By Deirdre Mulrooney

The rather gruesome topic of female genital mutilation (FGM) came up at a dinner-party I was at last weekend, thanks to the Pamela Izevbekhai coverage lately (she’s applying for asylum in Ireland on the basis that her daughters will be subjected to FGM if she returns to Nigeria, and that another daughter of hers died as a result of FGM), and in particular Ruadhan Mac Cormac’s feature in last Saturday’s Irish Times. It’s simply unthinkable for us here in the West, but in Africa, they really need some extreme feminism to tackle this horrific manifestation of misogyny (hatred of women), and, of course, with that, immense fear of women. Right, see some photographs I took of Ethiopians in {www:Lalibela}, and Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. When I was in {www:Addis Ababa}, I had the extreme good fortune to meet an amazing Ethiopian woman who is succeeding in turning the tide on FGM. Bogalech Gebre’s Kembata Women’s Self-Help Group is a heartening story, of change from within (the only kind that will work in this culturally sensitive area, in my opinion).

The one thing that struck me on my 12 day trip Ethiopia was the plight of women. It just left me feeling a little uneasy. There they were, doubled over, lugging firewood, water, foodstuffs for miles and miles to the market and back. Something was just not quite right, and I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was. One Irish Aid worker told me how ten years ago she was trying to convince rural village men to invest in donkeys to carry things for them. One asked ‘why would I buy a donkey when I have a wife?’ She says things have improved since then, but still Ethiopia is 142nd out of 146 countries in the UNDP gender-related index.

It wasn’t until the day I was leaving though, that I discovered the real story behind my uneasy feeling, when I visited Addis Ababa’s Fistula Hostpital, and Bougalech Gebre, who unusually was in the Addis Ababa Kembatta Women’s Self-Help Centre, which she founded in 2000.

This was when I heard about the things you don’t see, such as the fact that 9 out of 10 Ethiopian women are circumcised between the ages of 6 and 12, so they will be considered ‘marriageable’. I didn’t hear about it, because it’s taboo, and the women perpetrate it upon themselves. But there is hope, and change afoot.

Visionary women’s health activist Bogalech Gebre has ignited a cultural revolution 350 km south of Addis Ababa with her Kembatta Women’s Self Help Group. Not only has she broken the taboo on this sometimes fatal widespread practice known locally as ‘removing the dirt’; but she has also created consensus within her community that it is harmful, and must be stopped. The first girl in her village to get beyond grade four at school, she went on to be a Fulbright Scholar in the States where she became a Public Health expert, before eventually returning to her home community on a mission.

Flanked by Kembatta Women’s Self Help Group, the first marriage of an uncut girl took place on Ethiopian Television in 2002. The bridegroom wore a placard announcing ‘I am happy to be marrying a whole woman’. The bride’s read ‘I am happy to be married uncut’. During October, traditionally ‘harvest time’ when the communities celebrate the newly circumcised girls, instead men and women in their 100,000’s are now celebrating ‘the whole body’. Ready to upscale her mission, this tide is set now to sweep the country,

How did she do it? Exposing the myth that this harmful practice is condoned nowhere in the Bible or in the Koran, Gebre’s approach is to let the community build consensus themselves. ‘Those who practice female genital mutilation do so believing it is in the best interests of girls’, she says, as only someone who grew up in that community, and went through the procedure herself could. She was 6 years old, and her mother had to leave the room, as all mothers do. ‘This belief must be stopped’. But how?

Movies were shown in rural areas on the back of a pick-up truck on a generator-run video recorder showing an actual cutting. Men in the audience fainted. Schools were built for the education of boys and girls, incorporating awareness of FGM, alongside their regular education. Thus bit by bit, accessing the deep psychic life of the region, and letting them take ownership of their decisions themselves, Gebre worked, and works on the basis that what is good for women is good for everyone.

Aside from its monetary problems, if Ethiopia is to have half a chance at achieving its full potential, the whole empowered woman must be re-introduced to the equation. Thanks to Gebre, this is a process that is already underway.