Four young girls lost their lives recently after undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM) in Somalia. They had a lot in common. All four were almost the same age – between 10 and 11 years old. Everyone lived within a 200-mile radius. Deeqa Dahir Nuur was the first of the four to die in mid-July when she was taken to a traditional cutter in Olol village in the central state of Galmudug. She bled for two full days before her family took her to the hospital in the town of Dhusamareb, where she passed away.
News of her death reached international media and caused such an outrage that Somalia’s deputy prime minister Mahdi Mohamed Guled called for a full investigation. However, this has yet to happen. Last month, two sisters from the remote pastoral village of Arawda in Galdogob, Puntland, died in very similar circumstances. Aasiyo Farah Abdi Warsame and her sister Khadijo, aged 10 and 11 respectively, died after they hemorrhaged for over 24 hours. Once again, their families did not seek medical help until it was too late. They both died on their way to the hospital.
In late August, 10-year-old Suheyra Qorane Farah and her seven-year-old sister Zamzam underwent FGM in their home in Tuurdibi, a tiny village near the Ethiopian border. They also bled profusely and, a week later, fell into a coma. The girls’ mother decided to take them to a medical facility in Galdogob, where they both remained for close to two weeks. Zamzam’s condition improved slightly, but her older sister died in late September, having contracted tetanus.
Suheyra’s father denied all knowledge of the plan for his daughters to undergo FGM and claimed he was away when it happened. He does not want the law involved and thinks the issue should be “handled” by religious leaders. Even when girls die from FGM in Somalia families continue to believe it was an “act of God.”
It has taken several decades for the reality to seep through that FGM is not a cultural practice, but rather a human rights violation, an extreme subjugation of women and girls — often leaving them with harmful lifelong medical and psychological consequences, and sometimes even taking their lives through bleeding or infection.
According to UNICEF at least 200 million women and girls around the world have been affected by FGM. In Somalia alone, 98% of women and girls have undergone it – the highest rate on the planet. We have no clear idea how many more girls have died along the way, but based on anecdotal evidence it is probably a very significant number.
