Lisa-Marie: Wonderful women. Hello. Welcome to the first FiLiA webinar. Hibo is just joining us, she’s just getting onto a computer now, so I thought what I'd do in the meantime is just welcome you all and just do some quick housekeeping. So I'm Lisa-Marie, and I'm the CEO of FiLiA. FiLiA is a women's rights organisation and we have three aims: one is to build sisterhood and solidarity, one is to amplify the voices of women, and one is to defend women's human rights. 

As part of our work in Portsmouth, which is where we are this year, we're having the largest annual women's rights conference in Europe in Portsmouth in 2021. As part of our work, I've moved here and we are putting in place the FiLiA Legacy Project, and this is involving speaking to local women's groups. And local women's groups said that they wanted a book group and we've set that up and the first book we're looking at is Cut with Hibo Wardere and she'll be joining us in a moment. So I'm just going to go through the housekeeping, so you are all in listen only mode, which is a bit strange.

I know you're there, but I can't hear you. I'd love to see and hear you. Your cameras and microphones have been automatically switched off. That's just so that we can hear Hibo better. And there are no interruptions. But we do really, really welcome your participation. So if you look at the top right hand corner of your screen, what you'll see is a chat function, and that's open for discussion. So if you put anything into the chat function, then everybody who is on this call can see that. The other one is a Q&A panel, and the Q&A panel is if you've got any questions for Hibo. We've had a couple sent in, which is great, but if you have any additional questions, if something springs to mind during the talk, then stick it into the Q&A panel and we will do our best to fit all of those questions in at the end. What else do I have to say? Oh, I want to say a big thank you. I want to say a huge thank you to the attendees. I can see you. Hello, Ute. Thank you for all the work that you've put in. I was going to also say thank you to the Cross-Cultural Women's Group. Hey Hibo!

Hibo: Hello! Finally, we made it. 

Lisa-Marie: So what I'm gonna do is say thank you to Hibo for joining us. I met Hibo in Manchester in 2018 at the FiLiA Conference, and it was mind blowing because what Hibo did was she walked in, and she took up the stage. She owned the stage in front of nearly a thousand women, and it was just beautiful to watch.  It was beautiful to hear her, her passion, and it was just wonderful, absolutely wonderful. And women just adored her and women got engaged and involved in the issue of FGM. So Hibo is a Somalian-born campaigner against female genital mutilation, and she's been described as an inspiring and relentless advocate and I would wholeheartedly agree with that.

And as well as her advocacy work, she's a public speaker. She helps at her local food bank, which is where she was running from today, to join all of us. Thank you Hibo. And she's of course, an author of this important book that we're going to be talking about today, Cut: One Woman's Fight Against FGM in Britain Today. So welcome, Hibo.

And I wanted to say that the United Nations, just setting the scene for a moment, the United Nations estimates – and it's actually gone up since your book Hibo – estimates that 200 million women and girls have undergone some form of FGM across 30 countries. But as Hibo importantly points out in her book, there is nowhere on the face of the earth that is not a risk for girls, and there's an eight per cent mortality rate, which I actually didn't know until I read your book Hibo. The United Nations and the World Health Organization does recognise FGM as a violation of the human rights of women and girls. But before we explore your book Hibo, I think it's important just to clarify for the audience what it is we're talking about when we say female genital mutilation.

So, a really simple question to start with, but a very, very important one actually. So what is FGM? 

Hibo: Hi Lisa. Thank you so much for the beautiful introduction. Thank you, FiLiA for always, always being a massive support and taking every step with me. Thank you so much. Manchester was brilliant. Manchester was beautiful.

I remember leaving Manchester literally on a high dose of women united. It was just gorgeous to be there. 

In terms of talking about FGM, FGM stands for female genital mutilation. There's other names known for it, names like female genital cutting, female genital cut, or female genital circumcision. Under the WHO, they have many types written on it, but they specify, specifically, three types, which are the most common. Type one is called the clitoridectomy, it’s either the total or partial removal of the clitoris. Type two is called excision. Again it’s either total or partial removal of the clitoris, plus some of the labia majora is removed. 

Type three is called the infibulation. It's the worst type where everything is removed. Your clitoris is gone, labia majora, labia minora, both vagina lips in and out is gone. Whatever skin is left is pulled together, stitched up, or if your cutter does not have threads to stich you up, they will use stones to bring, to pierce from one side to the other. The whole idea of type three is to almost seal you up, leave you with a tiny hole like a tip of a match stick. Well, that's the hole where you're supposed to wee, you're supposed to, you know, have your periods, have sex and, you know, give birth from. 

And type four is to do with all non-medical procedures like piercing, pricking, cauterisation, all those things. In some communities do use piercing as a symbol of mutilation. So it's quite different to the western type of piercing to the ones that countries that practise FGM. So those are the types of FGM that are most commonly talked about. 

Lisa-Marie: Thank you Hibo. I think listening to you Hibo, I think it’s absolutely right that FGM is classified as a human rights violation and a form of child abuse. It sounds utterly, just very traumatic, and I think you relay that very well in the book too.

You talk in your book about the fact that there are various justifications given for the practice of FGM, but you explicitly state at one point that FGM is carried out in the name of men. And that one thing in common between all women and girls who endure FGM is the pain. I'd like if possible, if you're okay with it, to give us a sense of why you think the practice of FGM is carried out.

Hibo: So the root of it, if you look at the root of it, is actually to do with sexually controlling us. It's to do with making girls – first of all, if I talk about my own community, they say when they're removing your clitoris is to remove your sexual ardour. So they do know they're disrupting your sexual functions.

Second, sealing is to do with you not having to go and have the physical act itself. So there are two things going on there, but in some other communities will say it's to do with cleanliness. Some will say the clitoris will grow into a penis. Some will say, actually, if she gives birth and she's got the clitoris and the baby's head touches the clitoris while she is having a baby, she could die or the mother dies, so they're removing because of that. 

Some is to do with, what do you call it, it’s “undesirable”. The woman looks undesirable if she's got her labia and all the clitoris, she looks undesirable. They're removing that. But the whole point, the whole point of that when you talk to the communities and you go into it deeper, is all about controlling women and girls’ sexuality, it’s simple as that.

The root of it is that most of it is to preserve you. 99% of it’s preservation of women, girls preserved for the future partner, whoever that might be. It's to do with control. So this is what they're doing. They're controlling your body from the day that you were born. They're making decisions. They're making decisions to who you're going to marry. You become a commodity and asset actually, in some communities if you have undergone FGM your dowry goes higher, which means you really are a commodity and asset for your community. So it is crazy. 

There was a whole programme in – Kate did in BBC. She went to a village in Kenya where they were saying we're not mutilating girls. And within a day she found out, within a day, 350 girls were mutilated. What was staggering about that programme was how the whole community was, you know, benefiting from her. She went to the tailor who said, if girls are not cut, I'm gonna lose business. This is the time that I make most of my income because I'm making new dresses for the girls who were cut.

The herders, you know, the goatherds and you know, livestock sellers were saying, this is the time the families come and buy, because they're celebrating a girl becoming a woman because she's been cut. So he's benefiting from that. The chief of that village was saying the whole thing is happening in my house, which means no police, nothing can come. He's getting money from that. So it's the whole community that was literally depending on girl being cut, once a year. I mean, her pain is benefiting everybody else. 

So it is to do with that. It is, but most importantly is to do with controlling women and girls and the root of it, it's preservation for a man. Typically, you are kept for a man. Simple as that. Nothing else. It's nothing about you, nothing about your life, nothing about that. It’s about the future man that you don't even know who the hell that is. It's all about him. You as your life doesn't matter that much. 

Lisa-Marie: And I think something that struck me in the book was your statement that FGM is a complete denial of womanhood. I thought that was a very, very powerful statement in the book. So if we move to the book now, I think what struck me, it's a book dealing with a very serious subject, and it's a book of many themes. Brimming with defiance, but interspersed with moments of pure joy and laughter, I would say, as well as compassion and solidarity, which we'll come to later in our discussion.

But for now, one of the themes that struck me, particularly as a feminist, is that of the relationship between females. So throughout the book, it's made clear that the community you grew up in was primarily one of women, with men playing quite a peripheral role actually, and you speak of being brought up, fed, bathed, and put to bed by women who are absolutely central to the community. But overlaying those trusted relationships is this blanket of secrecy, coercion and betrayal are words that are used in your book. So can we explore the impact that FGM has on these really close, interdependent relationships between women in the community? 

Hibo: So the women are, the women that I grew up with mostly were my aunt, my mother, who's my mother and my auntie's extended family. We usually live in extended families, and if you look at the demographic or the families, the communities that, you know, subject the girls to FGM, they live like that. They have extended families that live together. For me, it was, as a child, it was very interesting to see. We were always with the females, not with the males.

There was a clear segregation between the males and the females. Always they were, when it came to eating, you ate with the females. When you went shopping, you went with the females. You did not mix up with the males. Even as soon as you hit adult puberty, 13, 14 of years age, you and your, you know, your extended family members who are male, are separated completely, utterly separated.

So they dine and stay with the men, and you stay with the women. The thing that I watched and I really didn't like was how they were all into their cooking, their cleaning, their every, they were the backbone of the whole thing. Men, what they did, was wake up, eat, go, come back, eat, go to sleep. That's it. Go work.

But everything else, that was to do with the cleaning, with the constant cooking of nonstop cooking, constant, you know, bringing people, as ... It's a very, very, what'd you call it, very welcoming communities where people just keep on bringing others. Your father could meet somebody in the market, they become friends, he brings them home to eat. So it's constant, constant. I looked at it as if like they were just 24/7 maids. That's what I looked at it because, that's all they did, cook and clean. And I just found that to be very much, oppressive at that  young age. I used to question my mother constantly and asking her, why is it like this? Why is it always you doing? Why are you? 

And she'll always tell me, no, men … they put men up there, they put men to be on the pedestal. They were the kings of the house. They [the women] were simply servant. That's how I see it. Servant that did everything for them and the men just came and did what they wanted and left. And that was it. For me, I just found it to be so unjust, I felt like I want to work. I used to challenge my mother, say, I want to go and be policewoman, this one. And she will be shocked that I even uttered those words out and she tried to nurture me into, you know, accepting the role that she's designing for me, the role that she's actually nurturing me to be in, copywriter, which I never wanted that.

So for me as a young age, I always looked differently to other girls. I don’t know, maybe I was weird. I don't know. I just felt surely that's not the life that I want where I'm constantly the second or the third or whatever, the fourth class in the society. I didn't want that. What is so staggering about that is how the women accepted that role, how they thrived on that role, how they treasured that role was quite staggering. And, for them, it was okay to do what they did. It was okay to accept that, it was okay to continue. 

But the continuance of the subjecting the young girls to what they've been subjected to is something that I, even today as a grown woman, I can't still put it together on why would you want that? That that was something that you've experienced affected your life? Why would you want that for your own daughter? Then I look at it, it's something that has been normalised. It's something that they made a part of life. It has, it's embedded in everyday life and when, you know, no one else, you know, complains about it, no one else says about it, the whole society is in cahoot of controlling girls in however way they can, no one is going to be against that. And no one is going to stand up. And no one is going to be the one who's going to be subjected to, you know, segregation and, you know, social death and economical death that they will be facing. No one wants to, you know, experience that.

And I think this is why, and especially in my community, for 3000 years, it just continues now, 3000 years. The death that occurred is unbelievable. The amount of women and girls have died in 3000 years, is unbelievable, but they keep on, you know, going on with it. 

Lisa-Marie: Thinking about those relationships between women, I was again, particularly struck by how open you were about – Maryam, I think you're absolutely right, Maryam has written “women are to nurture and not to speak up against men”, I think you're absolutely right – On a more personal level, Hibo, the relationship between a mother who most likely will have been cut herself and her daughter, in your book, I think conveys very well actually the deep sense of changing feelings that you have to navigate towards your own mother.

And at one stage of your life, these were intense feelings of love, “I loved my mother more than anything in the world”. And you state firmly that nothing bad could happen to you under her care. And later, quite powerful opposite feelings of betrayal and even hate. And you see her at that point in your life as a fake and a fraud.

And my question is, how did you begin to navigate the complexities of this relationship and to reach a place of peace, which you did in the end? 

Hibo: I think growing up, things drastically changed that fateful morning, everything changed for me. It was like you were there, you were nurtured, you were loved. You can feel their love, even through the butchery that just happened to you, you can still feel the love. It was, the two didn't match for me. After that, it didn't match. It didn't match that you can be so nurturing, so loving that you are my world, and then the next minute you subjected me to that. It was two worlds that collided really bad and the outcome of that was million pieces of shattering, happening everywhere.

And I could not, I'm just only six years old. How am I supposed to, you know, combine that, I couldn't, all I could do was never look in the eye, never give that eye contact. Never, you know, I was a very affectionate young child because that is how my mother made me. She was extremely affectionate person, It was then I don't want to be affectionate. I don't, you can hug me, but I'm not going to  hug you back. It was a lot of things I will look at and I'll think, do you know how much pain you caused me – I'm talking in my head – do you know what happened? Why are you not discussing this what happened? We always discussed, she encouraged me to discuss everything with her, and all of a sudden when this happened, there was no discussion. There was no communication. 

Everything was cut off, and for me it was like How dare you? How dare you? You did that. How dare you? You just went away. I felt like you went away. You died from me. What happened? You were everything to me. Why do I have these feelings that I can't stand anything anymore? I can't trust any adults, I can't … I was in a complete state of not understanding my feelings as a young child. Then I grew up with that and my feelings got even worse and worse. My anger got higher and I just felt like what was done to me was evil. I literally came into that stand. Everything that happened to me was evil.

As a teenager, your body grows. You're starting to notice your body, and there's a lot of things that happening to you, and it's, it's crazy. You get your period, oh my goodness. That just completely was horrific. We weren't told about period. I wasn't told about period, and the first thing I could assume was, I'm dying, because blood and death is for me, it's registered in my head.

It's all that, and to know that your body was changing and nobody's talking to you. Then on top of that, the changes that were happening were causing you so much pain and so much problems was even worse. So for me, I grew up feeling resentful and angry and nobody opening, you know, any conversation on this until I got married and I became pregnant.

And that was the first time, actually, for the first time I had this scan for my child. That's what the first time I just thought you just became a mother. You have just become a mother. You can actually see you have a human inside, you growing. How are you going to deal with this? Well, you know, when you're carrying so many baggages with you, and it's actually on that bed that I actually forgive my mother, and I just thought, I need to be a sane mother. I need to be a different mother. I need to be the mother that I think I want to be, and in order for me to do that, I need to forgive. I need to forgive, and then find out the reason that I forgave and unpack that later on. But at that moment, I felt that I needed to forgive her, and I did. And it was a matter of understanding what motherhood was.

It's a matter of, it took me another years again to understand my mother's mentality of – I'm a mother, I look at my kids, I will never have done that – Why did you do that? It was me going in her shoes and figuring out the place that she was in, the environment she was in, the setting she was in, there was no way out for her. There was no way out there could ... she could have never protected me even if she wanted to. It would've never been like that. So for me, I understood her. Even when I understood her, I still had a lot of anger in me. 

Lisa-Marie: Thank you, Hibo. Thank you for sharing that, thank you ever so much. I think that you are already at this stage experiencing consciousness raising, so becoming more aware, it's clear from what you're saying, become more aware about FGM and the wider ramifications and for you personally as well and before you leave Somalia, actually, and trying to make sense of everything, even though your future yet isn't clear to you. 

And we're going to do a reading. Do did you manage to get that printed out? So I'll tell you everybody, so Hibo’s husband who we’ll come to later is fantastic. But Hibo went to find her book to do these readings for you, especially for you, and found that he'd lent it to somebody because he thought that they needed to learn more about FGM. So we've managed to get some screen prints and what have you over to Hibo. So Hibo, do you want to do your first reading, which is – if anybody's got your book in front of you and you want to follow this – it's from the chapter Truth at Last, and it's from the bottom of page 60, “And I did, I did want to know.” So if you want to follow that, then do.  

Hibo: And I did, I did want to know. We were kept pure for men, then broken in by them. What happened to us in the meantime was completely irrelevant in the pursuit of their pleasure, on their integrity, their masculinity. Were females really valued so little? Would my own daughters face the same fate?

I was back in that hut, on that rage and river of pain, unable to get off because this was my life. This was my destiny. I'll be married to one of my scruffy cousins. I will never be deformed, defiled, or kept pure for him so that he can open me up. Then my daughter will be dropped unlined for her own husband.

Just like my mother told me, there will be nothing if I could do about it because it's happened to every woman before us. I sobbed and sobbed for myself, for my daughters, for all the women and girls in Somalia, past, present, and future. If only I could have vowed, could have vowed then that I would change the future.

Then I would let what befall Fatima happen to me, but I knew it was out of my hands. It was what I was born into. And so I decided that moment I would rather die than face the fate, endure more pain, that I would protect my daughters from mine, from the same, this was promise I intended to keep, and it was what really, really broke me was finding out that even if I didn't want my daughters to be cut, that it'll be out of my hand. For me that … I was ready to die. I was ready to die. I was never going to accept that. I just felt, if I felt violated at that time, I felt my life was, you know, it was worth, it wasn't worth living knowing that the kid that I will carry for nine months would be subjected to that. It's something that I could have never reconciled with. Never could I have reconciled with that. 

And for me, that was when I just thought and thought and said, what have I done in this, whatever past life I had, if I had one, whatever I did, forgive! I was having those conversations. Whatever I did, if you are God out there, please forgive because I can't take anymore. You can't subject a child of mine what I know. It's like a clairvoyant. You know the future, you know the future, what awaits and I didn't want to be that person that knew their future and what awaits them. 

Lisa-Marie: Thank you. Thank you so much. So I think we fast forward a few years and civil war breaks out in Somalia and it's too dangerous for you to stay and you are forced first to go to Kenya, and then from there you make your way to London. And there's a moment in the book where there's a real sense of relief and you arrive and you say, I am free.

And from your initial defiance, I think slowly we see, emerges your future life as an activist, and it begins to grow and take shape. And the woman you advocate for first is yourself, when you decide that you want to be opened and you meet both resistance and support at this stage. And I'm thinking particularly of the woman who refuses to translate your initial request for surgery, as well as the doctor who is very sympathetic and gains your trust. And that support is another theme I think that's critical to your story and now might be a good point to ask how we can best support women.

So the listeners, the women who are here, Ute is saying “you are very resilient”. Someone further up, I can't see your name has said, “you're so inspirational, Hibo”. So, for the women who are listening, how can we best support women to navigate that journey? 

Hibo: One thing that I always discuss is, for me, I always saw women as one. It doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter where you are in western world or you know, remote, remote villages that you've never seen anybody else different to you or anything. One thing that we have in common as women, is we can talk. That is one thing. You bring different group of women, they will always talk.

And what do we talk about? We talk about the families, we talk about our partners. We talk about mother-in-law who's giving us headache or if you don't have one, that's it. There's always common thing going on in women when we talk about, and for me, it takes one person just to say hello to the other one.

Because we are so afraid to, you know, to talk to each other, we're so afraid to reach out because we say, oh, she's a different religion, or she dresses differently, so I feel like I can't talk to her, or I feel like I'm more progressed than her, or … if you forget all those things and you just see a simple human being and all those things that block you to talk to this person, you would be surprised on how women are open, how women will like to talk to other women, how women will be open to, you know, discussions and everything else.

And for me, it's like supporting charities like yours. Amazing. You support me. So it's amazing for any woman that wants to support and get involved, you know, charities like FiLiA, you do amazing. You are advocate for all of us, all of us around the globe. You are. And when I'm asked always I’m asked, you know, “But the Western feminists, but do they support, are we having to …”, I'm like, “Yes, they do, but you choose not to see it. That's your choice.” But if you reach out there, there's plenty you can do. There's plenty to get involved. If you are working with schools, you can invite me. I'm always open. I travel all over UK to go schools. I love teaching. My passion is teaching students.

My passion is giving training to adults. My passion is just talking to people to make them realise we should not ‘class’ abuse. We should never class abuse. We should fight abuse as one. Women and girls abuse that we face is one. It doesn't have race, it doesn't have religion, it doesn't have all the, it's an abuse designed for us. And when we know something like that affects us, all of us, it doesn't matter whether you're safe from it from here, but it's affecting another sister of you somewhere and it's changing life or even worse, it's causing death, you have every bloody right to be part of that and question it and make it your business to know it.

Lisa-Marie: Thank you. And you're getting some wonderful comments here, so “You are very resilient Hibo”, says Ute, and “The cultural pressures are so immense, you are so brave Hibo thank you”. I'm actually going to miss out a couple of the questions, because I really want to go to the questions that women have been sending through, but I have got some more to say before we do that.

So it takes a number of years to recognise fully what has been done to you. And at 16, your mother gave an answer that left you with more questions even. And you were married and a mother yourself, when you find this book that you painstakingly translate over a period of nine months to understand what's been done to you, a book on FGM, and you recognise the personal journey ahead for yourself, but there is a moment, at the age of 42 when you started working as a teaching assistant at a nearby school, and there's a, what I experienced reading the book as a jarring shift in your perception of FGM in Britain. And this comes in the form of a girl named Halima, who you suspect is being taken to Somalia, ostensibly to visit a sick relative.

And you describe FGM at that moment as walking up to you and tapping you on the shoulder. And it feels as though this is a critical point in your story and you commit, absolutely – and you have stuck by that – to talking openly about FGM, something that was never offered to you. So my question is, could you share something of that feeling as you moved from what was a very personal journey to a more openly political one, focusing on what you could do for others? Thank you. 

Hibo: So here I was, you know, always been in my house. Always, completely doing what all my females used to do, running away from myself, literally locked in here constantly submerged in my family life. As a mother of seven, you can imagine, a lot, but then again, when your youngest leaves the house, all of a sudden you are in the house and my house is not that big, it's a little flat, but to me, at that time, it just looked massive. Everywhere I looked, I was there. I was in that corner. I didn't even look at the mirror, but everything I looked, seemed, I have a reflection of myself, which was, didn't like at all, didn't like what I see. And going to that school and asking to volunteer was the beginning,  because what they did was, you know, make me work with an amazing ten-year-old who's in year six at that time.

And she just reminded me of who I was, she's a Somalian, very, very tiny, very, very slim. Didn't like food. I used to sit with her lunch time to just, you know, ask her to eat more. She reminded of myself so much so, and finding out that she could be in danger just tipped me over. It literally tipped me over because I thought here, I kept it on the lid. I kept it on the lid for years and years. I haven't talked about it. I haven't said much, out loud. It was just in me with my husband and that's it. 

But then again, all of a sudden, it is here. There's no escaping, there's no hiding. I'm talking to the mums at the gate at the school, and here I am. I'm looking at everybody else thinking, oh my God, are you going to do that to your daughter? Are you going to do this? Are you, I couldn't escape, it was there. And, I had an essay to write about, so that I can gain my level three qualification of becoming a teaching assistant. And that became a perfect paper for me to write about this abuse that was never talked about. But then I was convinced to write about myself, which was, took me the first time actually was ever for me to sit down, ever to revisit that day was that evening where I decided to write this essay that is such in a broken English. Very, very emotionally charged. Literally emotionally charged. The whole night I was writing that essay, which broke me in million pieces. But was worth it at the end.

That 10-year-old gave me the courage, but also what she gave me was, no, I cannot hide and I cannot run and I cannot sleep, knowing another 10-year-old might be subjected to this. And I decided, “you gonna talk”. Then I had a conundrum. You know the other shoulder of me was telling me, “you're gonna talk, but everybody else is gonna hate you”. But yes, you can talk. It doesn't matter if they hate you. So at the end of the day I was like, I don't care if they hate me or not, I do not care. It kept me silenced for so many years. It ruled my life for so many years. 

I just thought, “No, I'm not gonna keep silence. I don't care who attacks me. I don't care who says what. I don't care about that. I'm gonna talk.” And most importantly, that this 10-year-old deserves for me to talk. And the six-year-old me, deserves for me to talk about what we went through and what I still go through. I just felt I can't hide it anymore. So I just felt like, I said it in the book I think, I felt like trapped wind was about to blow everywhere and I don't know how to stop it. I want to blow every corner and I don't want to stop. And that is how I felt. 

And, but because of that 10-year-old, she was the reason I spoke, and the sad thing about that is, she was taken. She was never returned back to UK. I never know what happened to her. It's one of the things that really haunts me up today, I don't know what happened to her. I don't know. 

Lisa-Marie: Thank you Hibo. We've got a number of other questions here from me, but what I'm gonna do is just read a couple more bits and then I'm gonna ask you Hibo after that to read the final, not the number two, the final reading. And then I think I'd really like to, to pass on some questions from women in the audience.

So, I think that you moved very quickly from a local advocate to one with a national and indeed an international platform. And you are recognised, rightly so, as a formidable campaigner for women and girls’ rights, and in the UK it's important to say that FGM became illegal in 1985 with a maximum sentence of 14 years. And we've seen the introduction of FGM protection orders, yet the first person to be found guilty was only found guilty last year, so it took a very, very long time for the system to catch up. And I know you talk about the legal system and cultural change and, the fundamental driver of this is education, actually, education and prevention is what you're very passionate about. Last year the Crown Prosecution Service expanded its guidance to help prosecutors and police to successfully bring more perpetrators to justice, so hopefully we will see a change. But it has to be said that, even just a week ago in the news, it said across England, 610 new FGM victims were identified between April and June as the country went into lockdown. So there is still a lot to be done. 

Would you like to read the last reading, reading three? That's right at the end of the book for anybody who's following. That's chapter Epilogue. So it's page 253 from “There is an old Somalian proverb […]”, and then what I'm going to do is ask some of the questions that you've asked on the Q&A and if you've got any more questions to add to that, please do.

And Hibo, Carolyn has said, “I thought your book was excellent, but listening to you talk is truly inspiring”. Shamila has said “Very powerful”, and Sam Cullen, Reverend Sam Cullen, sorry, has said “Thank you, Hibo for your courage and integrity”. So do you want to read the last reading and then I'll ask you some of the questions from the wonderful women listening.

Hibo: Okay. There is an old Somalian proverb which says you can't hide a dead body from its grave. It's meaning you can't hide from your problem. Abuse thrives in secrecy. Where it's out in the open it wilts and dies. The more we can bring abuse of any kind into the world where we examine and talk about it, more likely we are to see the back of it. FGM is nothing more than child abuse. You can dress it in whatever cultural clothing you want, but it's that basic, it's wrong to take a child against her will and mutilate her for the sake of preserving her for a man. It’s wrong to risk her life to serve a tradition. It's wrong  to condemn her to a lifetime of pain and suffering, to the possibility of infertility or higher risk of death in childbirth. FGM is wrong. You can't hide your body from its grave. 

Once we all know about female genital mutilation, none of us can carry on pretending it isn't our problem. It is our problem. It is a global problem. It's a cruel, cruel violence against women and girls. It's a vicious one that affects every aspect of your life. Your mental health is affected, your psychological wellbeing is affected, your physicality is affected, your emotion is affected. Everything about you is violated by this cruel thing that just takes less than an hour, but completely, completely submerges you. It is one of the worst forms of child abuse, and I don't care what anybody says and says “It's a tradition, it's culture”. It doesn't, it's not. It's a simple abuse designed to, you know, to control women and girls. It’s not only to control your sexuality, but to control you as a whole human being. It's all about that, and for me, I will never stop talking about it until I know it's ended. And if it doesn't end in my lifetime, I hope others continue to fight on behalf of girls every day.

Lisa-Marie: So what I'm gonna do is ask a number of questions that have come through. In the interest of time, we've got 15 minutes left and I'm a stickler for finishing webinars on time, so – Oh, Sandra has said “Thank you Hibo, you are so courageous and inspiring. Thank you for such an honest account of such an abusive practice. Wish you every success in your fight against this.” Thank you Sandra – so Hibo, I'm gonna ask you to keep the answers to these brief, because I want to get through the questions that women have sent through and so that we can finish on time. So, where did you get the strength from to talk to your doctor about FGM after you moved to Britain? That's the first question. 

Hibo: It wasn't a strength, I was suffering. I just wanted to, you know, to be a normal human being. I just wanted to wee again, I just wanted to have a period normal again. I just wanted to do something for myself, and this was a defiant moment in my life to say it's decision that I made for me and it's helping myself. That was number one. 

Lisa-Marie: And the second question, a question from a community member. How can she talk to her teenage boys about FGM? Now this is really interesting because in the book you say that educating men is critically important as far as you’re concerned. So that sort of ties into one of the questions that I was going to ask as well, so thank you to whoever asked that. So how can she talk to her teenage boys about FGM? 

Hibo: Quite simple really very, very simple. You will talk to your boys about anything else. Why is FGM so difficult? Why is it different? Why is it, why do people make it impossible to talk about this issue? This is the problem that we all have.

Even the, what you call it, professionals find it difficult to answer these questions. Why? If it was you talking about any other abuses, you will be very open. You will talk about it. You will say, I want to talk about sexual abuse. I want to talk about this. But when it comes to FGM, people always create a mountain, “Oof, can I talk about this?” Why? It's because it's genitalia, it’s female genitalia. Why are we so afraid of talking about female genitalia? Why are we there? We need to move away. I think the whole problem of people being afraid to talk about FGM, it's to do with the vagina, “I don't wanna, I forget …”, they panic. Why? People want to use it, humanity travels through it, every man and woman want to use it. So why is it difficult for people to discuss anatomy that is so important? Without it the whole world can't evolve? Why do we find it difficult? This is the question that that person needs to ask themselves is, “Why do I find it difficult to talk about women’s bodies?” Once you have that answer, you know, there's nothing in this world that you can't discuss with your kids.

Lisa-Marie: And another one that has come through. How did your religion factor in the community and in the decision-making around performing FGM? 

Hibo: One thing I have to clarify very, very, very, very clear is FGM’s got nothing to do with religion. It's not on Quran. It's not on Bible. It's not on Torah. It's not on anybody’s book of belief. This is 100% either cultural practice or traditional practice. No religion that says FGM should be performed in any way, shape, or form. But having said that, some communities do say it's a religion requirement. If you look at Malaysia, women, 50% of women are being cut, and Indonesia as well. And it's clerics who are actually advocating for it by saying it's a religion requirement, which they say “It's a sunnah”, which it’s nothing like that. It's all about controlling them where they use religion to their own, you know, their own gain of whatever it is they wanna control, they bring religion into it. But it's got nothing to do with religion. Religion actually forbids it, for this to be happening. At all. It's not allowed. 

Lisa-Marie: Thank you. So Maryam, I've seen yours, I'm going to ask it in a moment after this one. If I was concerned about a child, what should I do? 

Hibo: Now, if you are concerned about a child, it depends on what sector are you working with? Any sector that you are working in and it's a controlled body, that means you're working under the government umbrella, you all have something called MASH referral,[1] which means you can do a referral that day, or if you think that a child is actually in danger imminently, and you don't need to wait for the referrals to take a week or two for somebody to pick it up, you can actually call 911 [sic] where they will direct you to a proper person who's in charge of handling child abuses, specifically FGM, which you'll be given help. And if you work for the school, then you talk to your designated person who will know what to do immediately. If this child is not immediately in danger, but you think “I need to do something”, then you must do referrals. And referrals are picked up really quick. Within a week they will be picked up and somebody will deal with that. If you think the place that you are working is closed at that moment and you think that child is still is in danger, local authority have a hotline. You can call NSPCC line, you can call Childline. You can call many lines. There's also Home Office hotlines that you can call and within that day, that child will be getting to, or you can even call the police where they will get involved and necessary bodies will be called in to help this child. 

Lisa-Marie: Thank you. And I think what, what we'll do is we'll send an email out probably tomorrow, maybe the next day. And what we'll do is we'll include links to some charities that work on FGM and we’ll include sort of signposting information as well. And we'll put together something that's of use and of interest to you and we'll send that all out to everybody who's on here. 

So here's a really personal one from Lucky. Lucky, thank you for this question. Has your friend Maryam spoken to you since, and do you still find people angry that you have written your book?

Hibo: Unfortunately we do not talk. Unfortunately I couldn’t comprehend what she said, or on my behalf, we don't talk. We casually, if we see each other, we do say hello and how are you? But that's about it. Yes, I do get a lot of, you know, verbal abuse, especially sent to my direct messages. I do get that, but I also get a lot of support and I think support has outweighed anything else that I get. And I'm somebody who's learned to take what's thrown at her and just turn it into positivity. I've learned that. I'm very resilient. I have amazing, amazing network of support. 

I kind of think like, if I'm not attacked for a few days, where are they? What's happening with them? I get to worry a bit, I wanna know where are you? Why are you not throwing things? [Chuckles] For me, I'm very well looked after. I will say that I'm very, very well looked after. Whatever comes, comes. However situation I'm in that time, I always know how to deal with that and move on and continue with work.

I do get a lot of flak on Twitter. I don't know if you've been following this week, it has been a nonstop men who are telling me how to run what I'm doing, and it's quite staggering, how, somebody as a man tells you, “You know what, what you're doing is discriminative because you're not including men.”

Sorry, am I asking you to include men [sic] in what you are doing? No. Am I telling you are discriminative? No. Then that's your man privilege telling me how to run my campaign, isn't it? So I do get a lot of attacks from all kind of directions, which, thank God for the mute and block button. If I can't, I don't wanna waste my time. It's just block and mute. Just go and, you know, go fiddle with yourself or something, just leave me alone [laughs]. So, for me it's like, I don't wanna talk about you, I don't wanna talk about male circumcision. It's not my place. I don't want to. I have dedicated my life to women and girls issues. 

And I said to them, you know, create your own page, go do it. No, they want women to do their stuff. They want women, you know, to do everything for them. They just. Sorry, I shouldn't be ... they’re just bastards are sitting on their butts and not doing nothing and want women to carry on doing their work, which is never gonna happen. So for me it's, I'm always fighting back and I've learned how to do that for years now.

Lisa-Marie: You shouldn't have to put up with that. And we have your back and all the women around you have your back. We have each other's back. I think that's part of the sisterhood and solidarity, isn't it? And I think you've answered one of the questions that came through, near enough anyway. What would you say to anyone who tries to compare it to male circumcision, but we'll leave that for now I think cause one's come through that’s “What do you want women to take away from this talk?”, and I think that’s probably gonna be our last question, but let’s see. 

Hibo: What I want you to take away from today is solidarity, is strength, is power, is realising how beautiful people you women are, is realising once you join together you are unstoppable. I always write this on Twitter and I say, we really are made stuff of, you know, universe essence is in us. We never give up. We don't say, we don't know the meaning of “No”. We'll keep on fighting our rights. And I think our future girls need us, need examples. They need to know that you can, you know, fight for them. God forbid, I don’t think they will ever have a peace. They will always be fighting. Girls who are coming up will always be fighting there, as women and girls will always be fighting for their rights. And we need to instil in them that there’s nothing that you can’t do. Women, you are strong. There’s nothing in this world you can’t do.

Please do not believe others who tell you, “You’re a woman, you can’t do it”.  Uh-uh, you can, because you are resilient. You are amazing. You have a wealth of multitasking that no one on this earth can do. Just remember that, uniting, it’s the most powerful tool we have. And once we unite that, we can help each other and look out for fellow women.

Be the ones who build each other, not tear down each other. Be the wings beneath your wings. Support as much as you can. Ask help if you need. Don't be afraid to speak up your mind. It's so important to speak up your mind. God knows that we are violated from every angle. Our spaces are taken. The word woman is going to be erased if we are not careful.

We are constantly, constantly tested and we need to have that strength of continuing and never stopping to fight for our rights. And if it's something that you take away from that today, that should be it.

Lisa-Marie: Thank you, so much. And you talked about building women up around you, and I have to say that's a striking feature of your activism actually, that I've noticed. You are absolutely about building up, connecting with other women and then building them up. You are very appreciative of other women, and it's something that is astonishing to see and beautiful to see, and absolutely essential I think. And a couple of other women have said, “Thank you Hibo. You are an inspiration. So brave. Well done. You are courageous. Yes, it's true. Go Hibo. You've got this.” Maryam, we might not have time to answer yours, but I'll send it to Hibo afterwards. So Hibo, before we go, you're not stopping. What does the future hold for you, and your anti-FGM campaigning.

Hibo: I am never gonna stop. I am, as I said, I have millions and millions of women literally lifting me up all the time. I never get tired of telling women how special they are, how wonderful they are, how resilient they are. I will never stop doing that. What do I see? I see future, free for women, and that is what drives me, free for women to be who you are. Do whatever you want to. I want to see a future where women have no boundaries. No, you know, invisible barriers put in front of them. I don't want to see that. I want a future free for both our women, women and girls to grow up, you know, drivers, and achievers, and do whatever they want. For me, all I see is there are more fights coming up, more arguments coming up, but in all this I see positivity coming up. I see love, I see, you know, people supporting. I see amazing work collaborations, but at the end of it, I do see, I do see, and I believe in my heart, I do see FGM, and all sorts of violence that's designed to control women and girls, ending. But we've got a lot of hard work to do, and which means we will all need each other. And please keep on supporting. 

Lisa-Marie: I would absolutely agree with that. And I think the sisterhood and solidarity and I can see a world without FGM, and I think we need to keep that in our mind. And I think that now is a time of global consciousness raising and women connecting like never before. And I think strengthening and building those connections is gonna be critical to our work, in whatever sphere. And it's all connected. FGM is connected to everything else that is used against women. 

So, we've only got a couple of minutes left. So what I'm gonna do is just take that time to say thank you so much. First of all, thank you to all the attendees. We will email you with links, and so on and so forth. And thank you Hibo. Thank you for coming into our lives, actually, for writing the book, and for the work you're continuing to do for women and girls. And thank you for the way that you do activism. And the last word is over to you.  

Hibo: Can I just say massive, massive, massive thank you for all the women who joined us today. Love you loads. I always say I, when I say and I mean it from my heart, I love women, I don't care who you are, I love women, and I want you to continue supporting each other. I want you to get out of your comfort zone, to go and do something and, you know, be counted for. Be counted for the woman you are. Be a woman.

Solidarity is amazing. Support is amazing. I'm very lucky. I have FiLiA. I have many others to support me, and this is why I'm relentless. I'm relentless because I know I have an amazing network of support. And I just wanted to say, you know, thank you very much and, and it's been amazing, an honour to be your first webinar I guess, really, really an honour. And, as I told you, Lisa, privately things are really, really developing very fast. I'm very proud of what is coming. All I can say is something's going to be happening with Cut, the book itself. Please watch out. Follow our work, follow my work, follow all the work of FiLiA is doing, everybody else, and be supportive however shape of way you can. And, I'm honoured to be talking to you today. And FiLiA, thank you again for giving me your, this platform. Thank you so much to you Lisa, to Sally, to Josie, to everybody. [Blows kisses]. Love you very much. 

Lisa-Marie: The perfect end. Lots of love everybody.

[1] Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub