Fuambai Ahmadu, co-founder of African Women Are Free to Choose, and Nimco Ali, co-founder of Daughters of Eve HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk. I am Stephen Sackur. You could call it female

circumcision, cutting, or female genital mutilation. Whatever the

label, it is spreading. When US President Barack Obama

visited Kenya in 2015, he spoke out against the continued practice

of female genital mutilation in He said that FGM has

"no place in the 21st century." But are there cultural arguments

for the practice to continue? Fuambai Ahmadu and Nimco Ali,

welcome to HARDtalk Mark. We will have a discussion which is sensitive

and challenging, but it is important. We are talking about what

happens to millions of girls and women around the world. I want to

begin by getting both of you to describe your personal, first-hand

experiences, of what we are calling FGM. Could you begin by telling me

what happens to you. -- happened. I will say that it is not a term I

would use for myself, FGM. I am not mutilated in any way whatsoever. It

is a part of female initiation ceremonies in Sierra Leone where I

am originally from. I experienced, or came to know, about it in Sierra

Leone when I was a girl. It is celebrated there. It brings a lot of

joy to families, women take over the town, as the little girl I

associated with with empowerment. -- it with. They do all kinds of crazy

things, the man have to stay away. -- they call it Bundu. I was always

excited about it. When we moved to the US, of course, it isn't talk

about. Maybe older women would talk about it. But always in terms of

empowerment. When I was already in college in Washington, DC, 21 years

old, my last year in college, my mother and grandmother and aunt

approached me and said they would like to take us for a Bundu. At the

time we did not associated with any sort of cutting, we didn't know

about FGM, we just thought it was an amazing practice about women and

controlled by women. I was happy and delighted. I had been waiting for it

all my life. I had an older aunt, a few years older than me, she had the

option and learnt a few things about it and opted out. A younger sister,

is old, and a cousin as well, we all travelled together. You were in your

early 20s? She was eight years old. And you were both cut? I was already

in college. I had some sense, but not the extent of what was actually

going to happen. It is more than just cutting. There is more involved

than just that. But certainly, circumcision or cutting is a key

aspect of that I had not anticipated. Zoella the initial

stage I certainly experience something extremely painful and

horrific I had not prepared for. -- So, in the. There was culture shock.

I did experience that kind of... Well, discomfort is an

understatement. Yeah, an understatement. You said before that

you do not accept the phrase the margin is in -- female genital

mutilation. But it seems to fit the definition according to the

dictionary. If we are getting details about what happens during

the cutting operation it would seem to me to fit that description of

mutilation. I disagree. It does take place. I wasn't deprived of

anything. I went through a type 2 excision of the exposed clitoral

glans. In terms of the sexual function, I was already sexually

active prior to the initiation. I came back, resumed relations with my

boyfriend at the time. There was absolutely no difference. If I

may... In my sexual experience. 84 that. I will. There. -- Thank you

for that. I want to hear your experience. We have heard of women

oriented expression. What is your experience of. I do respect a

survivor to refine her experience however she likes. -- experience.

You acknowledged the pain, but you cannot replace the celebration

context you have within your community and culture. For me,

ultimately, I had FGM at seven. Where were you? Djibouti in East

Africa. I was on holidays at the time. It was something that was...

It came out of the blue. Nothing was spoken about in my family or

community. I had no knowledge of it. I thought it was one of the

stupidest things to ever happen, as a seven-year-old. Sorry to

interrupt. Do you remember specifically the pain and fear and

trauma? The confusion was the key thing. The pain was not as painful

as after the act was carried out. That was after. The next few days.

What scarred me and the interest in terms of the campaign and the work I

started to do... I came back to the UK where my teacher, in her

goodwill, tried to explain this to me, saying this is what happens, the

dismissal, that I was like any other girl. -- good will. I hear what you

are saying, but I cannot agree it can be celebrated or be empowering.

The experiences are so different. I want to pick them a little bit. You

had the operation, the cutting procedure, in your early 20s.

Consent for you if something you can give, as an adult. Exactly. But as

for Nimco, US Open, you did not even know what it meant. -- you were

seven. Exactly. My auntie had done the research and new what was going

to happen so she had opted out. -- knew. Informed consent cannot be

applied. Even for an adult. I completely see it as stupid. They

can never be consent to an act of violence like this. -- There. I

think from is a very painful thing to deal with, especially when you

are trying to beat a cultural identity. For someone to tell you

that you need to do is to be African, it is problematic. -- pick.

-- icon. If I tried to explain to my foyer roll to Nice in 20 years time

that she has to cut herself, that is a warrant. -- neice that in. --

abhorrent. You now live in the UK? I still have family on the continent.

One of the most powerful conversations I had about Jason

identity was with a former from Burkina Faso. -- minister. --

chosen. We cannot have this conversation. I agree with certain

things you are saying so beyond the issue of informed consent,

certainly, at the time I was going I had some inclination. -- saying. My

auntie believed this narrative about mutilation that I had not

encountered. In a sense, yes, I did not give informed consent. But if my

mother and grandmother were to come to me today with all of my knowledge

and extensive knowledge and extensive research, I would do it

again as an adult. That is not how consent works. It is at the point of

doing it. If it could heal you could cut again with the consent and

knowledge that you have. But the fact it has occurred, the old and is

gone... It isn't. That is another misconception is obligated to send

is gone. -- the organ is gone. -- misconception. Subjective experience

matters. For instance, yes, I did experience an. But I cannot dismiss

the fact that I took a mirror and was expecting to see disfigurement

when I first had it. -- pain. I was surprised and pleased at the

athletic results. -- aesthetic. Is has improved my life sexually. It

hasn't hampered my sexual relations with my partner at the time. -- It

has. How is that mutilation? That is your experience. This is the same

conversation but we have changed the word mutilation to cutting. It is an

act of violence... , interrupted. -- can I interrupted. I want to look at

it in a way that I can reflect on the campaign you are running right

now, Daughters of Eve, it is primarily driven by activists in

Western countries that are extremely keen to send a message to those

countries where FGM is most common, in Africa... I disagree. Ultimately

the campaign and the movement and the courage that I use comes from

the African country itself. We are doing them a disadvantage in saying

that it is not women leading this campaign. The defacing of Eve...

That is where the term comes from. She wrote about her FGM and the

seven-year-old, how horrible that was. She fought against it. There

are thousands of women across Africa that are leading the conversation.

Let me quote a Nigerian doctor who said this, speaking as a major in,

criminalising our customers is dangerous and otherwise. --

Nigerian. This is a female-led conversation, and the

criminality... It is a female. There is evidence that is very unclear.

Women who have been circumcised, for the most part, support and celebrate

this practice. We have to accept that. In terms of Western

interpretations or outsiders who see it as horrific... Women, for the

most part, who have experienced it, see it as something positive. Our

culture interprets it very differently. It is not about

violence against women or gender-based violence. In Sierra

Leone mail on the Mao circumcision is seen as parallel. -- male and

female. But in the long run there are no health complications for the

male who is circumcised, but women, you have to accept this, research

evidence shows there are long-term problems, infections, you're an area

problems, childbirth problems, for the mother and newborn, all

connected to the procedure. -- urinary. The UN shows that.

Actually, most of that information come from activists. I have worked

with colleagues who are physicians who are scholars, health scholars,

anthropologists, and we published a paper in 2012. The media doesn't

cover this, it only covers the work of the activists and the WHO, they

published a public policy advisory in bioethics journal in the US and

looked at all of the literature that covers various forms of female

circumcision. It looked at the ones that were considered good quality

research, in that they had control groups, so women who are not

circumcised, and for the most part we found that there are hardly any

differences in terms of obstetric outcomes. I don't... I think this is

the same kind of rubbish from certain organisations who sit down

with male cutters, and that ends the conversation. There are up people in

places like Senator where this has been going on for years and there

has only been a 20% drop. My key thing is that the numbers of deaths

is something we cannot make up. In Egypt, where 91% of women are cut,

and 72% of them are radicalised, people are dying on a day-to-day

basis. What are the numbers? One key factor is that there was a

13-year-old girl who died in 2012. The doctor was not prosecuted.

Surely... Let me get back to you... You have consistently talked about

forms of cutting court FGM that are not the most extreme forms. But we

know according to the UN, I think they call it the type three... Which

mainly occurs in the Horn of Africa. Right, but it involves

hundreds of thousands of women, and for our audiences who don't know the

details, it is an extreme form of FGM, which involves not just

excision but also then sewing up the area around the vagina. It is a

fundamental reshaping, making sexual relations impossible. When I'm

talking about healthcare issues, that form of FGM, which precludes

sexual activity until it is undone, and then makes childbirth

extraordinarily difficult, are you saying that is acceptable? I am

saying that there are increased risks or convocations with type

three, which probably occurs in about 10% of cases in sub Saharan

Africa. The vast majority... So that is hundreds of thousands of women.

Do you regard that as unacceptable? Type three? I think a woman can

consent to type three. If a woman wanted it... If you have Western

women who are undergoing... We have had this discussion already. I

disagree with the fact that an adult woman cannot choose to have an

operation. I'm not going to sit here and say that one form is worse than

the other. What about female genital cosmetic surgery? Until the anti-

FGM campaigners start including what Western women do. The first... I'm

very open about... This takes away autonomy from African women, and yet

assuming that Western women can make those decisions. If I may, does it

make a difference when four example President Barack Obama goes to Kenya

and he says, quite openly, that FGM in his words is a bad tradition, it

continues to second-class status of women, and in his words, it has no

place in the 21st century. When the most powerful leaders in the West go

to Africa and say those things, does it make a difference in your view? I

think in terms of solidarity with the African movement, I'm not... I

do think that Obama was doing it from an African heritage

perspective. I do agree with the fact that it makes them a

second-class citizen. You make the point that male circumcision and

female cutting could be similar, but where other women in leadership it

comes to them being initiated? I think when FGM happens it is the

first form of oppression that happens to women, so domestic

violence and rape and all these things are legitimised because of

FGM. When we look at the African continent, for me this is one of

those things that is meant to break it down, then society picks out the

bits that they need from you. In the end it is not your intelligence or

power, you are sexual object. I object to that, and it was women of

the African continent who went to the UN and ask for a ban. I don't

think anyone can consent to any form of this. I want you to address the

claim that many people make, African women as well as women from outside

Africa, that there is a fundamental patriarchy at work in many of the

communities and the People's who still use FGM as prevalent practice

for young girls. I categorically disagreed. This is ignoring the

culture. To come to that conclusion you have to ignore the culture

itself. In a place at Sierra Leone, where you have male and female

initiation, where you have women in positions of vertical power, --

political power, where the structures are gendered, where the

process of e-mail initiation is comp entry to the process of male

initiation. In Sierra Leone is about creating sets, not about oppression.

This is associated with femininity, and removing that masculine eyes as

the male child. In female circumcision, it is the external

lands that are associated with masculinity. Where you have... It is

a dual sex society. I am wondering why so many societies are outlawing

this? Because they are eight dependent, because we have many

activist associations that ignore the empirical evidence, and a

Thai... Scion it is the internal struggle... They Thai internal aid

to policies... The hands of the governments are tied. They are paid

dependent. So they pass these laws. What about the people who died in

order to fight... They pass laws and they don't implement them. Vine can

I dare say... If FGM were such an amazing thing that everyone agreed

with it, as soon as I started to speak it was the first time I ever

got their threats. I get death threats as well. Before we close, I

want to ask a personal question. Do either of you have daughters? I have

nieces and a son, who is circumcised. I didn't flinch, at

three days old. As a comparison... I want to stick with females. Your

nieces may have daughters themselves. Do you want them to see

this perpetuated through the next generation and the next and the one

after that? As far as you are concerned it should be a constant? I

would love to see girls being given the opportunity that I had at an age

where they can consent to uphold the culture and custom, a tradition that

we value as women. At what age? The age of consent can vary from country

to country. It can be 18. Right now, most girls in most countries where

it is prevalent are cut under the age of five. I think girls should be

allowed, my personal view is that girls should be allowed to wait,

especially with more invasive forms of the surgery, types to and three,

type 1 is equivalent to male circumcision. It is not equivalent

to male circumcision. I do believe that girls should be able to consent

to the practice. That would be a fundamental change from the status

quo today. I think women are like me who would opt for the practice

because they value it in the same way that I do. You have nieces as

well, and your conviction is that you are winning this argument? I

know for a fact that they would be cut and in FGM fleet will hopefully

be eliminated. There will not be the visual practice of it on the

continent or in the world globally. I do believe that should include

labia fusty. We have to wend their, thank you both for being on HARDtalk

-- we have two and there. We saw quite a variety of weather

across the UK to end the weekend. Some of us saw some sunshine,

at least, for a while.