I have been following the campaign for a while
I feel pain for all these girls.
I am not sure how my story will come across in comparison to all these painful stories.
I was lucky that the doctor refused to conduct the procedure,
And said, “there doesn't seem to be anything worth cutting”

I was not circumcised,
But I have been living in fear of it for the past couple of years.
I’m worried that not being circumcised will pose a problem when I get married,
And that I’ll be a bad wife.

They made me lie down on a bed.
Then all of the sudden,
They were taking off my clothes.
I screamed and cried.
They tried to hold me but couldn’t.
I kicked and squirmed.
I didn’t want them to do anything to me.
They brought my older sister in to calm me down.
But nothing would.

The ancient rural house always filled me with fear.
The fear doesn’t just stem from the tales that we weaved around it,
but also from the terrifying scene that I once witnessed in the courtyard of that house.
This scene has been imprinted in my mind for many years, and I haven't been able to shake it off till now.

We went with them,
And I don’t remember anything about that day,
Except for the doctor yelling at me.
She told me to take off my pants,
But I refused.
They gave me anesthesia,
And cut off a part of me.
I regained consciousness when I had become a “woman.”
Everything changed after that day.

I was in the seventh grade,
When mama and baba told me:
“You’ve grown up and you need to be circumcised.”
I didn’t understand what was going to happen,
Or what exactly they were going to do.
All I understood was that if I didn’t remove that specific part,
It was going to grow to look like a male part.

I don’t have a single clear memory of my experience with FGM.
Because ever since it happened,
I’ve avoided thinking about anything related to my body.
I always feel like there’s something missing.
That I’m not a complete girl.
This all happened because of my family’s beliefs.
They’re from Gharbia.
gender violence, physical violence, fgm

I didn’t bleed a lot the first day I got my period,
So there were doubts about whether or not it was actually my period.
It was the worst time of my life.
womanhood, period, gender violence, fgm, virginity testing

In my time, we didn’t go in for examinations.
We were circumcised right away.
I was in second grade.
My mother told me what was going to happen,
She told me that it would feel like a pinprick.

I am different than most girls, who didn't know where they were being taken
I was in 3rd year of elementary school, so I understood things.
The thing is, it was I who noticed a protrusion in that area
And I felt it between my labia,
I didn't know what that was then.