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ABIGAIL RAN AWAY from home when she was 13 when her parents wanted her to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM). She was scared because a girl in the neighbourhood had died from excessive bleeding the day before Abigail was due to be cut. She found safety at an ActionAid-funded safe house in Kongelai, Kenya. And encouraged her friend Purity, 13, to come there a year later when Purity too was at risk of FGM.
“It wasn’t difficult to make the decision to run away,” Abigail told us. “FGM was just like death because of the bleeding. Then, there are also some of the things that come after it. After FGM, I would get married off and could have complications during child birth. So it is just something that is equal to death for me. “So running away was an easy decision, because if I die on the way, it wouldn’t be any different.”
ActionAid is changing, and this month we are launching a new international strategy, based on supporting people-led efforts to end poverty, injustice and gender inequality.
Evolving our approach
Fundamentally we see poverty and injustice not just as intolerable, but preventable.
ActionAid has always been innovative and has evolved its approach. We were one of the first international non-governmental organisations to shift power to country offices and to move our head office to the global south – since 2004 our international headquarter has been in South Africa.
From the beginning we have sought to end poverty, not only through providing direct relief to those who need it most, but with a long-term mission to tackle the structural causes of poverty and injustice.
The positive changes our supporters are helping make happen are very evident in Kongelai, for girls like Abigail and Purity. Incidences of FGM have decreased there by 27% because of ActionAid’s work (funded by Irish Aid and with support from Ireland). We have provided safe shelter such as that Purity and Abigail used, and provided practical help to girls to stay in school.
The world has changed since 1972
The world has changed since 1972, when ActionAid was first founded as a charity. There are hundreds of millions fewer people in poverty worldwide today, but the impact of climate change could reverse this progress. Many countries are witnessing increased deregulation, dismantling of social protections and privatising crucial public services. And amidst all this, people are organising, defending and claiming their rights.
Social movements and alliances are mobilising to challenge rising inequalities. Crises are opening up space for change, but the struggle to occupy that for public good rather than private or corporate gain is ongoing.
There is growing acknowledgement that many, if not all, social justice issues are interconnected. Our work on the ground has shown that women’s leadership is vital in humanitarian emergencies, women often being best placed to support their families and the communities around them.
It’s evident that public services, like education for our children or street lights to help women stay safe in cities, need to be financed by robust tax systems that don’t give powerful people and corporations a free ticket.
We firmly believe that now is a critical time for social justice. With all of the progress made worldwide, we must keep up our momentum; which is both our strength and our proof that change is possible.
Social justice, gender equality and poverty eradication are achieved through individual and collective action. Active and organised people develop and drive change; which will transform power when it is led by those who are directly affected, and by people committed to deepening democracy and achieving social justice.
A catalyst and a contributor
ActionAid is both a catalyst and a contributor to social change processes. We support people like Abigail and Purity to make changes in their own lives. Essentially to raise awareness of their rights and come together to achieve those rights.
In our work, we have witnessed countless examples of how lasting change happens when people living in poverty come together to claim and enjoy their rights. From fisherfolk in Cambodia achieving access and control over the mangroves that would otherwise be grabbed by international companies, to women in many parts of the world, coming together to claim their right to safety in cities and achieving changes from lighting to patrolling or safe public transport. From young people organising to claim their rights to democracy in The Gambia, to young activists coming together to denounce corruption in Uganda.
With our new international strategy, Action for Global Justice, we will as never before connect such struggles so together we can confront the deep causes of injustice and to change power relations and ensure the priorities of the many are not precluded by the few.
We owe it to girls like Abigail and Purity to give them the best chance in life.
Siobhán McGee is CEO of ActionAid Ireland.
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Not a single criminal conviction in this country for over 4,000 recorded cases of FGM.
@Beachmaster: Yo
@bopter: sorry was about to say you can’t catch them in the act, so the solution is to prosecute the parents when they turn up in hospital after it goes wrong. Unfortunately this would then put the parents off going to hospital, and the victim is badly affected even more.
@Beachmaster: yes because religion has an odd fascination with children’s genitalia. And you cant criticise religion
@Beachmaster: we are not allowed (by the PC Taliban)to “impose our values” on these wonderful people who “contribute so much to our society “
@Beachmaster:
Excellent Post, Beachmaster. Whether or not your figure is precisely accurate, it is a good estimate, if we calculate proportionally on the basis of the reported figures. There must be at minimum several hundred FGMs in Ireland every year.
Yet the state does nothing. Children in primary schools get a doctor’s exam at least once a year, unless things have changed since my time. How many doctors have carried out the necessary exam, female doctors if necessary? Or school nurses?
Not one prosecution. Not a word form the women’s lobbyists, National Council for Women, Immigrant Council of Ireland,. Sinn Fein etc etc. Disgusting.
@Joseph Rooney
Missed two words:
“if we calculate proportionally on the basis of the reported figures. in Britain”.:
Ireland still allows MGM / circumcision for non-medical reasons. Not as brutal as FGM but still completely unnecessary and a ridiculous superstitious practice. Ban both of them.
@bopter: we pretty much allow fgm aswell. 100s of cases no prosecutions.
@bopter: first in with the comment and all. Congratulations!
Something horrible happens to women where they literally die, but let’s listen to how terrible it is for men.
This shouldn’t NEED to be said but here I am saying it anyway: you know, you can just show sympathy & support for ending FGM and it won’t diminish the need to end MGM …?
Yes babies shouldn’t be maimed against their will unless medically necessary- but jeez can you not take over every space with your “BUT WHAT ABOUT MEN”
Ughhhhhh I despair
@Abbi Cranky: they can’t seem to help wanting to insert themselves into everything. Such bloody fragile egos. I too despair.
@bopter: “Not as brutal” is putting it mildly. They’re really not comparable. MGM should be banned, obviously, but I don’t think it’s unfair to say that FGM is a bigger problem.
@Veronica: considering there are a lot less articles about male health is it any wonder males have to comment on female health related articles
@Abbi Cranky: Males die too: http://www.cirp.org/news/irishexaminer08-21-03a/
@Barrys Tea: so of course that means that a conversation about girls can’t remain about girls.
@Veronica: Good to see you and Abbi are despairing, ye both obviously hate men with a vengeance. Nobody is looking for parody for barbaric or was that a Freudian slip about us men when you wrote ” they can’t seem to help wanting to insert themselves into everything. Such bloody fragile egos. I too despair”? Get a life please just for the sake of us men.
@Jho Harris: yes Veronica and Abbey…get a life…do it for the men. Haha!
Why are we talking about men here again?
@Dearbhla Russell: Because I am a man and I don’t know how to represent women, I am proud to say that I am not in touch with that side of my brain. I respect women but not all of them as you can imagine.
@Jho Harris: i can indeed imagine Jho ;)
@bopter: there’s evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection by 60% according to WHO.
http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en/
MGM vs FGM – there’s no comparison.
All Governments need to be proactive in the matter of the mutilation of teenagers who have been made citizens of their countries. The dangerous period for these teens is during school holidays when they are brought to ‘visit’ their/ their parents’ birth countries. The detection of those teens who have been taken under false circumstances from the country they live in to be abused in another jurisdiction and consequently their parent’s prosecution should be a priority for all civilized Governments.
FGM is a horrible act. Male circumcision in parts of South Africa occurs in initiation schools. The boys must survive for a month in the bush, many die. These practices seem to be associated with religion based superstitions.
@Micheal S. O’ Ceilleachair:
Nothing to do with Catholicism, That’s one slur you can’t throw.
All across Europe this horror is perpetrated on young girls to control the female sexual urge. You see it does not do for a young woman who is betrothed to some hairy pervert to get ideas about running of with a male of her own choosing. So FMG.is used as the tool to stop all sexual urges . There are many horrendous consequences attached to this for the Female, but surely the most horrid one is that when she is giving birth this procedure has to be reversed, and when the birthing is over she is sewn up again.
The savages who participate in this barbarity do not belong in any Country in Europe and should be prosecuted and removed from general society. In Britian thousands of these procedures are carried out every year and as yet not as much as one person has been prosecuted. I do not have any figures on Europe or Ireland but one can be sure it is also happening in both places. In America the much maligned Donald Trump has stated this will not be allowed to happen, and his administration is prosecuting the people who perform this atrocity and also going after the parents who present their children for this procedure. This is the way to tackle this problem, but the problem here in Ireland and all across Europe is the politicos are too cowardly to open their mouths when the religion of peace is involved.
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