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Their stories - Aissa Edon

Aissa Edon was just six years old when her stepmother took her and her one-year-old sister to get a goodbye present to mark her leaving Mali. The "gift" was female genital mutilation (FGM). At least that's how Aissa thinks her stepmother saw it.

Aissa now works as a midwife in London, specialising in helping women who have undergone FGM. She spoke to the BBC's Smitha Mundasad for the World Service radio programme, Global Midwives - part of the 100 Women series.

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"Unfortunately I remember everything," she said of the moment she was cut.

"I can remember the place, I can remember the smells. I can remember the shouting.

"And I remember the pain."

"When you hear the shouting you think it is someone else but then you realise it was your own shouting."

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Aissa did not say much about her childhood, but soon after she underwent FGM, she left Mali for France and was adopted. As she started life in her new country she had to deal with the complications of being cut. She had frequent urine infections and constant pain - like a knife stabbing her - every day until she was 23 years old.

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