‘Slowly but surely we are ending FGM … but we need more money’

In the final dispatch from Tanzania, Anna Davis reveals the struggle anti-FGM campaigners face getting funding to help them stamp out the procedure, following Cameron’s Girl Summit 2014
Declaration: a girl takes part in the anti-FGM ceremony in Engalaoni

Campaigners against female genital mutilation have made an impassioned plea to world leaders to ramp up their efforts to halt the brutal practice.

It comes after government representatives from across the world met for David Cameron’s Girl Summit to discuss ways to end FGM and forced marriage within a generation.

Charity workers who help FGM survivors said they desperately need more funding and resources to eradicate it. They called on delegates who went to the conference to pledge to make ending the life-threatening practice a top priority.

It comes as it emerged that an anti-FGM project in Tanzania, featured in the Standard, faces closure after the Australian government cut funding for it.

World Vision UK, which is desperately now trying to find the cash to finance the programme, called on international governments to pump more money into eradicating both FGM and child marriage.

Razor blades are thrown away at a ceremony

Elizabeth Lesitey, who runs the programme that works with the Maasai tribe in Tanzania, said: “When people are aware of the problems of FGM the community comes together to say no to it.

“I have been here for 18 months and seen huge changes. People are declaring they won’t do it again. But we need more campaigns and more money.”

Justin Byworth, CEO of World Vision UK, said: “Elizabeth Lesitey’s hard and successful work with our FGM social change programme in remote communities such as Engalaoni in Tanzania proves we can transform attitudes.”

He added: “We are seeing rapid transformation among the young Maasai women and men, and this demand for change is being repeated elsewhere in the world, slowly but surely ending this brutal practice and the suffering of far too many women and girls.

Speaking out: FGM campaigner Elizabeth Lesitey

“It is crystal clear that more funding must be secured and released by national governments, multinational and other donors to scale up successful programmes such as this.”

The three-year World Vision project in Tanzania has seen more than 30 “cutters” pledging never to perform FGM again and symbolically throwing away their razor blades.

The programme, due to end in September, cost $370,000 (£217,000).

It runs education programmes for Maasai boys and also provides “cutters” with an alternative source of income to stop them having to rely on money from performing FGM.

The project reached a major milestone last week, when more than 1,000 Maasai people in the remote village of Engalaoni turned out for a “declaration ceremony” to turn their back officially on FGM.

FGM has been practised for centuries in the area and virtually every girl has been cut. Up until last week, around 60 elderly women made a living by using razor blades to cut off the clitoris of young girls.

But, because of the work of Elizabeth Lesitey, herself a Maasai, many stood up and vowed never to do it again.

They learned about the dangers of FGM from Elizabeth, who has visited the village to teach about the risks over the past 18 months. Last week they held their last ever “FGM ceremony”, where they performed all the rituals of a traditional cutting ceremony without actually going ahead with the life-threatening procedure itself.

Children made protest signs calling on the government and village leaders to take action against those who practise FGM, and more than 1,000 people stood together holding hands aloft in the air, shouting: “FGM is not allowed, it is prohibited, leave it.”

Nasaro Leskar, 64, has been a cutter for 20 years but gave up at the ceremony. She was given goats and chickens by World Vision to provide her with an alternative income.

She said: “I used to cut about four girls every eight months, aged 14 and over. I was paid 5,000 shillings (£1.75) for each girl.

“I stopped because I learned it has an effect on women who are delivering — they feel more pain and they bleed a lot.

“I have seen changes — children are refusing to be cut. My message to the government is that all communities should stop because there are no advantages to cutting. The governments should take everyone who is doing this to court.”

Teresia Molel, another former FGM practitioner who gave up at the summit, said: “I have cut more than 1,000 girls. The big cause that influenced me to stop was the education I received about FGM. But there are still practitioners who do it secretively who have not had this education.”

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