I had to check with my family members and they | :11:21. | :11:26. | |
started to speak out. We found out it isn't very spread out in our | :11:27. | :11:30. | |
family. Then, I found out that everybody is too shy because it is | :11:31. | :11:36. | |
related to sex issues and the genitals of women. Nobody is ready | :11:37. | :11:43. | |
to talk about it. If e`mail is the maker joint sitting to help find | :11:44. | :11:48. | |
women who were willing to talk. TRANSLATION: It is a sensitive and | :11:49. | :11:55. | |
frightening term. The hardest thing was finding women who were willing | :11:56. | :12:01. | |
to talk on camera. As a woman, a understood their suffering and tried | :12:02. | :12:03. | |
to put myself in the position to feel their pain. I wanted to raise | :12:04. | :12:09. | |
awareness server next generation of woman doesn't have to go through | :12:10. | :12:14. | |
this. She found a few girls who had not been cut and they were | :12:15. | :12:25. | |
stigmatised. One of the girls would have been in years six or seven. She | :12:26. | :12:30. | |
was one of the few who had not been cut. With friends and relatives she | :12:31. | :12:34. | |
said the officer to avoid humiliation. Do you want to be cut? | :12:35. | :12:45. | |
No, but I will be teased eBay say a heaven. They will say I will go up | :12:46. | :12:52. | |
after boys. They will teased me and say, your clitoris is not cut. Why | :12:53. | :12:58. | |
do they say those things to you? I don't know. Does the teasing make | :12:59. | :13:05. | |
you want to get cut? No, because now I just tell them that AM cut. `` | :13:06. | :13:17. | |
that I am cut. In 2001, things change dramatically. Human Rights | :13:18. | :13:23. | |
Watch released a report into the practice in Kurdistan. They | :13:24. | :13:29. | |
described and painful detail, the impact on young girls. International | :13:30. | :13:34. | |
pressure began to mount for it to be banned. It emerged it was not simply | :13:35. | :13:40. | |
a religious obligation. Nobody in the outside world really knew about | :13:41. | :13:59. | |
it. That was the real shocker. Some people do it in Kurdistan as part of | :14:00. | :14:03. | |
social pressure. My inclination, after speaking to religious leaders | :14:04. | :14:07. | |
in Iraqi Kurdistan, is that it really is to control the population. | :14:08. | :14:16. | |
They did say to me, in hot climates, something it to be done to control | :14:17. | :14:24. | |
women's sexuality. The filmmakers found that it GM was not just | :14:25. | :14:32. | |
practised in villages, they found some women to talk about the impact | :14:33. | :14:35. | |
of it on their marriage. `` female genital mutilation. The interview | :14:36. | :14:45. | |
has never been showed outside Iraq. TRANSLATION: I don't have desire. I | :14:46. | :14:52. | |
have no desire for a man. I knew from an early age I was like that. | :14:53. | :14:58. | |
Of course, when you are a kid you don't understand that, but when you | :14:59. | :15:07. | |
grow older you know the difference. When you are cut, did they remove a | :15:08. | :15:13. | |
little or a lot? My husband says, nothing is left of you! So, I don't | :15:14. | :15:22. | |
know, but that is what he says. TRANSLATION: The circumcision is | :15:23. | :15:30. | |
similar to neutering animals. It is a major problem, there is no | :15:31. | :15:34. | |
sensation, and it feels like lying next to a cold fish. With all due | :15:35. | :15:42. | |
respect, I often ask her to come to me, but because she gets no pleasure | :15:43. | :15:49. | |
from it I had to call her five or six times. If she enjoyed it, I | :15:50. | :15:57. | |
could get her to come faster. I didn't know there was such a thing | :15:58. | :16:01. | |
as sexual pleasure. I was a young girl, I was 18 when I got engaged, | :16:02. | :16:10. | |
and 19 when I got married. Even when I had to make kids, I still didn't | :16:11. | :16:16. | |
understand. I thought that marriage is having your own house, coming and | :16:17. | :16:19. | |
going as you wish, and having a family. I didn't know what that | :16:20. | :16:28. | |
thing was. I wasn't aware of this when I married her, if I had known, | :16:29. | :16:33. | |
I swear to god, even if they had paid the $10,000, I wouldn't have | :16:34. | :16:37. | |
married her stop because it is a problem for me. But I'm trying to | :16:38. | :16:44. | |
tolerate the situation. At the public debate intensifies, the | :16:45. | :16:48. | |
filmmakers found women talking openly for the first time about | :16:49. | :16:51. | |
whether or not they should cut their daughters. This ambivalence meant | :16:52. | :16:57. | |
some children had been cut without their mothers even knowing. | :16:58. | :17:02. | |
TRANSLATION: I was away one afternoon, and my mother`in`law took | :17:03. | :17:06. | |
my daughters to the neighbours. The woman had come to the neighbourhood | :17:07. | :17:14. | |
to cut children. When I came back, she was cut. I have not had hartanah | :17:15. | :17:22. | |
done to my younger daughter yet. Some say you have to do it, others | :17:23. | :17:35. | |
don't. I can't decide what to do. Just months after filming, the law | :17:36. | :17:42. | |
was changed. Female genital mutilation was outlawed, as part of | :17:43. | :17:45. | |
a wide`ranging law to improve women's rights. The family violence | :17:46. | :17:55. | |
law is all`encompassing. It includes issues like honour killing, domestic | :17:56. | :17:58. | |
violence, child labour and female genital mutilation. A mother charged | :17:59. | :18:02. | |
with cutting her daughter could face up to three years in prison and a | :18:03. | :18:11. | |
fine. This woman was head of the women's rights committee where the | :18:12. | :18:15. | |
law was passed, and helped push it through Parliament. TRANSLATION: | :18:16. | :18:22. | |
This was difficult for members of Parliament, and even society to | :18:23. | :18:29. | |
accept. We were often told by ordinary people that you have | :18:30. | :18:31. | |
anything better to work on that female genital mutilation? We knew | :18:32. | :18:36. | |
we might face difficulties mentioning it, due to cultural | :18:37. | :18:39. | |
sensitivity, so we decided we should put it within a wider proposal for a | :18:40. | :18:49. | |
law against domestic violence. The law was a huge milestone, but the | :18:50. | :18:56. | |
campaign to end FGM is not over. When the law changed in 2011, some | :18:57. | :19:00. | |
warned that banning the practice would simply drive it underground. I | :19:01. | :19:07. | |
want to know how effective the new law has been, so I am on my way to a | :19:08. | :19:11. | |
village, one of the most conservative areas of Kurdistan. | :19:12. | :19:20. | |
Thousands of copies of the law have been printed, and they are | :19:21. | :19:26. | |
travelling to the villages telling them that FGM is now illegal. They | :19:27. | :19:36. | |
have been to the village twice before, and you get the sense that | :19:37. | :19:40. | |
women are keen to say the right thing when asked awkward questions, | :19:41. | :19:47. | |
which makes it hard to tell what is really going on. Because it has been | :19:48. | :19:57. | |
discussed in the media so much, some people are keen to tell you what you | :19:58. | :20:02. | |
want to hear. A woman told me of course not, my children have not | :20:03. | :20:06. | |
been cut. But after the conversation, one of her children | :20:07. | :20:09. | |
pulled me aside and said, yes years. She did not want to say this on | :20:10. | :20:15. | |
camera, though. Eventually, we meet women who are happy to talk more | :20:16. | :20:24. | |
candidly. This woman told me she values the old ways of life. You | :20:25. | :20:30. | |
have a granddaughter. Do you think she should be cut? TRANSLATION: In | :20:31. | :20:36. | |
my opinion, it needs to be done, as it is gods will. In my opinion she | :20:37. | :20:41. | |
should be cut because God likes it, nothing else. Were you aware of the | :20:42. | :20:47. | |
law that was passed by the government to ban FGM. I heard on TV | :20:48. | :20:57. | |
it had been banned. Before, people used to do it and it was normal. | :20:58. | :21:02. | |
Now, people don't talk about it because TV said it should be done. | :21:03. | :21:09. | |
Although she has heard that the law has changed, it appears this ancient | :21:10. | :21:13. | |
tradition is still deeply rooted in some villages. To date, no one has | :21:14. | :21:26. | |
been convicted for performing FGM. I want to know of the politicians who | :21:27. | :21:34. | |
masterminded the ban, and whether they think it is working. Why is it | :21:35. | :21:39. | |
that only one case has gone to court after two years, when you know as | :21:40. | :21:42. | |
well as I do that this practice dildos on? TRANSLATION: It is true | :21:43. | :21:48. | |
that two years have passed. In the next term, we need to work | :21:49. | :22:01. | |
more to understand the problems of this law, and why it isn't being | :22:02. | :22:07. | |
implemented. We have to make sure the law will prevent FGM. `` this | :22:08. | :22:24. | |
practice does go on. The Kurdistan government has said it is | :22:25. | :22:32. | |
investigating the practice of FGM, and that the results should be | :22:33. | :22:36. | |
released next year. This is one of the few girls they met, who had not | :22:37. | :22:46. | |
been cut. TRANSLATION: They don't call me names now, only my aunt | :22:47. | :22:49. | |
calls me names when my mother is in the. She say to you? She calls me | :22:50. | :22:56. | |
the uncut vagina, which makes me angry, and I stop talking to her. | :22:57. | :23:01. | |
Would you like to be cut? Of course not. Why not? I don't like it. I am | :23:02. | :23:12. | |
older now, and it is wrong. You regret cutting your other daughters. | :23:13. | :23:20. | |
Yes. Why do you feel sorry? Because they have no desire any more. That | :23:21. | :23:26. | |
is why we did it so early. To avoid trouble for them. After almost ten | :23:27. | :23:39. | |
years of working and campaigning against FGM, do you believe that | :23:40. | :23:44. | |
things are getting better now? First of all, the to`do is broken, it is | :23:45. | :23:55. | |
not to do any more. `` taboo. Now, we look with open eyes at it. The | :23:56. | :24:04. | |
government is obliged to implement this law. Back in the village, | :24:05. | :24:17. | |
lifting it taboo has led to difficult conversations. I am going | :24:18. | :24:24. | |
to speak to the older women of the village before I leave. TRANSLATION: | :24:25. | :24:35. | |
Of course I regretted, who would want to harm their children? But in | :24:36. | :24:38. | |
those days, we were told otherwise. We were told it was a religious | :24:39. | :24:43. | |
obligation, that their husbands would send them back in the morning | :24:44. | :24:51. | |
if they weren't cut. All five girls were cut, who remembers being told | :24:52. | :24:59. | |
she was going to buy sweets. TRANSLATION: There is no need to be | :25:00. | :25:02. | |
angry with her mother. It was a widespread prat is, and we should | :25:03. | :25:08. | |
not be angry with her. `` practice. We should be angry with the people | :25:09. | :25:15. | |
in the region. FGM is now falling in Kurdistan, but from what I have | :25:16. | :25:20. | |
seen, the country still scarred this ancient tradition. From grandmothers | :25:21. | :25:25. | |
who feel wronged by the change in the law, to girls angry at being | :25:26. | :25:29. | |
mutilated. And others, who are neither did what they thought was | :25:30. | :25:32. | |
right, and cannot undo the damage done in the name of tradition. | :25:33. | :26:18. | |
We wouldn't normally start our look at the weather by jumping nearly 48 | :26:19. | :26:23. | |
hours ahead, but then the prospects for the late Sunday and Monday are | :26:24. | :26:26. | |
quite far from normal for the British | :26:27. | :26:27. |