Their stories - Jaha Dukureh
Born in The Gambia and sent to the United States at 15 for an arranged marriage, Jaha Dukureh was too young to remember her FGM procedure but she has never been able to shake the feeling that something is not quite right.
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Jaha was just a week old when she was infibulated. Infibulation, or type 3 female genital mutilation (FGM), entails narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal. The seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the inner, or outer, labia, with or without removal of the clitoris.
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“I’m not whole. I’m not intact. Something was taken away from me,” she says. Jaha was at the United Nations this week to share her story on the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. Marked every year on 6 February, the Day aims to raise awareness of the risks of FGM, with this year’s theme focused on urging health workers to mobilize against the “medicalization” of the deeply harmful practice.
“Women don’t need to be mutilated in order for them to stay virgins and I don’t think we’re unclean if we don’t go through FGM,” Jaha says. “For girls who have not gone through FGM, they’re seen as unclean, not fit to be in the same room with women who have gone through FGM. They even go as far as to say they stink when they walk into a room. It’s discrimination, basically. We’re telling women they’re not clean because a part of their body is not cut.”