Aida Dieng is determined that the young women in her family will not have to go through the horrific experience of Female Genital Mutilation like she had to at the age of eight. Photo: Christian Aid/Louise Orton.
'There were about ten of us between the ages of eight and 15. We were very distressed. Some of the girls were screaming.'

She feels so strongly about this that she now accompanies the female staff from Christian Aid partner Africa Network for Integrated Development (RADI), who go out into communities to try and discourage this harmful practice.

FGM in which parts of the female genital organs are removed - is mainly practised in Africa but also in some Asian and Middle eastern countries. According to the World Health Organisation between 100-130 million young girls and women have undergone this practice, which is based on cultural and not religious beliefs.

It is widespread in Senegal, especially with the Fulani and Toucouleur people in the north of the country.

Although the Senegalese government banned FGM in 1999 - thanks to pressure from RADI and other organisations – the practice still continues.

When Aida Dieng attended a group discussion on FGM in Thies organised by RADI, some of the women became angry. They said it was an important part of their cultural tradition and demanded to know how the women from RADI could criticise what they had never experienced.

That’s when Aida stood up and gave her testimony.

She said: ‘I will never forget it. I was eight at the time. We had to lie down on a cloth. There was no anaesthetic. A woman who I didn’t know just made the cut. There were about ten of us between the ages of eight and 15. We were very distressed. Some of the girls were screaming.

‘One haemorrhaged and her dress was covered in blood. She fainted and lost consciousness.

‘Once we had been cut, the women covered our wounds with the sap from a plant called Tabanani in Wolof’.

She added: ‘After this the women boiled sheep dung, put it in a plastic bowl and when it cooled down we had to sit in it’.

Aida didn’t suffer any long-term effects but her niece had serious problems.

Aida explains: ‘After her wedding my niece and her husband tried to have sex but it wasn’t possible as her vagina was stuck together. They tried several times but in the end she just fainted with the pain’.

Thousands of women, like Aida’s niece, suffer painful sexual intercourse and many of them find it impossible to conceive. Women can also suffer complications in childbirth and chronic infections,

Sitting at home in Thies, surrounded by her family, Aida explained with quiet determination: ‘I could keep quiet about it but it is important for me to speak out. Everybody should know what it entails before they go through with it or force anyone else to do it.’

Oulimata Gaye, coordinator of RADI’s Legal Literacy programme said: ‘This demeaning practice is harmful for women’s physical and mental health but it is very difficult to fight against it. Women do not want to discuss it in groups’. But she added: ‘RADI won’t be discouraged. We will continue to advocate against FGM and try and reduce the amount of suffering women face because of it’.