 The question is, how many of you have experienced this kind of experience? I think one of the reasons why this is more of a skill than how many of you have experienced this kind of experience. So what we're trying to do is we're here to find out who you are and what you're likely to experience. You have to decide who you're going to be and who you're going to get some kind of experience. And who are you? So what is your experience? You're going to have to start with a question. What's your experience? Are you going to have to think about how many of you are going to be able to get some kind of experience? Or are you going to get some kind of experience? If you're going to be able to get some kind of experience, Chaha. Folders look great. Oh. Listen. Oh. Can I carry you guys? Should it be in the reserve seat? And again. Not enough. Not enough. It's not that much. I'd say it's way too much. It's way too much. It's way too much. It's way too much. It's way too much. Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. The program is about to begin. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Nancy Lindborg. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us, as you heard. My name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the President of the United States Institute of Peace. And I'm really, really pleased to be able to welcome everybody to this very important event today. We are particularly honored to have with us Senator Harry Reed, who is just joining us. I think as many of you know, Senator Reed has been an extraordinary champion of women and girls. As early as 1996, he sponsored legislation on these issues and has been a passionate advocate throughout his career here. So really, Senator Reed, you inspire us. You inspired us today. And we're very honored to have you here with us. I'm also very pleased to welcome Senator Reed here to USIP because he's been a longtime friend and supporter of US Institute of Peace. And in fact, US Institute of Peace was founded by Congress 32 years ago, really dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, it's practical, and it's absolutely essential for our global and national security. And USIP pursues a mission of a world without violent conflict by working with partners, individuals, organizations, governments in areas that are affected by conflict to give them the kind of tools, information, and training that helps them to manage conflict so that it doesn't become violent and to resolve it than it does. And today we're gathered here about a particular and very virulent form of violence and with the shared commitment to ending violence against girls and looking at strategies that might end female genital mutilation and cutting or FGMC. This goal to end FGMC was enshrined in the new UN Global Goals, a very specific indicator under goal five for gender equity. So this has already been agreed to by nations around the world that we will eliminate the FGMC by 2030. But we have a lot of work to do. More than 200 million women and girls across 30 different countries still are living with complications from FGMC. And we know that although there has been a lot of progress in legal, community, health, and educational approaches, too many girls continue to live with the very profound impact of this practice and they have lifelong physical, often psychological impacts and too many lose their lives. So today, we will hear from a number of global experts talking about how can we better address what is a very complicated and contested sociocultural practice? And what is the research? What are the resources that might help us change the story for millions of girls around the world? And to get us started, I'm very pleased to welcome Ambassador Catherine Russell and welcome her back to USIP. As the US ambassador at large for global women's issues, Ambassador Russell is the perfect person to get us started. She's the leader of the State Department's efforts to advance gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls worldwide. She's focused on addressing gender-based issues and gender-based violence, promoting women's full participation in society, investing in adolescent girls, and making sure that women's issues are a part of our foreign policy. Prior to this position, Ambassador Russell was the deputy assistant to the president and chief of staff to the second lady, Dr. Jill Biden. And throughout her time at the White House, she coordinated the development of the administration strategy to prevent and respond to gender-based violence globally. So we are absolutely delighted to have Ambassador Russell with her passion and her commitment to these issues. Please join me in welcoming her. Thank you so much, Nancy. It's nice to see you. It's always great to come over here. At the State Department, we say that USIP is the best neighbor we could possibly have. And that's certainly even more the case now that Nancy's here, and we're delighted to partner. I also have to just say a moment of thanks to Senator Reid, who has been just an incredible advocate on this issue. And at some points, I used to work in Capitol Hill as a staffer when I was young. And you have a different perspective of Congress when you're working there, and then when you're in the executive branch. I think here, Senator Reid has been incredibly important in our focusing on this issue of FGM and prodding us. He had GAO do an assessment of what the government was doing on this issue. So everybody scurries around and tries to get the answers. That was tremendously helpful, Senator. So I really want to thank you very much for that leadership. It's made a huge difference, and it honestly wouldn't be where we are if you hadn't done that. So thank you so much. I'd also really like to thank the organizers, Shelby and Jaha, both of whom I've worked with before. It's so nice to see them both here. It's almost hard to believe that this is the first US Civil Society summit on FGMC. And because after all, I'm going to quote Prime Minister Trudeau who said, it is 2016. It's kind of shocking that it's taking us so long to get this done. We need to be on top of this issue. And there are many others that are just like it that hold back the progress on women and girls that we're advocating for so aggressively around the world. The fact is that this summit, as the first of its kind, speaks to some of the challenges we're facing tackling this issue. In the communities where the problem occurs around the world, silence is too often deafening. As I've seen firsthand in the many countries I've traveled to over the last few years, and this group knows better than most how difficult it is to break that silence. Yet we have seen some progress. And that's because of people like Jaha and people like Shelby and like the rest of you who take an interest in it. So on behalf of the United States, I'd like to thank the many groups, particularly the survivors who have worked tirelessly to end this practice, both here and around the world. I'm here today to say one thing, and that's to please keep it up. You are making a difference through your work. Policymakers are paying attention, as I said, and other survivors are finding the support and the community that they need to have the courage to come out and talk about this. The silence is slowly receding. It's receding in Egypt, where local theater performances are using humor to spark conversations among families and communities. It's receding in Indonesia, where universities are researching the practice to make policy recommendations. It's receding in the Borough communities in India, where honestly, I didn't even know it was happening until I have the most wonderful person who's working on my team who is a part of that community and has informed all of us at the State Department about what's happening. And it's really given people in that community a platform to speak out. And it's receding here in the United States, thanks in no small part, as I said, to people like Senator Reid. But we know that while the silence may be receding, the practice itself is not. In the past year, UNICEF's estimate of how many women and girls have undergone this practice jumped from 70 million to 200 million, which was obviously shocking to everybody who saw those numbers. And that was a result of huge swaths of places where we didn't know it was happening primarily in Indonesia. And that news comes despite the documented declines in high prevalence countries like Egypt. So we are up against population growth and other factors that are increasing the number of women and girls who are at risk. That's the sort of sobering reality that should give everyone a sense of urgency in addressing this work. The UNICEF report also changed the map that we would look at. We were no longer talking about a handful of regions. We're talking about countries on almost every continent now, including in the United States. Now more than ever, this is an issue that needs our attention. That's why the United States has made it a part of our foreign policy. And it's also why we are proud to be part of a global movement to respond and prevent FGMC. Of course, we are deeply committed to the sustainable development goals, including the targets on FGMC. And our policy framework is strong. I think we've worked hard to make sure that the US strategy on gender-based violence that Nancy mentioned, that President Obama signed in 2012, included FGMC as a form of violence against women. It makes clear that FGMC is a harmful practice that requires a multi-sector response, one that includes community-led responses, a change in social norms, and importantly, political commitment and leadership. FGMC is also addressed in the first ever US strategy on adolescent girls, which we issued, that the Secretary issued it last year. And we're very proud of it. It's a really strong, solid document. And if you haven't seen it, I would encourage you to take a look at it on the State Department website. The State Department has made ending harmful practices like FGMC one of our three objectives in implementing that strategy. I realize that strategies may not sound very exciting. I get that. But I want to underscore that the foundation for this work going forward is really strong. And the strategies are a critical part of that effort. So my time in this job ends in about seven weeks. But the focus on the work will continue because of this scaffold and because it's in place. The policies I just mentioned form the foundation of incredible commitment on the part of the United States. And around the world, we built on that foundation through diplomacy, through programming, and through partnerships. I'm going to highlight just a few of those this morning so you know what we're working on. I have a colleague, Arsalan Suleiman, who serves as a US special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. And she's helped to lead the State Department's efforts to engage religious leaders on this issue, which is absolutely critical. Two years ago, my office launched a social media campaign on the International Day for Zero Tolerance. And that was our first ever online campaign of any sort. And I'm proud to say it wasn't the last. Since then, we've launched FGMC and broader online campaigns as well. It was part of our dad's and daughter's campaign a few months ago when we focus on how fathers can help advance gender equality in their personal lives. And it's part of our social media campaign for the 16 days of activism that is ongoing right now. These campaigns are important because they bring the practice into the open. And Miriam, who, as I mentioned, works with me, told me a story the other day about how she was doing a presentation at the UN. She's talking to somebody on the sidelines. And she's talking about FGMC. And the woman who was actually in this field working on women's issues asked her to lower her voice. She said, don't say the words too loud. And Miriam was like, we can't talk about it. How are we ever going to try to address this? So the most exciting work we've done to date has been a program that we, in my office, funded in Guinea, where US diplomats led a national campaign to end the practice. More than 200 villages ended up banning FGMC thanks to this campaign. And while the US will take some credit for that, we certainly did not do it alone. It's my view that the campaign was successful because we had a tremendous group of partners, from the government of Guinea to local and international groups to young women and community leaders. I think that's the key. No one organization is going to solve this problem. We need to try to work together to do it. Last month, Secretary Kerry announced that the State Department will dedicate more than a half million dollars to build on the success in Guinea. We're partnering with organizations on the ground to support survivor-centered approaches, which is absolutely key to this, to end FGMC in West Africa and Southeast Asia. So the work will continue. Our commitment will continue. But what will also continue is the critical need for survivors, advocates, and organizations to push for progress and to speak out. Some of you may know that I worked with Senator Biden. Nancy mentioned that. And we worked on the Violence Against Women Act in the early 1990s. And now the vice president, he'll tell this story a lot about how when he started working on the bill, you know, you would have people come in, women would tell him these stories about how they call the police. Police would show up and they would say to the husband, go take a walk around the block and cool off. And they'd say to the woman, look, you know, do you really want us to put your husband in jail? You got these kids here. I mean, it's your call. What do you want us to do? He would tell that story because it showed how much things have changed since then. It's not that we've solved the problem of domestic violence in the United States, but we now treat it as a crime rather than a family matter or something that is on the woman to make a decision about how to proceed with. When I travel around the world, most countries will still have that conversation with me. This is a family matter. You don't understand, we value families here. I'm like, all right, well, we value families too, but that doesn't mean that the wife gets to be battered, right, that's not acceptable. So I think that what this shows is that you can change the social norm. You can change the way a society views an issue, but it takes a lot of work. It takes changing the laws, making sure the laws are in good shape. It takes training, police, and prosecutors and judges. And it takes working with men and boys, with families, so that they understand exactly what's going on. I think that the lesson for us is that it's possible. And I think that is critical to our goals for FGMC as well. There's no question here that social change is badly needed in this area. And while it will take time, no question about that, certainly more time than any of us would like, it is possible, and we can't lose heart about that. The president likes to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, and I love this image as well about the arc of the moral universe being long, but bending towards justice. That bend, it just doesn't happen on its own. It happens because of people like each of you here who cares about something and is willing to do something about it. So I would just ask, please, keep pushing, hold the administration accountable, do as Senator Reed did, and make things uncomfortable for us and for the people who follow me. Play the long game, and think of the girls who will face this, who face this every day around the world, and who will continue to face it unless we can stop this horrible practice. Keep standing up for the survivors and for those who are at risk. You know, you can be the reason that change becomes a reality and that FGMC becomes history. So thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Good morning. I'm Shelby Quast with Equality Now, and this is such a special venue to be having this event. We're thrilled to be partnering with USIP. And this is a, FGMC is an extreme form of violence that sits squarely in the human rights, security, and development agendas, which is really why the partnership and putting this together is so important. For those of you who are not familiar with Equality Now, we're an international human rights organization dedicated to ensuring that all women and girls around the world can live their lives free from violence and discrimination. With partners in nearly every country of the world, many of whom are here today. Equality Now advocates to the advance legal equality and to end female gender emulation, sexual violence. The summit today brings together over 200 thought leaders from over 20 countries. And many more are joining us via live stream to discuss how we can come together to end FGMC by 2030. This week has been a series of events starting with the donor working group on FGMC, moving to the trainings with law enforcement and the FBI, and an activist meeting that took place yesterday that was extremely inspiring, bringing all activists all over to be together, to share their experiences. And last night we had a fantastic reception, filled with art and music, featuring Sona DeParte and Ina Moja. And it was an amazing evening. I'm humbled and inspired to be surrounded by such passion and commitment. A huge thank you to Wallace Global Fund and to Human Dignity Foundation who've made all of this possible. And to quote Henry Ford, coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress, but working together is success. And we have a lot of work to do together. It's my extreme pleasure to welcome to the stage an amazing advocate, change maker, super mom, time 100 most influential woman and my co-organizer in this event. Jahadukure, founder and executive director of Safe Hands For Girls. Thank you, Shelby. It's an honor to be here and thank you all for being here with us. My name is Jahadukure and I am the founder and executive director of Safe Hands For Girls. Safe Hands is a survivor led nonprofit organization that started in my living room. And it started because I saw that in Atlanta there was a lot of girls in my community who have experienced FGM just like I did and no one was speaking for us. And because of that, I felt the need to do something. And over the years, the organization has transformed not only to do amazing work in the Gambia but now we are working with our sisters across Africa to make change. Today is not so much about me and the work that I do but it's about all of us that are in this room that are trying to make change. This event and everything that's been happening for the past few days wouldn't have been possible without the support of the Human Dignity Foundation and the Wallace Global Fund who not only have supported this event but have been amazing partners working with us and providing us all the support that we need. To me today is extra special because one person that has been with us from the beginning of the campaign, when I first started this, he's the most powerful man in the US Senate. And this is an issue that he says himself as a white man, it was weird for him to talk about it but yet he still talked about it. And every time we needed him or we called his office he would bring us in and bring his colleagues in to listen to us. And he has done that constantly since 1996 for all his career. And to me it's a bit emotional to see that he's retiring from Congress. Without him a lot of the things that we have accomplished in the US wouldn't have been possible. And Senator Reid, we want you to know that everything you've done for us we know and we appreciate. And we didn't want you to leave without us showing you just how much we appreciate you. And because of that we want to award you with the first global advocate for girls award. Thank you. Pardon my stumble, I've been working on this for a long time. Largest crowd I've ever had was 10 people. So this is pretty good. And that was because four of them got lost and came to the wrong room. John, thank you very much for your kind words. Shelby, thank you very much for what you've done. Sandy Jolly, are you here someplace? Here's Sandy. Sandy and I have a long standing, very strong relationship with our friends. Politically we haven't always agreed, but most of the time. And she's been a great advocate for good causes. Lou, would you grab that thing, Mackenzie, thank you. And one day I got a call from Sandy. This was 22 years ago. And she said, I watched the most horrible thing on television. And I want you to watch it. She said, it'll probably make you sick, but do it anyway. So I did it. And it did make me sick to my stomach. Little girl in her white dress, it was a festive occasion. She thought, she was nine years old, cutest little girl, and the party ends, the good part of it. And a couple of men grab her and a woman, they spread her legs and they proceed to whack her genitals. They mutilate the little girl, blood running down her legs. You can see it pooling as it runs down her little, tiny legs. You know, it's 22 years ago, I can still see that. And to think that happens all over the world today, 22 years later, millions of young women like Jaha have been mutilated. You know, it's easy, FGM, not it's easy, but they've been mutilated. And I'm leaving Congress after 34 years. I feel pretty good about what I've been able to accomplish, you know, in Nevada's public lands. I started with a few thousand acres of wilderness. Now we have five million solar energy. We have millions of solar panels in Nevada. It's wonderful. Anyway, I feel good about stuff that I've been able to work on. But I feel a total failure with this. After 22 years, nothing. I'm glad people are all this happy talk, but nothing. I frankly have gotten no help in the Congress. We passed a few bills. We'll talk about those and they're better than nothing. But this is, it's nice we're here meeting. I'm glad, few people for change. But this is anything that can wait. Our government has been a total failure. The United States of America is a big powerful nation that is concerned about human rights. How about rights of girls being mutilated every year? Where are we? We've done nothing. I'm glad to see that Secretary Kerry's gonna try to get some money. Finally, 500, is it 500 million? I don't know whether they'll get that through all the Trump stuff, but we'll see. But of course it was kind of difficult, as Jaha said, for me to do something. I brought my staff in. They looked at some of this stuff. Not some of this stuff. They looked at it. Little girl. And I said, you know, I have to try to do something. They said, Senator, you can't do that. It's something for women. It's not for you. And I acknowledge that. It'd be better if I had all my senators. I came to Congress, I came to the Senate. There was one, Barbara Mikulski. Now we have 20. This year, four brand new Democratic senators. That's wonderful. Frankly, you've heard it before, if not me, who? So I did it. It wasn't fun for me to publicly talk about something like this, but I did. But it didn't get as much attention as it should have. Our government, I repeat, has done a pittance. They've done basically nothing because they talk about it. I'm glad they're talking about it. But we need more than talk. The agencies have addressed this on an ad hoc basis. What does that mean? Temporary. Nothing permanent. No plan. I repeat, if this is not an issue of human rights, there's nothing in the world that does involve human rights. If this doesn't mean human rights, you know, I don't know and I hope nobody feels I'm being gross on this. But what would happen? If a report came in, the 200 million men had one of their testicles removed. Okay? Yeah. You could do that. You could have people hold down little boys and you could do it without anesthesia. It would hurt like hell, but you could do it. One testicle's all. It would heal. And you would still be able to procreate, not very well, but you could still do it. So what would happen if we learned that 200 million men were now living a life having had a testicle taken from them when they were a little boy? Would we be concerned? A lot more than we are now because this only affects little girls. I'm really, I don't wanna be a downer on this, but I just wanna know I am totally concerned about nothing having been done on this. Sure, I may have introduced legislation that's against the law for somebody under 18. You can't leave the country to do the cutting. We got a few things going on. I tried to get something done and it was in existence for a little while that the world financial organizations wouldn't loan money if this was something going on in one of the countries of the world, but that went away quickly. We all can't do that. A few weeks ago, I traveled to Salt Lake City. I took my non-Mormon person who's worked on this, Mackenzie Bennett, and we met with one of the apostles of the Mormon Church. We met with other leaders of the church. One that was his responsibility as Africa were the Mormon churches growing rapidly. And I asked these assembled big shots of the Mormon Church. And by the way, Sandy Jolly was there, a member of the Mormon Church, to put out an edict saying you shouldn't do this. This is wrong. It's no longer the time for niceties. This is mutilating little girls. I'm terribly disappointed that religions around the world have been silent on it, basically. And so I am confident and hopeful that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormons, will do something about this publicly. And it's wonderful to call attention to this. It really is because most people don't know that it exists and people who are faced with this, they think of some kind of fake news that's coming out, but it's not fake, it's real. And everyone has to talk about this. They have to talk about it on the local government, state government, and the federal government. And do whatever we can as the ambassador indicated through the United Nations to focus attention on this. I hope that this conference will cause people to feel engaged and to not be embarrassed and to charge forward, not only work with Congress and they're way behind. I'm disappointed, as I said, after 22 years, this is what we've accomplished. It's not very much. And I would hope you would all force my senators to do something about it. We had a good meeting, one of the best meetings we had. Shelby and Jaha were there. We had some women senators, Democratic senators to come and talk. And I hope that someone will pick up the mantle of this thing because the mantle that I have is not very heavy to carry because we've accomplished not very much. But we need something done. Also, I would tell everyone here, don't just limit what you're doing to Congress. I repeat, there's no reason that state legislatures can't be heavily involved in this. There's no reason that local governments can't pass ordinances to disallow this. Sandy and I have worked and gotten a few resolutions in the state of Nevada through the legislature, better than nothing, but a little message, better than nothing, but not much. So I appreciate the nice things that people have said about me, but I really wish that I'd feel better about what I've been able to accomplish in this regard. I hope on the outside, I'll be out of Congress after all these many years, and it's something that I have been gratified to be able to do, someone of my background to be able to have been involved in Congress as I have for all these many years is really speaks well of our country. And I'm glad about that, but what has been unaccomplished here with mutilating little girls, I don't feel good about that. Thank you very much, everybody. There could be no better place to start this activity. Institute of peace. Wow. So still going on that trend, we see that FGM is not just women's issue. We've, throughout this campaign, we've had some strong male advocates that have really, really helped us get the work done. And we couldn't have done this without the amazing people that have supported us. And because of that, I know that the UN Secretary-General really wanted to be here today, and he apologizes for not being able to make it, but he did record a video message for us, and he sent his assistant secretary-general to accept the Global Advocate Award that we have for him. And I would want everyone to watch that video from the UN Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon. I accept the Global Advocate for Girls Advancement Award on behalf of my dedicated UN colleagues. I commend Equality Now and Safe Hands for Girls for organizing this U.S. Summit to end FGM. And I applaud the big system movement. Women and girls are born perfect, but at least 200 million have endured FGM. In the United States, more than half a million girls are at risk or have suffered. This is a shocking, and it must be stopped. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development promises to end FGM. The UN is making a difference, but we cannot stop until every girl is safe. I'm inspired by young women like Jaha Dukra. When we met last year, she said, I quote, women who know the pain are standing up to say, we do not want this, unquote. I call on all people, especially men and boys, to support their plea. I thank the health workers, politicians, religious leaders, activists, policymakers, media outlets, and young people who are speaking out for our common future. Let us secure the rights, health, and dignity of girls everywhere. Thank you. Shelby, you wanna come up? So on behalf of the U.S. End FGM network, we would like to present the UN Secretary General for all his tremendous support to the work that we do with this global advocate award for girls. All right? Yes. The award should be seen. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues. I agree with, and the UN agrees with Senator Reid, that if FGM is not a human rights violation, then what is? And this is despite all the sophistry of its proponents and apologists. And unfortunately, they continue to be justifying it in this day and age. But, and Senator Reid also said that there isn't enough progress. In fact, he regretted that there wasn't much progress. But I do want to say, we have moved. We have moved globally. And last year, 193 countries meeting at the Sustainable Development Summit declared it as eliminating it. First of all, declared the determination to eliminate it and declared that determination to be a sustainable development target. That's progress. And we have moved. And I want to also acknowledge the role of the US government, of the civil society here, and also, of course, whatever has been done in Congress and laws matter and political leadership matters, all of that. And I want to continue to urge the role and global leadership of the US on all human rights issues, but particularly those relating to women and girls. Why did these leaders declare this as a zero-tolerance policy? Because it causes pain and suffering, physical, sexual, mental, for millions of women and girls around the world because its impact is both immediate, but also long-term and throughout the life course. Because it cuts into the chances of these girls to reach their potential. And sometimes it costs them their lives. And besides its pervasive impact and pernicious impact on girls and women, FGM also has tremendous costs for their families, even though half the time they don't realize and recognize that because they are part of this, perpetrating this, the community and the country at large. Compounded discrimination and gender inequalities can reinforce vulnerabilities to this practice. But the most critical root cause, and Senator Reid was right, and also our other speakers who spoke before highlighted it, the role of men because this is another manifestation of patriarchy, fathers, husbands, traditional and community leaders, all men having a sense of entitlement over women's bodies and a right or even a responsibility to control their behavior or protect their so-called honor. This has to change. However, at UN Women, we believe that harmful practices such as FGM cannot be addressed in isolation and that they need to be treated through a holistic and comprehensive approach to all forms of violence with a focus on prevention. I really commend the fact that you are convening this first conference on FGM in this 16 days of activism to end violence against women and to orange the world into a world free of violence. But we do need, I hope in this conference, you will reinforce some of the key methods and avenues through which we can really find a solution and also give satisfaction to those like Senator Reid, to those like all of you gathered here who want this practice to end. And for that, I think it's important that interventions must address those social norms that condone violence and this mentality of control over women's bodies and that push many women to cut their daughters and granddaughters. So women are part of this conspiracy. They become part of transmitting this harmful tradition from generation to generation because they think that wrongly that it will protect them and protect their daughters and granddaughters. Prevention intervention should focus among others on mobilizing communities, traditional and faith leaders, women and men in agents of change. In September 2015, as I said, we have already got this mandate now to eliminate and we must do it within a generation. We can't wait even another 23 years, we have to do it within and soonest, the latest deadline is 2030. It's an essential step to realizing other sustainable development goals, including targets on health and well-being and for all, quality education, safe motherhood and economic growth, all of which are underpinned by work that empowers women and girls and achieves gender equality. Whilst this recognition that we have got and the mandate and the political commitment that has been expressed at the global level and increasingly at the regional level as well and at the country level, there are many countries we are working with who are prioritizing this and setting the targets for ending FGM. It is not enough. We need to put these commitments into action and take responsibility as a global community for ending FGM. And as I say and say again, the global leadership of the United States of America is critical. We are, as UN women, proud to be collaborating with the UNFPA, UNICEF, in a joint program on female genital mutilation and cutting to support countries to address the root causes of this harmful practices and to address the demand side of it as much as dealing with those that are perpetrating and cutting off and finding other alternatives. You know, there are these aspects that we address. That is why also UN women stood firmly behind the UN United Nations Secretary General, the first he-for-she champion in his constant efforts to mobilize the global community against this practice. The award that he is receiving today on behalf of the United Nations highlights once again the United Nations and his persistent commitment to a future where every woman and every girl can experience her inherent dignity, human rights and equality latest by 2030. We don't have to wait till 2030. And I want to, I don't know whether some of you heard this before, but he famously said at the Commission on Status of Women earlier this year in March, he said that we need to reach a place where FGM should stand for focus on girls' minds and so that it can mean finally girls' matter. Good morning, my name is Kathleen Keynes. I'm the Senior Gender Advisor here at the US Institute of Peace. I'm so happy to see so many of you here and also on the webcast. What will success look like today? We have gathered seven amazing panels that will give a full scoping of the sectors and communities that are working toward the goal of ending FGMC. They will be rapid fire panels 20 minutes and then 15 minutes for Q&A. We will also have something that I think will bring a deeper understanding of the crisis we're facing in that we will have a Commission play which is called Her Story Uncut and this was commissioned by Equality Now written and directed by the acclaimed playwright Katie Capiello. This was inspired by the real stories of the real girls who have been impacted by FGMC. That will happen in between these seven panels so we are gonna keep us moving today but I really turn to you, the audience. You are a participant audience. We need your engagement. We need your great questions and we want you to really make a special effort to meet others here. We've gathered in this very comfortable space. We will have time for breaks, luncheons. We will come together and I encourage you, besides turning off your phones, to really reach out and make sure you leave this event with two, three, five new people in your network. That's what really makes these kind of efforts work far into the future because we don't change by words. We really change through relationships and it does take the effort of many to make a difference. So without further delay, I am very pleased this morning to present to you our first panel and I'm going to introduce them as I invite them to the stage. We have moderating the first panel on activists and youth, Mariam Safi. Mariam, great, wonderful. She is our dear colleague from the State Department and she will give more specifics and bios for each of the panelists. Please join me, Asita Kamara, Dom Tila Cheesong and Leila Hussain. And they are faced with the dilemma of very quickly getting going. Yeah, because we're mics, I think. Oh, just one. Yes, please. Thank you for that. So thank you for, I just, first of all, it's an honor to be here. It's, for me, I work at the, as Kathleen mentioned, I'm in the State Department's, the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues. So you got to hear from my boss earlier. And it's truly an honor. I mean, it's for two reasons. I'm both a survivor of FGM, but I also work on this issue professionally and it's rare when the personal and professional intersect. And so I'm thrilled. I'm gonna sort of do quick one-liners on the bios because you'll all have the bios in your handout. But it's truly an honor to be sharing the stage with these powerhouse rock star phenomenal, phenomenal women. I'm gonna start by introducing briefly and then we'll have the 20 minute sort of lightning round and then 15 minutes or so for Q&A. So it's gonna be short, but very substantive and hopefully informative. So I'm joined by Asata Kamara, who's right next to me. She's a Strategic Relationships Manager and Program Director for the New York City Junior Ambassadors Program at the Mayor's Office of New York City, city I love. There's also Damtila Chissing. She's the Regional Coordinator in Kenya for the Guardian's Global Media Campaign to end FGM in yellow and then, sorry, I got the, and Layla, who's saying who's a psychotherapist and the founder of The Dahlia Project. She's also the Global Ambassador for the Girl Generation and Sisterhood Magazine and there's much more, they've done phenomenal things. I just wanna give highlights. So let's just get started. First question. As survivors, as activists, what are the greatest challenges that you face and why is a survivor voice so important in ending the movement, in the movement to end FGMC? Sure. I guess I'll get started. Yes, please. Wonderful. So first of all, I just want to say that though I am with the Mayor's Office in New York City, I'm really here because I am the co-founder of There's No Limit Foundation and I'm also a survivor of female genital cutting and it took many years for me to be able to sit in a room and to even say that I was a survivor and I think that one of the main challenges that we face first as survivors is being able to move beyond our stories. So when we come and we become activists, it's really, you are a survivor and there's really nothing else there. There's no care about the fact that I am working in government or that Linda is an amazing therapist or that you're working for the State Department. So that's the first challenge. I think that the second challenge is really creating platforms that also empower survivors to tell their stories and I think that this is, these are the kind of movements that we're looking for having people in a room and really being able to tell their stories in a meaningful and respectful manner. Thank you. I mean, can you hear me? Okay. Sorry, I haven't slept for three nights. We've been working on this photo project for the last couple of days. For me, one of the key challenges has been as a campaigner, as a survivor, as an expert and as a therapist who has to create safe spaces for women, it's bringing all the key people to the table because sometimes we can get lost in this idea that only survivors can deal with this. No, we can't. We need a team behind us. I need to work with policy makers, I need to work with law makers, I need to work with health, I need to work with education. I think the key challenge has always been bringing the key people on the same table but it's making sure you get the right people and for me what was really challenging in the UK was there was a lack of understanding where FGM was for very, very, for many years, we treated it as it was an exotic disease or something and I think for us campaigners as a survivor, for me one of the key challenges was again changing that language. I walked into an arena where it was being called culture or religion. Clearly for me this was one of the worst forms of child abuse because this happens and I really would like to stress to everybody in this room, we keep referring to women. This happens to children, the women's afterwards, so we are talking about a four year old who did not have a say or consent to this, okay? So we really need to change because the moment you change it to the child, you have no way, you can't walk away from that. So for me, I think as a campaigner one of the things I'm constantly, constantly changing that narrative that and this is about, and I think the assistant secretary mentioned, this is about patriarchy, this is about controlling women's bodies, is controlling their sexuality and do you know what ladies, that's global issue. So FGM is no different than any other form of oppression against women and girls. When we treat it as that, we will deal with it because ending oppression of women will end any form of violence against women. So FGM is just part of that menu where women are going through. So for me that really is the constant challenge and we need to keep bringing that back. We can't keep treating this as if it's different. I mean, I personally in the UK, we had an FGM act. Personally, I mean, listen, all of us have a different view. I never felt we never should have had an act because that treated it differently. For me, if anyone commits any form of crime against a child, we have a child abuse act. We use that because there's no different. If I remove my daughter's finger, shouldn't it be different if her clutches have been removed? It should be the same thing. That's what I would like to say. Thank you. Always speaking on behalf of the Grassroots Initiative and Grassroots Activists, I would say that one of my major challenges as a Grassroots Activist is getting appreciated and noticed for the work I'm doing in my village, in my community. I have many a times say that the Grassroots Initiative, the Grassroots Activists are the real deal. They have the answers. But for me, with my passion, to be able to accelerate that movement that I've started and to maintain the momentum, I need support. But how do I convince the donors? How do I convince the support I need? I cannot move from one village to another using my two legs. I can do that, but I can only reach very few villages. We need the support. We need people to rally behind us. We need people to trust us. But the challenge has been it's taking so much time for people to believe that these young African girls can actually manage some amount of money. It's actually taking so much time. We're sitting in a room today talking about FGM. We've done this last year. We've done this many, many, many more times. Talking about strategies, talking about how do we get this funding out there, talking about who do we work with, talking about what is the solution, what is the right channel, what are the approaches. We are the approaches. We are the answers. Also, just adding to that point, accountability from our politicians is absolutely key to this. Because as a British citizen, I am not gonna beg my politicians to protect my child. It's their job. We pay taxes, we pay, we put them in that position to protect our rights. So I think we should not be in a position where we constantly have to be asking favors. I shouldn't be, the fact that we have to ask favors is absolutely criminal as far as I'm concerned. And when we say every child matters. And unfortunately, this is globally, we have picked and chosen those that matter. Let me tell you, if we had over 200 million, I mean, Santoride said men, I mean, if men's penises were removed, there would be a war rage against that. There would be millions funded into that, you know, both of it. But if it was 200 million white blonde girls, it would have been a total. And we need to be very honest. I think if we're really gonna deal with this issue, we need to be very blunt and open to the discussion around race, gender, and sexuality. Because this is what FGM is about. We cannot shy away from that conversation. We've been ignored, because majority of us are dark-skinned, that it really is a reaction. And if I may add on, I think that what you're saying, Leila, is so critical in terms of the survivors, and actually all of us owning this campaign and owning this movement. For many years, we used to sit in rooms where we had people throw numbers, but without realizing that there were actual people behind these numbers. And I think that it is so powerful to be in this room and to have, Leila, and to have all of us, Chaha, in this room to talk about female genital cutting, not as if it was some fictional story, but the fact that it is real, it is happening, and if we don't stop it, it will continue. And I have a niece, she's 15 years old, and she's uncut. And I told her that she should be proud of that, because when I was growing up, being uncut meant that you were unclean, being uncut meant that you were not part of society. And we are going to shift this. We are going to change this, but it really must be owned by the survivors, owned by the communities. So thank you. Each of you to briefly talk about, you're all connected to these movements, the big sister movement, the girl generation, others. We know that FGMC is global in scope. We know that it's happening in indigenous communities in South America and Southeast Asia, South Asia. It's not just people have characterized it as an African issue or a Muslim issue. We know it happens in Christian communities. How are you building these transnational sort of movements of survivors in each of your organization's work and sort of more broadly? Do you want to go first? This way. Sorry, it's okay. I want to talk about the big sister movement, because that is where I feel like I belong. I have been a big sister since I was 11. Yeah, I've been a big sister. I'm the eldest in my family. Three more sisters. My younger sister was cut when I was in school, but I ran away from home to escape FGM. But I had to come back home to save my two other sisters. Yeah, because I could not afford to lose the rest. So I've acted the role of a big sister. I am a big sister. It started with my family. It translated to the village. I made sure there was no FGM in my village. And now I've moved further to the community and at this point I'm supporting other big sisters and big brothers from other communities. So the big sister movement is turning out to be a model that is solving the equation of how to end FGM. There's a, I was sitting down somewhere today and I was thinking, there's so many, there's so many dots to be joined in ending FGM. But how do we reach out? How do we connect all these dots? There we have goals. We do have funding. We have the implementation bit. We have the action. We have the problem. And we will end up sitting in a room like this for so many more years, talking about how to connect all these dots. So we sat down with a group of other big sisters from different countries. We met in Glencry and we said, you know what? There's a way to simplify this equation. There's a way and the only way is to identify the big sisters who are already doing the thing, who are already doing the job and empowering these big sisters. This big sister is going to connect all the dots. For instance, multiple will call it like, it's a goal, I'll call it a responsibility. It is my responsibility to protect my sister. I'll call that a responsibility. I am that responsibility. I am the person implementing that action and I am that solution. That is the big sister. The big sister is going to take up the role that they have been doing. We are not going to request anybody to pay us a salary. We only want to be facilitated. We are only begging, we are only begging that you believe in us. Absolutely. You have spent so much time to bring us here. You've spent so many words and they've been so much work done around to ensure that at least one flower has emerged from a village and I'm that flower. So you have to believe in me. You have to believe in the big sister. We can handle this. We got this. Of the campaign to end FGM. It's no longer about, oh, can we send Mr. Sonso to go to Kenya to go and see how we can end FGM in Kenya? No. You don't have to send somebody to go to Kenya to do a research on how we can end FGM. No, you don't. There's no point. We got this and that's the big sister. As your big sister. I've been recruited by the way. And I mean, you said how do, for me, personally for me, I'm someone who has her foot in different. I think it's really, like I said, for me, working together is absolutely quite key. You know, I'm involved in whatever Domitil is doing, whatever itself is going to be doing. And I mean, I, this morning I said to, I just literally walked up to the director of the girl generation. I said, right, Faith, we are going to meet with the girls in Sahil. Where are they? There they are. The girls from India. I said, we need to bring these sisters into the table. For me, really, that's what really has worked for me. Because you know, where are the Malaysian, Indonesian girls? In Malaysia, we are talking about 80 million. There are Colombian girls. Where are the Russian girls? We are here. That's great. But we need to reach out to those women that we do not see at the front line. And how do we create, for me, as a therapist, and I keep saying this, my aim is always to create those safe spaces where the women can come and have that dialogue. So how now, now that all of us Sahil, big sister, the girl generation, you know, I sat here, all of them are here. How do we now start creating those spaces to bring in our Malaysian sisters, Indonesian sisters, our Colombian sisters, our Russian sisters? Yes. That's our next step. Yes, exactly. We've done it. We just need to go to the next step. Yeah. Definitely. I think that Mela is echoing my thoughts exactly. When my sister, Mariam, and I, we started, there's no limit, foundation. We started it with $18. And when we started it, we made sure that at the core of our work is dignity and security. And then when we started looking at what does dignity and security mean, we found that the first thing was security in your own body. You needed to feel safe in your own body. And female genital cutting really changes our relationships to our body. And it really changes the way we think of ourselves and the way that we think of others. But I want to be very clear that my movement and our movement is about the fact that this is not just an African issue. This is an issue that is affecting many more people. And if I just may, with there is no limit foundation and with just guinea being the second country with the highest rate of female genital cutting, and the fact that it cuts across, it doesn't matter if you are poor, it doesn't matter if your father's a politician, my father's a politician, I was still cut. FGM was outlawed in my country, I was still cut. And so what we find that what is going to be successful and what is going to work is empowering youth. It's just giving people the platform. People just need to talk about female genital cutting. And we started a campaign called Break the Silence. The silence has to be broken. Female genital cutting is the biggest secret that everyone knows about, that everyone is ignoring and we can ignore it and I refuse to ignore it. My sisters, we will not allow anyone to ignore female genital cutting anymore. You know, hypocrisy that we do in this conversation sometimes because in the UK, for example, then the second cosmetic surgery in the UK right now, it's design a vagina. Yes. Right? Yes. See, my white friends can go and do whatever they want to their vaginas, as a black woman, I'm not allowed. That's the double standards in my eyes because we are saying, because these, again, we need to go back to the policies that are in place, which are misogynistic, which are racist, because for me, this comes back to body image. If you speak to a lot of these white women, they will say to you, I did this because my husband had an affair, I need to have a type of vagina. If you get a chance, watch a video clip of Ozzy Osbourne's wife, Sharon Osbourne, did this video for one of the TV shows and she talked about how she had her vagina tightened and people are laughing about the way where she's talking about this and they said to her, how was it during sex? She goes, it was painful, but my husband enjoyed it. This is exactly why we were mutilated. So we can't say one is barbaric and the other one is okay, it's a choice. This is about, what is it as society that we are doing and feeding our girls from a very young age that there's something wrong with their bodies from day one? Why can't we accept our bodies for the way it is? And to give you that, but we can't call us barbaric and say the other girls have a choice, that's not the case. And I think to touch on your point, Leila, one of the co-organizers of all this global fund of this whole week, the lead on this issue, just published a piece, Susan Gibbs and her grandmother's story in 19th century Philadelphia in Pennsylvania about her story. So this isn't a far away practice. It was indigenous in the United States and Europe, up until a century ago, it's a cure for hysteria. So we need to really remember the history. Women have to have our sheets. Exactly. So this is, so I think it's critical to sort of really contextualize this and it is global and there is a history. So we're really now running, I could talk to you guys for hours. So I'm going to ask you just in 30 seconds, if there's just give me one example of something that's worked well and that has the potential to scale, a tactic, or I mean we've talked a lot, but just if each of you, Dantila, an example of something that's worked in your work and in your experience. Thank you. If the bit started already started, because we're now at that developing the structure, so I would have said the big system. Okay, because I know it's going to work. Good. I agree with that. But at this point, I want to say that one thing that has worked for me and one thing that has really supported me and even helped me to achieve, the little I have achieved or the much I've achieved and the confidence I have today is a media campaign. I got involved in a media campaign. Today, I was telling my friends yesterday, I said, if I post something about ending FGM on Facebook and Laila likes it, I get confident. We have a solidarity going on on social media. Yes, media campaign that is being led by Guardian Global Media Campaign is something that has really worked for me. It has not just worked for me, but it's worked for so many other girls and so many other boys and so many other campaigns in Kenya. Last year in September, I brought together 35 young grassroots activists who were not attached to any organization, but they were desperate to bring change in their villages. I brought together and we were trained in a campaign academy in Nairobi. And now these young people have gone back to their villages. They set up their own organization. They are using the community radio stations to pass out a message. Because today, if I go in a marketplace and shout about ending FGM, I can only talk to just a number of people. But if I go on the local radio station, because I know the message that will work, I know what I need to talk. I respect my culture. I'm only against the harmful cultural practice. So I know the message. I know if I bring a doctor, I know if I bring a lawyer from the Pocot community and if we take a Maasai to go to NOSI MFM, that is the community radio station for the Maasai, they know the message that they'll pass out. And that message will not only reach his family or her family, but will reach the entire community. So that is a way that we are using to accelerate the change we want. The media campaign is really working for us. I did a poster competition and it's working. That's awesome. Thank you. I'll be in 10 seconds. Okay, 10 seconds. For me, like I said earlier, filming is changing the language and the narrative. FGM is one of the worst forms of child and sexual abuse. Because touching children's genitals is sexual abuse. Because if I touch another child's genitals, I'll be on the sex offenders list. We need to treat it as that. Yes, exactly. And for me, I think that you are going to be the spark that's going to light this movement. And so what we're doing at the Ares Nile Foundation is to really work with young people. And so it's also about the sisterhood. It's also about just all of us coming together as a community. So just let's keep working. And I have one last question. It's a yes-no. Can we end FGMC by 2030? Yes. Hell yes. Awesome. Yeah, violence against women. Yes, yes. That's what we need to do. That's what we can end it. So we have about 13 minutes for Q&A. People can come to the, we'll just do a question. Please keep it as a, just raise your hand, exactly. And keep it to a question, please. Because it is a lightning round. Good. So thank you. Did you have this made? My thumbs, I think. Yes. Go ahead. Tone down. Yep, sure. Do you have a question? Yeah. I think there's a microphone. Thank you. And if you could just keep, yeah, introduce yourself in a question. Good morning, everybody. My name is Alima Tudimonikeni, and I'm also a fellow FGM survivor. Thank you very much, ladies. So inspired. And my question is, how do we take this to sort of where we're all from? The Africans, the Asia, the Middle East, and speak the same language? Because there still remains challenges, whether it's poverty, lack of education, lack of access to health. We want to do everything we've done here today in our home countries. Thank you. If I may, I think that the first step to sending this back home is to go without judgment. We really need to end FGM by not judging the culture. And as Layla said, it is something, culture cannot trump human rights. And I have that conversation with people all of the time. Culture cannot trump human rights. Religion cannot trump human rights. Nothing can trump human rights, because that is a right that is given by God. It is a right that is given just by the fact that you are a human being. So let's go by making sure that we don't judge and really creating platforms where we can have honest, uncomfortable, sometimes really annoying conversations, because that is the only way that we'll be able to just take it back home. Just to answer, it's a very good question. And what I found, not just even people back home with the diaspora community as well, teaching people the right information. Somali women, I'm from Somalia originally. East Africans in the room. Yay. And we really liked them. So yeah, there was not that many of us around. What I found when I work with my community, for example, when I tell them white women needs to practice Cladiotomy, they don't feel so isolated. Yeah, exactly. Don't always walk in there with you need to stop this. If you look up my work, I never walked into a room and said FGM was wrong. They had to tell me why it was right. All I did, I gave them the information and 99% of the time, they're against it. And I think given the right information to community, so when you say this is a global issue, we need to stop saying Africa, Asia. FGM is a global issue. And I think in terms of home, what we need to do as diasporas, we need to help, we need to be behind our sisters. Because let me tell you, in Somalia, I couldn't go to Somalia and lead an FGM campaign. Because number one, it would be totally disrespectful. Because there are women at grassroots level who have been doing this work for donkeys' years. I'm sorry, this is a British thing to say, okay? So all what I need to do as Leila with my platform and connections, I'm gonna make sure they get the money, they get the resources, I get social media kicking off. And I remember a couple of years ago, we actually did that when a Somali, a rape victim was actually arrested. We diaspora, we used the media like crazy, but we will work with a grassroots organization on the down low. We will make sure they're getting everything. They couldn't say anything, but we made sure. So by the time the Somali president stepped into London, everybody was asking about this question. And within two weeks, the girl was released. So as diaspora, we play a key role. But what we need to do, we need to stand behind our sisters when we go back home. Because we cannot stand at the front because that's also, I find it to be quite disrespectful. And then I think that in the US also, not just back home, in the US, female genital cutting is happening here because people migrate. And I think that what I would like to also acknowledge is that there are women in this room. Okay, there's Mariamma Jallu, there's Nafisa Tujop and there's just amazing activists that are working in New York City, helping women who are living in the Western world with female genital cutting so that they are not ignored. So it's not just about going back home, it's also about helping people in the diaspora, in the US, in the UK, and really making sure they're also supported. Insia. Hello everyone. My name is Insia and I'm representing Sayu. I work off the ground in Mumbai, India. And I want to thank you all sitting on this platform and making India an inclusive because it is happening there and no one is acknowledging that. So I just want to say to the big sisters out there, please watch our backs too because we need your help, we need everybody's help here. And it's not just Mumbai doing it, it's the diaspora communities, the Dawoodi Bora communities all over the world that is practicing it. And like Mariam said, Southeast Asia, everywhere it's happening, it's happening in Thailand, it's happening in Malaysia. It's happening in Russia now and it's probably been happening for many years. So thank you everybody for having us here and please do support our back because we need you guys. So thanks, thanks a lot. So we're getting close to the end of the Q and A. I'm gonna go ahead and take two questions and maybe three questions at once and then we can have the panelists answer accordingly. So thank you to the gentlemen. Hello. My name is Mamadou C. I'm from Mamali, but I live in New York for the last 25 years. Other New Yorkers. New Yorkers. We have a foundation talking about violence against women like genital mutilation. We work hard with the United Nations to have these finally girl mothers. I'm very proud to see the Secretary-General of the United Nations talking about it. But I hear you asking if it's possible in the year 2030, we're gonna have an end. Yeah. We're all here today, we're all happy. We want to be positive about talking about what we're gonna put like our sister for Kenya. Say, trust me, we're gonna end it. We're gonna do that. But to me, culture is not something you could just put a stop in one day. No, you're right. We have to go with a lot of sensitivity. We did do you, I want to ask, do you have any meaning to support people like most of the activists who devote most of their lives to stop this criminal behavior because it's criminal to cut the way, beautiful way God creates human being. Thank you. It's a criminal. So I just, without mean, without financial support, we're gonna spend the whole day, we're gonna have a lot of money, the money, come on the French, the NED, the war. Thank you. Thank you for your question and in your comments. Just very brief questions, please. Thank you so much, sir. We'll take two more and then we'll have the panelists respond. First of all, thank you very much for inviting all of us here and for your work. My name is Joanne Golden, I am an attorney in Massachusetts. I work for the federal government, that's my day job, but I have worked for the past three and a half years with the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts in researching, drafting and advocating for legislation to ban FGM and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the 50 states, for those who don't know. And we came very close in July to get it in a state law and two of the things that, questions that came up from legislators, one is why isn't the federal law enough? Why do you need local law? The other one that came up is, is FGM and FGC happening in Massachusetts? Now obviously we had anecdotal information, but how do we create, and maybe this is for Layla, but for all of you, is how do we create the safe space to have people who are at risk, survivors, as well as women and girls who haven't been cut, to come forward and to help us support our state law so that we can get it back, we're gonna refile again in January and for the next legislative session. So I wanted to ask your help in that because it is a gender issue, it is a race issue. And I completely agree with that and obviously people look at me and they see a white woman and they also see a lawyer, which, you know, that's the other thing. And people aren't always fans of lawyers and the law is not enough and that has to be both of them together. So I'd like to ask your help with that because I really don't have the answer. Thank you. We'll take one more question, the gentleman in the back. I'll get you next. Good morning everyone. My name is Francis of the Amber from Kenya and I just have two questions for all of you. Like the ladies, I've heard of the big system movement and I've seen that you guys are doing a very good job. But now, do you really accept us as men to support and work with you in the fight against gender-based violence? Because number one, That's a yes, that's a yes. Number one, we appreciate the fact that my mother here from Kenya always tells me that we are the consumers. So us being the consumers. That's a fine demand, that's true. Us being the consumers. All the men in the house. Are you ready to stand up and say that now we want to really fight and support our ladies? Yes, this means that this is a human. It's not just all of us and it's like a very bad thing that has happened and we will be there for you. So give us space and we will walk with you. Thank you. So I'll answer the question about ending FGC by 2030. We're not being naive by saying that it is possible, okay? Food binding used to be done in China. It was ended in one generation, okay? And I think that we could actually end female genital cutting by 2030. The way that we do that is by empowering the survivors and it's by empowering the youth. The youth, as I said, they're the spark that will start this movement, that will light this movement because they could go home and talk to their mothers and talk to their fathers and actually challenge the social structure that is happening. They are also the consumers, right? The future consumers, if we say, because I actually don't like that word because women are not a commodity. We are women, but I will take that one out, call them the consumers, then they should also be standing at the forefront. So I strongly believe that female genital cutting can end by 2030. I work with the UN and I work in this field and I've seen the shift, so it is possible and you are already doing it. So I want you to believe it and we will all work together to get it done. I mean, to the men again, and this is like a recurring thing that I can't say. Those who know me know I've done a lot of work with men to a point where I created a vagina gallery for them at one point, just to make a point, okay? And men, you came out of our vaginas at the end of the day. That's a fact, that's a fact. And you play a key role in this because fundamentally we undergo FGM to control our sexuality for you guys. So you need to come up and say, that is not what we're gonna take on. Because every mother you speak to will say to me, who's gonna marry her then? Because the men are not gonna want my daughter. So men, and you are funding this. I'm sick and tired of men telling me, well, I didn't do it, her mother did it. No, you paid for it, dude, you paid for it. So you take that responsibility. Just the answer to your question in terms of, I mean, usually when I do a session on creating safe space, I need a whole day to do that. So maybe what we could do at the coffee break, we can talk about me maybe coming over and doing some training. Because that's, it really, it's cute. And when I say safe space, I mean safe space, it could be near the desk, in the corridor, in a room. Yeah. And finally, which was, yeah. I think we may end, maybe just talking about safe space. I'll talk about accessible space. Because maybe survivors from the UK, from the US, you have some support. But the survivors back home, we don't have that space. We don't have that accessible support for our survivors back home. And that's where all other women have undergone FGM, like many, many, many women have undergone FGM. We don't have that support, accessible space. That is why the idea of the big sister is also going to tackle that. It's going to provide that support. And that is going to be a big sister. Let me just finish. The FGM, FGM is linked to so many other social injustices. It's not just FGM, as we call it. There's, there's, there's child marriage. There is rape. There is lack of accessing education, health. All these are interlinked. Absolutely. So FGM is a recipe for all this. So we don't talk about FGM. We don't tackle FGM, that we are going to end up with all these other injustices against women. So I've had an experience where, where a girl has been raped. And I call the responsible department to protect the children or the girls. And I'm told it's not our job. I call the police, the police say it's not our job. You call the hospital for an ambulance, you are told there's no ambulance. So it's nobody's job. It's the big sister's job now. We are taking this into a new level, yeah? But we'll, we'll be, we'll, we're all here. We can continue this conversation. I wish we could take more questions, but we're just out of time. And thank you so much. Thanks to all of you. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. All right. Well, you are a fabulous audience. Yes. This is what we're talking about. This is a conversation. And we are now going to ask all the people who are on the steps, find a seat. Please, we have to, because of security and safety reasons here at the institute. Before our break, we have yet another unbelievable story. And so now I want to welcome her story, Uncut. Gation, it's all teachers ask you in September. What I learned over summer vacation was literally the topic of our first assignment in Ms. Reed's English class. So I wrote about how I learned to play Smelt Like Teen Spirit on my guitar and about the writing class I did at the Y. I got an A, but Ms. Reed called me up after class and said it went to the village in Somalia where my parents grew up and there was this big celebration and our cousins and aunties. I didn't even know I missed myself. I'd be the regular mirror on everyone at school. It's becoming hard. It's actually making me sick. When my parents told me we were going to Africa over the summer, I danced in our kitchen and screamed at the top of my lungs. Y'all, I'm hard, she cried. My sister, Lalo, didn't even want to go. She kept saying, I'm not from Africa, I'm from Brooklyn. Yeah, she's nine. Even sleep. I was blasting it on Facebook and Instagram and I was packing for weeks. Not once did my parents say anything to me. I mean, they said things like, Deca, I hope you know this will be a very special trip for you girls. And I just kept saying, yeah, I'm trying to protect me. The flight was 25 hours long. A whole day of my life spent in the air and that first week was the best week of my life. Hanging out with my family. Everyone was making a big deal about us. My grandmother even gave us these beautiful necklaces and I didn't think any of that was about something else. I just thought they were happy to see me and I know they were, but the first word, guninka, was the day it happened. My mother said it meant special girls day. She said it was a tradition in Somalia for girls to celebrate womanhood. And I remember thinking, oh my, my sister did this sassy thing and was like, tell us exactly what we're doing. I like having a plan. My mom just ignored her. When we got to my grandmother's house, my aunties were there and this lady I didn't know. And I remember thinking in the back of my head, who is this cute little lady? She was the woman who would do the guninka. The room was in a strange way and squeezed our hands really tight and said she loved us and she needed us to be very brave. The minute she said that, my sister started to shake and my sister said, why do we have to be brave for her, mom? And my heart was pounding. And my mom told us, you are going to have a tiny surgery in between your legs. And it is going to hurt just a bit, but it's very important. And Layla just ran through the door and one of my aunties grabbed her and they all shushing Layla in and speaking really fast. It's a Molly and I started to cry because I didn't understand. And my mom was like, Deca, I need you to go first. I need you to be strong for Layla, okay? Daddy and I want you to get married one day. We want you to be good and clean for your husband, okay? And I'm watching, I'm watching the lady take out her tools and find to escape and throw up all over the floor with the smell of sweat with the sound of body being cut. Again, if she could have been skipped. I was so much blood, I thought she was going to die. She doesn't talk much since we've been back. And I take her everywhere with me when I can. My mom believes the good ninkah made me want to be responsible and take care of Layla, but that's not true. Parents make us promise every day to not say anything to anyone because they can get in trouble because America doesn't understand our culture. Well, I don't understand it either. Who want to be true to my roots and my culture but didn't protect us. No one did. Because I can't stop texting girls like me to happen to me what happened to their bodies because they don't want what happened to them at a family vacation to happen to anyone else. And I'm starting to realize the only way I could be me again is if I become one of them. So that's what I'm going to do next summer. Don't sit back down. We're going to have a break. The store is both at the top and the bottom, but the coffee's on the second floor. Take time, and we will be back in our seats in 20 minutes. How you doing, Fitz? Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's good. OK, we're going to get started in about one minute. Yeah, that's how I think we do it. Go ahead and check. That's how it works. Yeah, we'll just start de-shutting the doors. Well, welcome back. We are going to start off the second panel here this morning exploring the role of educators in ending FGMC. And again, if you would like to tweet, the hashtag is in violence against girls, as well as make sure your phones are off. You can use them, but turn it off. I'm very happy to introduce you to the second panel. And our moderator, Angela Peabody, will be taking the lead here. She is the executive director and founder of Global Women Peace Foundation. Angela, I'm turning it over to you to introduce us to the fabulous panel. Thank you. It's really a pleasure to be here. As a matter of fact, I'm honored to be sitting here today. But without much ado, I'm going to introduce the panel to you. We have first Kakeena Entire, who has been working with the school systems in Kenya, educating girls and empowering them to become agents of change. And next, we have Jesu Kuate, who works with children outside the formal education system through summer camps and with children at FGM risk. We have Allison Milovsky, who oversees the Institute's youth engagement, including the Generation Change Fellows program. The least we have Sammy Ula, who is a young male activist with Integrate Bristol. He works to empower young people to create and participate equally in integrative and representative society. So ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to ask two questions to each of the panelists one at a time. And I want to remind you to please be as brief as possible with your answers. Otherwise, unfortunately, I might have to interrupt you. So Kakeena, I'll go with you first. How has educating girls through school system worked? I think school is one of the greatest places where you have everybody in one place. So you have the parents, you have the teachers, you have the government, you have the girls, you have literally the whole community there. Myself, I started at school because I knew that education had made a difference in my life. And at some point, I learned about female genital cutting when I was in college. And I was very shocked that it was actually I should have learned it earlier. So that's why I go back to the school and say school is where we can start enhancing what is already there. In most schools, we have the sexual reproductive education or sex education. And within that is where we really look at a holistic approach. And where FGM is not just or FGMC is not just one part of something. We have to look at it as a comprehensive thing. We have to look at it as a link to early marriages, a link to teen pregnancy, a link to girls dropping out of school, a link to all of their bath. And so if we can be able to reach girls in school with this critical information about what is FGMC? Because in most communities, we are told this is what will make you a woman. But nothing else is discussed about it. So we create this space where we have those dialogues, both with students and we have dialogue with the parents and teachers. So I think it's a great place to start. Thank you, because as far as I'm concerned, education is the key, the key to ending FGM. So Jisoo, I'll go to you next. What is actually, what are the greatest challenges you face with the, you have this camp called the summer in English, it's called Summer Without Cutting. What are the greatest challenges you face when you are working with the camp? Well, the greatest challenge that we're facing with the, it's called a cancer exhesion, which is summer without female genital mutilation cutting. The challenge that we face is the funding. The reason why we use this strategy for the summer camp is to educate the youth, age of five and up, because we know that it's during summer time that girls are taken away to be circumcised. You listened earlier about the uncut story and that's the whole purpose why we have the summer camp. But the greatest challenge that we face is the funding, because we do want to explore the summer camp. We want to extend this so everyone can be part of it, not only the Indian community or the African community, but other community to come and join us. Thank you. Allison, from a trainer's point of view, what is working, especially when you're addressing issues like FGMZ? Well, I want to respond from the perspective or from the context of the Generation Change Fellows program, which is our youth engagement. We're in 10 countries. And so to prepare for this panel, I reached out to our fellows to speak from their experience. And so our fellows from Nigeria and Kenya, whom we have trained in conflict management and dialogue skills, shared with me their experiences. And so what they said specifically is that as a trainer and as somebody who's coming into a school community and as a site for their advocacy work around FGM and forced child marriages, the importance of dialogue skills and the ability to have a productive and effective engagement with young people in a way that they can further and carry on that conversation is essential. So really teaching them, from a trainer's perspective, teaching them how to ask those critical and challenging questions in effective ways that open up places of possibility for creative thinking about what life can be like and what our alternatives are and what our choices are is critical for them. Thank you. Sammy. It's so good to have a man on the panel. Thank you. As a peer educator, who are you working with? We're working with young people. So Integrate Bristol, everything we do is youth-led. So we do media projects, music videos, films. And young people are at the forefront of everything that we do. So I mean, I suppose you're all wondering why they have a 40-year-old man sat on stage. I've talked to some of you. I am a lot younger than I look. I can assure you. So when I say we're working with young people, I would hopefully classify myself as a young person. So script writing, filming, editing, camera work, everything, it's all young people. And we try and work with young people as much as we can, as well as including parents and the community as well in the work we do. Wonderful. I'm coming back to you, Tina, with a second question. What are the greatest challenges you're facing in your work against FGMC? I think one of the greatest challenges that I have is working within a school can be very challenging, because we have a set of what the government says we need to teach. And now we have to be creative to bring and extend beyond what the government says we teach. And by government, you mean the Kenyan government? The Kenyan government, I'm talking about. And I think most governments have ways of how do you teach sex education, of how do you teach reproductive health to young people. And really going into deep and saying, if we really have, we've seen in communities where we work, girls are dropping out of school. Why are they dropping out of school? Because they're going through female genital cutting, and then they're getting married, and that's their life. So if you start actually having those dialogues and creating it within the curriculum where teachers are able to identify where the issues are within the students, they're able to follow through, because yes, we have laws, but who will enforce the laws? Who will protect the girls? Most of the time, we have them in the school, so teachers will be the first people to protect them. How do we work with the parents? And it's really, I find that the issues that we have are really interconnected. And we can't just say, let's solve early marriages and let's solve FGM and let's solve teen pregnancy. And so there's a lot of so many things that are multi. So I think for me, the biggest challenge is how do you create a program, which this is what I'm trying to do, that you bring all into one and really be able to address the parents, be able to address the teachers, be able to address the students, be able to really deal with the issues that are about control of women, about girls who are forced or who are cut, they go through traumatizing experiences. But we don't talk about that. Where do we find the place for them? And it's really that complex place. And as a small organization, which we are growing into a big organization, so we're really left sometimes when it comes to funding. We are like people who fund a small organization, we don't really fit there. And then those who organize it, we are like left in the middle. We are like, where do we go? And yet, I think the earlier. So your greatest challenge is to incorporate all of these. How do you grow? How do you incorporate? And how do you jump to the next level? And how do you connect to greater projects that are out there? So it's a whole lot of other stuff in there. OK. To that. Well, I was going to ask you your next question, which is what needs to happen next year, you believe, for FGMC? What do you think needs to happen next year? I think that we should definitely be involved to come together and end it. This is such a joy for me to see a young. I was telling Yara yesterday, I was full of joy to see all those youth being part of the summit. What's been challenging for me beside the summer camp, like yesterday with the activists meeting, how can we translate what we've been saying here to the village? Because yes, right now, there's social media everywhere. But what about those who are in the village who don't have access to the radio or to the television and all that stuff? How can we save those young there? So that's one of the biggest challenges. Correct. And I think that we should be the voice to those people as well so that we can end the female genital mutilation. Thank you. Allison, what are the greatest challenges with trainers and educators that they face when it comes to the issue of FGMC? I think one of the challenges for any trainer when you're dealing with social justice issues is the need to avoid judgment and the need to create a space, the challenge around creating a space in which you're allowing those who are survivors to feel dignified in their experience. And so it's a place that is safe for everyone. I think that it's always a challenge. Because as trainers, we bring ourselves to it. We're human beings. And so how do you really suspend any judgment you might have around a practice to allow all stakeholders to feel like they are valued and to maintain their own personal dignity as you're trying to shift social dynamics and shift socialization and really challenge people in ways that will lead to individual and communal change? So it's that balance. Thanks. Sammy, I'm going to ask you a similar question, but try to be quick. What are the greatest challenges students face that you feel students face in your line of work when they are trying to deal with FGMC? Cultural issues is the big thing, I think. So there's an expectation from parents or certain parents for their child to do well. But the parents definition of doing well is different to what the child defines as them doing well. And I think I speak from some personal experience where parents have wanted me to go into it in one direction, but I wanted another direction. And I think that conflict is what young people have to face and young people have to deal with. And sometimes they just don't have the strength to deal with that conflict. And instead, they go down the route of whatever makes their parents happy. So I think that's a massive issue for young people. Thank you. Before we close or before we end our discussion, I just want to go down the road and ask each one of you to say in about a few seconds what do you think needs to be, how do we end? Because we've already set the goal for 2030 or prior. How do we need to end FGMC in 2030 or before that? Just quickly, in a few seconds. I think one of the greatest things that I think we need to do is, and I hope this happens next year, is to really bring the program stuff into a regional place where they all learn from each other. And because I think most of the time we are the ones, you know, the leaders who are in the front. But the people who are really doing the work, it's my program stuff who is actually on the ground training, doing all that. If they're given a space to learn from what the Samburus are doing, what are they doing in Gambia, and create that link between those next generation of leaders that are really doing the work, that will bring us into that collaborative effort. It will bring us to a place of going to the next step. Because I think that if we don't collaborate, we're not going to end it. So we really have to do that. Great. Chesu, quickly. I think we need to get the men involved. And I'm so glad that Mr. Mamadou was saying that. And the guy from Kenya said they want to get involved. Because we don't want to make it women issues. We want to make it humanitarian issues. And that way, everyone will get involved and end it. Because if we keep saying that this is women issues, women issues, it will probably take more than 2030 to end the female genital mutilation. Getting involved, all the stakeholders will definitely take us to the next level. Well, this morning, we did get all the men in the room to commit to that. So we've got them already. Yes. Especially with the summer camp, we have parents. Because that's the strategy that we use to bring the parents, the youth, and the elderly people. Because from there, they can teach and learn from each other and come out with strategies how to end the female genital mutilation. Thank you. Alison. I'm going to try and share a very quick story. So Maureen, one of our generation change fellows in Kenya, shared with me that last year, in 2015, three teenage girls were targeted for cutting in her village. And because they all had single mothers, and the sense was that they needed to be, because of issues around funding and sending them to school, they needed to be taken out of school. So the decision was made that the easiest way to do that was to have them get married. And associated with that was the practice of cutting. And so they fled and hid. They heard about in the bushes in the bush in the evenings. And then they'd heard about Maureen's work and contacted her. And she, through her community and connections, got funding for them to stay in school. And they stayed with her, lived with her for a period of time. They re-entered school. They're all back in school. But most significantly, they're all volunteers in her organization. And one is working on the issue of water. And another is working on literacy with young children. So they've all found ways to contribute to the work and to further the work of her organization, which is giving them a sense of the power that they have and the work that they can do to control their own lives. And I think that what we need to continue to do is find ways to institute, ways to elevate the work of youth and to support this notion that youth have a voice. Thanks. We've run out of time. Sammy. But please, Sammy, just one second or two seconds. I think the answer is up there. I think education is what it's needed. I don't think I need to say anything more. It's not just education for young people, but also for adults as well. Keep an open mind. Keep wanting to learn. I mean, today, well, networking with a doctor who does clitoral reconstruction. That's new to me. I mean, I learned something new there. I'm going to take that back and use that in my own organization and update our safeguarding stuff. So yes, just keep an open mind and keep learning and educate yourselves and others. Thank you. Thank you, guys. You have been great panelists. Thanks. Even though we ran out of time just a little bit. And I'd like to thank the audience for being patient and listening to us. We're going to take questions, three questions, from this part of the room so that the person who takes the microphone around will have convenience. And then we'll take questions from that side of the room later on. So we'll do this side first. And then we'll do that. So three questions from this side of the room first. And please keep your questions brief and to the point and not statements, not comments, just questions, please. It's not questions, it's points. Good afternoon. I'm really glad because finally I've been able to handle the mic. Since yesterday, I've been trying putting my hands up. But I know God's time is the best. And this is the time, so please give me a little time. I am Anne-Marie F. Corka from Sierra Leone. I want to thank the organizers. Jaha, you challenge me. I want to thank you. May God bless you. And Shelby, thank you very much for bringing us here. It's really an effort for making us to be here. I am an orphan and lost my mother at the age of two. And at the age of six, my father is a polycamous Muslim father. And at the age of six, I was playing outside. Two of my mother's mates took me to the garden because they know I like fruits. And they asked me to go and get fruits. I was happy. That is why when that lady was talking, I cried bitterly. And unfortunately, going with joy, I found out that they have to cut me. And it was done on me for three times and three consecutive days. Each day, they want to bath me. They will hide the blade. And all of a sudden, I will see them cutting. So it's which, on the third day, I told them I'm going to die today because this is too much. It's torture. So even though it was not human rights, please. Do you have a question? I don't have a question. I'm just, education. I'm just talking about education. Please give me a chance because I didn't say anything yesterday. I said I want to thank the US, Nina Smart. She has been supporting organizations in Sierra Leone. And the US State Department, who have been working with my organization, National Movement for Immersion and Progress. It's my organization. It's a coalition working with up to 30 member organizations across the country. And of course, you heard from the journalists yesterday, I am the first woman that used to go to the UN radio at night. We call it Nightline to talk about FGM. And I was under threat. And I even have some police statements here where I was threatened in Kailaun and about 400 to 600 women gathered. They want to take me back to the FGM. These are some of the achievements. And even the case of Khadija that we are talking today, I was the one who took the challenge. She was in the hospital for three days, four days. She was locked by the initiators. And when she was brought to the hospital, I took the bold step. Even campaigners, everybody was afraid because of government. And I went to the hospital to make sure Khadija is released and Nina supported her release. And she was taken to Liberia. So I want to thank this forum. I have a lot to say. We thank you, but we, but we. But women, I'm dealing with girls. Girls' education, I have a school. And these are some of the successes. Thank you. Who's next? And please keep it to question only. Thank you. My name is. Thank you. My name is Hadir Shahkat. I am with SOTIA2 Center for African Women in New York City. And we've been there for over a decade now. And FGC has something that has always been on the forefront of our work. And so I had a question based on our experiences speaking with girls and trying to understand their experiences and learn their stories about what happened to them. And what I find is that every girl has, of course, their similarities, but there is also a difference depending on at what age they were cut. Their stories are not the same. And so as educators, the question I have for you is even in grade school, your education can't be the same at every age. And so through your experiences and what your thoughts are, I'm interested in knowing how to organize the education, the FGC education, depending on age, if that's something that you've done, you've had experience doing, and what you found appropriate for each group. And when I mean age, I'm saying at what age they were cut, what are they familiar with? And I'd really like to hear your thoughts on that. Thank you. Thank you. We'll just take the questions, and then we'll have the panelists answer all of them. So we'll take one more question only from this side of the room. And then the panelists will answer. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. My name is Adama. And the question I have is when it regards to education, can we be specific? Because since I started activism, I've been always confused when you talk about educating activists and the community on FGM. What are we trying to educate them? Is it the procedural of FGM or the importance of the clitoris or sexual education? Because most of the time when they want to back themselves, they always say, well, we've got the clitoris because we want to reduce their women's feelings or girls' orgies to sex. Well, there are some cultural groups that I know, or some set of people in my country that call them the Wallows. They actually do not undergo FGM. It's not part of their culture. But they still get married and actually fool around. So what is actually the difference? Do you understand that point? I think so. Well, in full art, in my culture in Fulani, my mother, when I asked her, she said, we circumcise you because we don't want you to be so much intersexual activity to limit your orgies. So in Wallows, they actually do not circumcise them. And some of them don't fool around. They stick to their husband. They don't limit themselves. So what kind of education are we talking about? My second question is, should you consider having a curriculum of FGM in school? Do you think it's something that we should think about? I think we should think about it. That's a good question. OK, thanks. So that's it for on this side of the room. We're going to have the panelists answer those questions from this side of the room. And then we'll move to that side. Who wants to take the first question? The first question was how to organize education according to the age years. OK, I work for Inter-African Committee. And I should have said that this is a big challenge for me to speak because I'm Dr. Priya the daughter. So I cannot. I can never replace him. But the challenge, the way that we educate the kids is to a different age. To the summer camp, we have age from 5 to 8, and then 9 to 13, and from 13 and up. The age of 5 to 6, we have some mentors here, Mr. Abdul Kamara. What they do from age to from 5 to 6, we teach them about culture, about tradition, about religion. Because the whole concept about female intermutilation, they still think that girls can learn about a tradition, about a culture, and not being sexually involved. So at that age, we only talk about the culture. Now at the age of 9 and up, we go a little bit into knowing your body and being careful around people that you don't feel comfortable with. We don't also go deep into the conversation. From age of 13 and up, that's where we go to the different stage of female intermutilation through a different tradition, or through a different ethnic, or through different countries. And it works so far because it's making a big progress. And sometimes when you ask, when we are around the children, especially my daughter, she will tell me, mommy, this is what I learned about the summer camp. So it's through a different age. And I can add to that that's a context that's happening in the US. If you take to a context in my community, where some girls are cut when they're eight years old. So you ask a very good question. When do you need to start talking about those issues? So we incorporated a curriculum where we start actually when they're eight, because our girls come to us when they're eight. And we really talk about your rights. You have a right to go to school. You have a right to not be married when you're young. You have a right to not be touched because there's a lot of abuse in terms of rape and defilements that people don't talk about. We really open up in discussions that, because we are forced to tackle those issues at that age, because of what is happening within the community. So at one point, I used to say, no, let's wait until they're a team. But that is too late. I find girls that come into our program, we have summer camps and holiday trainings. And they already cut. And then I'm like, OK, now I need a counselor who needs to deal with the ones that have been cut. And it's really a complex. And it's all about what is in your community. You need to understand your community. You need to understand what are the issues that are there. You need to understand which context, where are they coming from, and so that you're actually going to create a program that is specific to your needs. And it's not going to be one program that fits all of us. So we have to be very, know your people, basically. Thank you. You had two questions. Your first question was, we've already answered your first question. Your second question was, should FGM be included in schools curriculum? That's right. OK. Who wants to take that question? I can answer that question. When we usually educate the victim or the survivor about female genital mutilation, my mom usually give this example. I say, you say you don't want to get married to a woman who's already circumcised. And the men from Africa, when they come here, they get married with a white woman. And nothing happened to them. Because usually they'll say, if you haven't took a circumcised woman, then you might die. And the men that are here are married to a different culture. Nothing happened to them. So what makes you believe that this is something that can happen to the man or to a tradition? So I think that we have to just quickly wrap it up because we want to answer her last question. We don't have time to even go to the side of the room. Can I talk about the characters? The character? Because what you're asking is something that everybody is always asking. We want to control the girls. We want to control them so that they're not sexually going around and doing all that. And I think what I've found from working with our girls now they're in high school, it's really about building the characters and talking about sex and talking about opening the space because we talk about misuse of sex. And that's really all between within the all sexual reproductive health discourse that it should be discussed. So it's not FGM makes you not actually active. It's really about a character development and having those conversations within the community. Can I quickly add? I think it's just really quickly. I think that it's important to embed FGM in a conversation on gender discrimination, which can happen at a very young age. And we can start talking about gender equality and issues around gender equality from a very young age. And then the conversation changes as they get older. But there are some basic anti-discrimination and human rights concepts. Yeah, and that's what Jisoo was pointing out. Jaha has the microphone. So Adama, just say something about the statement. What's wrong with women wanting to have sex? What's wrong with women having desires? If men, we encourage men to have sex as much as they want. What is wrong with us as women wanting to have sex? It's our God-given right. Do you think pleasure, there's nothing wrong with it and we shouldn't feel ashamed of it? So the fact that we encourage that in men and we try to take that away from women, it's wrong. The reason why FGM is here and still happens is because of that mindset that we have. And until we treat women as equal to men, the same thing we promote for men, we should promote that for women. There is nothing wrong with women wanting sex. Jaha, but I think it's a question of young people. We're talking about misuse of sex among young people. I'm not talking about ladies. Young men, there's misuse of sex. So if we want to tackle that, we tackle it for all young people. We don't talk about just women wanting sex. Or young women wanting sex. So it's a comprehensive, it's not about girls. It's all about young people, both boys and girls. And we do that. And we apologize for not coming to this side of time when we're used up with questions. Thank you so much, panel two. Thank you so much, panel two. It's the last one. Is that what you did? Thank you. All right, we've asked nearly the impossible of our panels and our moderators. But we're not going to answer all the questions, but we're going to get a lot of the questions out on the table. And that is what this is about. So I'd love to have your attention again. We have another moment in which we're going to hear from a young woman who is a theater but acting as Fatima. Please Jasmine. Hakim, and I'm here to share a story with you that will hopefully open your eyes. Nah, I'm just playing with you. I'm like 14, so. I just like saying doctor Fatima Hakim out loud because it sounds good and I'm going to be a doctor. Blood doesn't scare me. When I see it, I just think, oh, there's some blood. Did you know it takes only 20 to 60 seconds for a drop of blood to travel from your heart through your body and back to your heart again? This girl in my biology class said it's not that she thinks blood is gross. What really scares her is knowing that her body is losing something that it needs. I understand that. Anyway, I'm allowed to watch TV on the nights my parents have work events. They're professors at Oxford and I'm a big science nerd. So this one night, I was watching a BBC program about this famous OBGYN who works on high-risk pregnancies and I was like, oh, that is definitely the type of doctor I want to be. I love babies and I think it's really important for women to have women doctors. So when the episode was over, I started doing all this research on being an obstetrician and a gynecologist. I printed out all these diagrams of the female reproductive system and my plan was to cut out each body part and put them on a flash card with its name and function. I did the uterus, the ovaries, the fallopian tubes, the labia, the labia minor and the clitoris. And when you're looking at all these diagrams of the female body, it's impossible not to think of your own and I don't want you to think it's strange of me but I went to the bathroom with a little mirror, I locked the door and I looked at them, I was identifying them, I couldn't find my clitoris. It wasn't like I couldn't recognize it. I actually couldn't see it and I started getting very upset because where the clitoris was supposed to be, mine wasn't there. I didn't have one and I started to cry because I knew something was definitely wrong with my body. When my parents got home, I dragged my mother into the toilet. I said to her, please mom, look at me, help me, I'm missing a body part. And when I started to yank off my underwear, she got this look on her face like she'd seen a car accident. She said, when my parents were still living and teaching in Cairo, they were pressured by my grandparents to have me circumcised. Most girls in Egypt are cut, it's tradition and even though my parents didn't want it for me, their families accused them of wanting to break from their Egyptian selves and come to the UK and become European. So when I was just four years old, for reasons that are not good enough for me, a doctor amputated my clitoris and my grandparents celebrated. I screamed at them. I have never screamed like that at my parents, but I was angry. I said, you did something so damaging to my body. You're my parents, you're supposed to keep my body safe. And they said, you're right, and it was wrong. We were waiting to tell you, we regret it every day and we're truly sorry. And then we all cried together. If they did to me today, what they did to me when I was little, they could be arrested, did you know that? It's called type one female genital mutilation and it's illegal in Egypt now, 81% of girls my age are still cut in Egypt and I find that infuriating. A girl died. Her name was Suher Albatah and she was 13. The doctor, Dr. Fadal and Suher's father were sentenced to jail because cutting girls is against the law. And laws do matter, but what if they're not upheld? And this law is changing things, but mostly on paper at the moment because no one is truly facing consequences. Here's what's really happening and I know this because I did some research. The Egyptian police have still not arrested Dr. Fadal for his role in Suher's death and the Egyptian medical syndicate in Cairo has still not taken away Dr. Fadal's medical license or shut down his clinic. So a girl like me is dead and this doctor could still be putting others at risk even though he was convicted. How is this possible? I don't feel cleaner without my clitoris. I don't feel more quiet or calm. I don't feel closer to a God. I feel like I'm missing one of my senses. Like, okay, imagine if all of a sudden you just couldn't smell or hear. Like you should have been able to smell but someone said, no. We're deciding no smelling for you. The clitoris. A small projection of erectile tissue in the vulva that contains thousands of nerve endings and it's responsible for the majority of sexual pleasure and sensation in the female body. And I want my back. When I'm a doctor, I'm gonna help girls like me and I'm gonna do what all doctors should be doing. Keeping the bodies of future girls healthy, safe and whole. Sometimes even as moderators, we're speechless. And I'm happy to welcome our third panel to the stage who will be exploring the role of medical and service providers. I'm going to introduce you to our moderator, Dr. Ranit Mashori. And she will introduce her panelists and welcome all of you. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. And thank you for this wonderful little play and we are all health providers and we're gonna talk about some of the health issues that we have to deal with when we care for women who have been affected and also girls have been affected by FGM. I'm not going to review at great length the details of each and every one of the panelists here because it's all in your packets and the CVs are longer than we can talk about each of the CVs for a long, long, long time and these women are such experts in their field. So what I'd like to start with today is introduce very briefly Dr. Noel Noor, Dr. Christa Johnson, Dr. Marcy Bowers and Comfort Momo from the UK. All of us here are from the United States and we all take care of women and girls who have been affected by FGM. And there are many, many challenges when you care for this population and I wanna go first to Dr. Noor. You've been doing this for many, many years and I wanna hear a little bit about some of the challenges but also the opportunities of caring for women and girls who have been affected by FGM. So I started in the 1990s and can you hear me? But the importance of a voice. So can you hear my voice? Can you hear me now? Okay. So I started in 1990s and at the time I was doing my OB-GYN residency and I realized that African women were studying to come to me because they knew there was an African doctor who understood issues of FGMC. And the biggest challenges that I saw at the time was that health providers had no knowledge or very little knowledge about how to care for a woman who'd undergone FGMC and how to take care of her during her GYN, gynecology visits or even during her labor and delivery which can be very complicated with women who've undergone infibulation or type three. And so at the time, I founded and directed the African Women's Health Center in Boston and we really were working towards a curriculum and at that I worked with the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology to set a curriculum that could really delineate how to provide culturally competent care. The majority of people would come up to me, I'd give lectures and at the end they'd say, yes, I know, okay, thanks so much. First of all, how do you even ask the question? And so I then realized the concept of having a woman who's undergone FGM going into a room with a health provider and the health provider herself or himself is so uncomfortable with the idea that they can't even ask a question. And that's a problem for us is that we need to be able to have a very transparent conversation with people. And one of the issues that I talk about is most of the women who have been cut are not uncomfortable. They've lived with it their whole lives and know how they feel. They just want somebody to ask the question gently and appropriately and not judgmental. And so that was one of the biggest challenges at the time. And of course, this challenge is not just for OBGYNs because there are pediatricians, there are midwives, there are family physicians, nurses and other health professionals around the country who see these women and girls. So one of the challenges is creating a curriculum for everybody for all of the different health professions. Dr. Johnson, you work with this population in the context of the community. Can you tell us about some of the challenges and opportunities for this kind of work? Sure, so for the past eight years, I have been, I founded the Refugee Women's Health Clinic back in 2008 in Phoenix, Arizona at the only safety net hospital in the state. And we serve a very large refugee population, growing population, those affected by FGMC in our communities are largely East African, namely Somali, the largest population that we serve. And one of the most important issues is really establishing trust. And often there's a disconnect between the healthcare system and the communities. And one of the very first things that we sought out to do in Arizona was to really become embedded within the community. My prior training as a Robert Wood Johnson clinical scholar was in community based participatory research and the critical voice that the community brings to the table as co-equal partners in facilitating that the priorities and the agenda that you set are really shaped and grounded in by the women themselves. And so from the very beginning, we sought to really mirror that and emulate that in building trust with the community so that we can break down some of those barriers between providers, the healthcare system, navigating the healthcare system and really being responsive to the needs of women. And so what I do in terms of teaching and training medical students and residents is really conveying the critical importance of building these partnerships and relationships with the community. And that really is grounded in trust because when you can take a holistic approach and engage women and leaders who can be the liaison between the health system and the community, that's so critical. We have what we call cultural health navigators who are women who are bicultural and multilingual representing over 13 languages of our patients. And they are the ones that are the important liaison building empowerment, supporting women's health literacy, tackling holistic issues that women face, not just the FGMC, but also issues of acculturation, of navigating the healthcare system, making sure that we have appropriate language interpretation, making sure that we can address some of the education gaps in women who may not have had opportunity, educational opportunities to learn about their bodies, about anatomy, about reproductive health, to empower them to be able to make informed decisions about their bodies and medical decisions that affect themselves and their children. So to me that's very foundational in terms of really ensuring that we are reflecting the needs of the community as well as displaying cultural humility because though we may have all the medical knowledge, our patients are the best teachers of their culture. And I really stress that quite a bit, having that cultural humility so that we remain open to learn, recognizing that there is a spectrum of perspectives around this issue and making sure that we are not judgmental in terms of our approach, whether our verbal communication with our words or even our body language, non-verbal cues, our facial expressions, our show of shock, discussed, those all have profound impacts on our patients and how they interpret those experiences with their providers can lead to them not coming back ever again. Oh, and I get that all the time, my patients who come to me and say, you know, we're gonna go and have seven minutes to go, thank you. We can talk about it for three or four hours. I wanted to ask Dr. Bowers, you are doing something different from all of us and I think it was addressed as a last question by the previous panel. You're working on reconstructive surgery for the clitoris specifically. Can you tell us a little bit about this procedure and what are some of the challenges and opportunities of this sort of new-ish type of surgery and surgical intervention? Well, when I knew this procedure was started by Dr. Pierre Foldus in Paris in 2004 and he's done now more than 4,000 of the clitoral reconstructions. I had the privilege to work with him in 2007 and 2009 in learning the functional, not just dividing the infibulation but the functional restoration of sensation of the clitoris. In our practice in San Francisco, we do this without charge to patients and we've done approximately 250 of these. It absolutely works. There is, we talk about education. There is such gross misinformation and lack of knowledge about the clitoris and about what actually, what the damage of FGM is and then how the reconstruction works. So if I could just talk a little bit about that. Very briefly. So in terms of the clitoris, we should really be thinking of it as we should think of the clitoral sensation as one of the basic human senses. Not, we were taught five senses. There should be six. And imagine if there was a surgery to restore blindness or restore sight to a blind person or hearing to a deaf man. It would be all over the news. This is that kind of surgery. It can restore sexual, pleasurable sensation to the clitoris and it absolutely works. This is another flash. We find the clitoris 100% of the time. In fact, almost 30% of the cases we've worked on, the clitoris is completely intact. Type one, type two, type three, it doesn't matter. We divide the infibrillations. Often it's completely intact, anatomically normal. So I don't wanna have the whole, the entire conversation just talk about one procedure because FGM and the health consequences or no consequences or psychological and sexual consequences can be enormous. So I don't want to focus on just this one. I think we appreciate that this is something that we don't hear much about and maybe there's not a lot of science backing it up and more there are a lot of case studies I'm assuming or some anecdotal information. But let's not. This is a very large series in 2012 by Dr. Foldis. But let's not focus on this just one, this piece of the healthcare system because there's so much more going on. And I wanted to ask you, in the UK, I almost feel that you're a few years ahead of us in trying to organize the healthcare system in trying to address this issue on many, many levels from education to community participation to including the patients themselves. Can you tell us a little bit about what worked in terms of the healthcare organizing in the UK and what hasn't worked and what we can learn from it? Like you rightly said, I've been asked to use this and I'm not sure if it's working. Can you hear me? Yes. As you rightly said, we're a lot ahead of US because I remember I was here in 2014 to do a scoping visit to see where you guys are. And I remember visiting, I was well looked after by Mr. Finesse Sonderson and I came to different hospital and I came to your hospital as well. And it's so good to see that you are here now to answer your question. In the UK, obviously, we have to identify women which is very key as early as possible. And like Dr. Noel said, to ask the question is very challenging to professionals. So it's very important that professionals know how to sensitively ask the question. So that's number one. Once you've identified, obviously, you need to provide adequate and holistic which you rightly mentioned as well. Holistic care is very important. I hear women saying to me, I was treated like a log of wood. I was lying down on the couch. Lots of students just came in. You need to put yourself into clients shoes. If you treat people the way you want to be treated, it's very, very key and very important. For me, the challenging thing, because I've been working around FGM for over 30 years now, and we started one of the first clinic in the UK in 1997. And for me, when I first started, what was so challenging was to see professionals like myself supporting FGM. Profession like myself saying, how dare you talk about this? This is our culture. This is nothing to do with you. You dare not talk about it. But we have moved a long, long way now. Yeah, there's still a lot to be done. Definitely, there's no doubt about that. But we have moved. We have the support of the media. Very, very sensitive support, which is fantastic. We have given the platform to the survivors to come out to tell us about their stories, which is very powerful. This to me is very, very powerful. And also with the young people, we now have the young people talking about their experiences. We have the young people making a platform, coming forward to say enough is enough. We don't want to continue FGM. And I do, going back to the reconstruction. Briefly? Yeah, briefly. I do average of two de-infubulation at my clinic every week. I do the operation to open women up. And to support what you rightly said, we, from my experience, about 40 to 50% of women still have inter-clitoris. We don't know why that happened. But again, in terms of the surgery to replace the clitoris or the, what Dr. Fuldes and yourself are doing, we still need to look into it more. Because yes. Let me, we have very little time left. And I want to bring one more thing up, and maybe Dr. Noor can address it. We were seeing globally, not in the US, the issue of the medicalization of FGM. And I was wondering if you can very briefly, we have one minute to address it. And can it be eliminated by 2030? I hope so. I hope it's eliminated in the next five years. That's what I'd really like. I think that there are, I'm originally Sudanese, I lived there in Egypt and I go back very frequently. And the issue that I see is that as the play right before we came on was talking about the medical community is not doing enough. The Sudanese medical community, there is an actual Sudanese physician, OBGYN, who has opened up her own clinic and she is medicalizing, she is circumcising or cutting girls openly. There's lines and the OBGYN community has not removed her license. Same is happening in Egypt. And I think that WHO has really come down hard on it as well as FIGO, putting out statements that as medical community, we have to stand up against this. And one of the questions I think is one of the biggest challenges we have is that we need to get everybody on board. And to think that physicians, health providers are not on board is atrocious. And we need to stop that. So some are doing it, some are fixing it. We have a few minutes for, that's it, I'm not shell. But we have a few minutes for questions. Please keep your questions short. Don't make long statements. We don't have much time. There's a lot to cover. And we're going to go all the way in the back. Over there, yes. That's you. Go ahead, that's you. Thank you. I can just stay though. Remember, the cutters are mostly women. My name is Abim Bola Aladejare from Nigeria. I'm Brandon Barsado for TGG. My question really is to this panel. I'm excited by the information I'm getting from this session about the reconstruction of the clitoris. But you may mention of something that, either the type one, two, three, that the clitoris is intact or something. I didn't get that and I really need to understand that. Because I would really love mine to be reconstructed. Yeah, let's, Chris, Dr. Johnson and then Dr. Bowers. So there has been a recent study published by Jasmine Abdul-Kadir and her colleagues at the World Health Organization last year that is truly groundbreaking because she conducted pelvic MRIs of women, both cut and uncut, to examine the clitoral tissue. And what she found in 100% of these women is that the full body of the clitoris was actually completely intact and comparable to women who were uncut. It was just, and bear in mind that the clitoris does extend several centimeters along the inferior pubic bone. And so what you see at the very tip is just the tip of the glands, but most of the clitoral tissue is embedded. But I say that critically because we need to look at multidisciplinary approaches to addressing sexual function holistically in women, involving pelvic floor physical therapy, sexual therapy, psychological counseling, using validated instruments that assess baseline sexual function pre-operatively, but also is surgery the only option or could it be finding the unique approach of this evidence-based to support multidisciplinary approaches and interventions that may be medical and behavioral and psychological and pelvic floor to really enhance and address genital sensation. Thank you, let's let Dr. Bauer since she does the surgery. Unfortunately, I think it still does require some sort of procedure, but it is subtle and that if the clitoris has been damaged, the suspensory ligament needs to be released so that the clitoris is brought down, otherwise it will retract behind scar tissue. It is scar tissue and covering the clitoris that does the damage and insulates the clitoris. So remember, but in FGM, less than 10% of the clitoris is ever removed in the worst cases because we know this because if it's more than that, there's arterial bleeding and it will not stop in the patient, in the personalized. Thank you. Can I just quickly add to that? I think we need to have the fact that, again, it goes back to the sacrum sizes, it goes back to the initial cuts because it depends on what has been damaged initially, so one needs to address that as well. But let's not just forget the physiological issues and think about the psychological. I don't want to speak on the psychological actually. One area that I'm really pushing to do more research around is looking at genital self-image. Clinically, in my patients, I have many women who I have performed surgical defibrillation and while women are happy with their functional change in terms of no longer having sexual pain, I have many women who are distressed by their genital appearance and they come to me saying, oh, they're not sure if they like their parents if they're genital, it's so open, it's gaping wide, I'm too exposed, and so we really need to push the envelope and get into the granularity of teasing out. Genital self-image and how is that affected by women, even though we can restore function in terms of for women with type three, no longer having the closure of the vulva, but what about how they perceive themselves and the normalcy around their genitalia and anatomy? I just wanna clarify a couple of points. One is, so there is the defibrillation, cutting open from type three, and what we found when we published our article is that about 50%, when you do the defibrillation, lo and behold, the clitoris is actually untouched, it has not been cut, so you open up and there is the clitoris and the praepius sitting happily. That's one type of defibrillation, and the other, I think what we're talking, there's the other part of the clitoral reconstruction when the tip of the clitoris has been removed and then you have to make a cut and go in and remove the ligaments. Those are two separate types of surgeries, and I think it's important as an audience for you to know the two. The defibrillation, when you're removing, dividing the labia or creating a neo-labia and finding lo and behold, there's the clitoris, that's one way, and there's been data that shows that in fact that women have actually become very sexually satisfied with that as long as the patients have been well-counseled. And so this concept of, we're going to defibrillate you but you're going to look different. You are going to feel open. When you urinate, there's going to be a spray and not a sprinkle. There has to be a lot of counseling that happens prior to the surgery, and I think that's when we talk about holistic care. But the problem with surgeons just defibrillating is they have to know both approaches. They have to be able, if the clitoris has been damaged and retracted, we have to bring that out. Let's not go into medical details. I think most of our audiences are not health professionals. But let's have a guy right there. Thank you very much. My name is Masharia. I'm a brand ambassador from Kenya. I think I would pick my question from what, I think it was Momo who said when young people go to the clinic and say, they want to stop FGM. Looking at the panelist constitution that has been made from the first until I think the last I've seen the program, I have not seen the role of young people in this panel, okay, because young people have to have a role. And if you're going to fight this war, we need to have those young girls and young people in this panel. The only time I've seen young people coming out is sharing the story, which is good. They're not supposed to be at the back, but they're supposed to be on the front. So I think that is my question. We need to have the young girls and the young people on the front line. And to the donors who are here, that is, the question is, yes, the fact is, young people have to make a rule. It takes me years to train. So I think even the donors who are here, yes. We're all, we're all. Yes, yeah. But I'm saying, what I'm saying is that, even the beneficiaries, they need to be in this panel. Otherwise, we are not going to win this social change. It has happened in the past, it has happened in Egypt. I'm going to stop you. Let's go to another question. Thank you very much. Let's go to another question over here. Yes, go ahead here. Hi, my name is Tayina Bienemes. So nice to see all of you after all these years. Particularly, we are talking about violence and discrimination against women and girls and violence. And within that context, I wanted to know what's the OB-GYNs and other medical professionals, their opinions on vaginal rejuvenation clinics. We are hearing increasingly that a number of non-African girls are getting mutilated. And what is the OB-GYN and medical associations doing today? Thank you, great question. Did you go ahead? Okay, sure. So vaginal rejuvenation, I think is a very interesting terminology. It's a very media-friendly type, but in fact, it's actually genital surgery. And it can be very bloody and it can create a lot of scar tissue. The data that comes out of it has been not very clear as to whether women indeed are feeling better. There was, as you heard the story, that it can be very painful after doing this vaginal rejuvenation. And I think it's all a great marketing technique. The issue in the US, of course, is that anybody over the age of 18 can do anything they want with their body. So we, as a medical community, can say, and I've had patients come from all over the world. I have this con... It's called perinearography, but patients are coming and saying, I'm too loose, can you tighten me up? And it's not just Africans, it's not Americans, it's Latinas, it's... So it's the image that we always see in the media. You have to be this... Your hair has to look like this and your eyes have to look like this and your hair has to, you know, your color needs to look like this and by the way, you have to be thin and your vagina has to be a little tighter. It's the continuous message that gets sent to women and girls that I think is a problem. And I guess... So in the UK, that's what we're going to say, because... It's similar to what Leila said earlier, it's double standards because on one hand, it's okay for the West to have their labia stream to do vulvaectomy and also to the vulva area and it's not okay for non-West to do the same. There was something I was going to say quickly, I've lost it now, in the sense that I've lost it. All right, I'll come back to it. Final thoughts. Push the envelope just a little bit too in that there is indeed a double standard and I do have a small percentage of my patients who actually define their beauty by retaining their integrity of their scar and they actually seek me out asking, would you be willing to re-approximate some aspect of their original scar which is to reinfibrillation or partially infibrillation? And these are women who say how they, the lens to which they view their body is one where to them that's beautiful, that's honorable, they are strongly it's a small percentage but it's there and that voice is there and there is a double standard so are we going to then say well it's okay for a woman in Beverly Hills to alter her genitalia but an African adult woman who for her own sense of herself through her lens and her eyes views herself as impaired because of the appearance of her genitalia, how do we reconcile that? I just quickly remember what I was going to say. All right, I think I'm going to say it quickly. I think we all need to take this back to our professional bodies, the LCOG, well in the UK LCOG, LCEM and all that and we need to address this. So we need to work with our professional societies exactly with the multidisciplinary lens. We need to work with WHO, international organization, we need to address this. In a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary way, yes. But if I can just say we need to reach the cutters. That's who needs to be educated. No more cutting, no more cutting. So we can continue the conversation in the hallways. Absolutely, thank you so much to our panel of experts. This concludes our morning program and now I would like to invite you all to the great hall outside these doors right here where there will be a buffet lunch. Restrooms are also on this floor and please make every effort to get to know some new people in your circle. We'll see you at 1.15. It's now my pleasure, are you going? Okay. We wanted to sing quick songs, just one second. Pleasure to introduce Maggie O'Kane of the Global Media Campaign to end FGM, set up by the Guardian three years ago and now supporting grassroots activities to take control of community radio and local TV to get the message right into the practicing communities that this practice has to end. Maggie? Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I come from a journalistic background and at some stage we as journalists in the West realized that actually it wasn't good enough just to report on FGM, that the problem was so urgent and so drastic that we had to take further steps. And those steps were to share our tools, to share social media, to share filmmaking and to work with the grassroots activists, the big sisters as we see them, to say take control of the media, take control of the radio, broadcast in your local communities. And we also realized that TV is important and stories are important. So we've made this documentary with Jaha which follows the stories, the story of one of the big sisters and we really genuinely believe that this film can go out in all the countries where FGM is practiced. It can go out on primetime TV and it can help break the silence. So please, I present a few minutes of Jaha's journey. Thank you. I was mutilated as a baby. My clutches was cut off when I was a week old and this is something that happens to nearly all the girls in the Gambia. When Khadija was born, I knew that I could never let this happen to her. I had to do something to stop it. Female genital mutilation is not practiced at all. If FGM was that important to Muslims, why isn't it practiced in the Muslim capital of the world? Even Allah didn't think about putting that in the Qur'an. My brother, I think it's not necessary. Oh, that's what makes you gain pleasure. When that clutches is cut off, you don't get that feeling and that's not fair to women. And we need to make sure that no girl or child is at risk of FGM in this country. I'm from Kimpi Sangir, I'm from Dabali. Second session and say that... Well, torturing people is not right in Islam. Being government officials. I'm honored and privileged to be here. Lobby and the President, Lobby and the First Lady. If we can get a national ban on FGM, that would be it. After I met with most of his cabinet members, I received a call that the President was about to make a big announcement about FGM. Voice to change the world. Imagine when we get all of your voices what we can do. Thank you, Jaha. That was great. So now it is my pleasure to welcome our fourth panel on law enforcement, Susan. So we have Susan Masling, Kathleen O'Connor, Christine Nanjala, Maria Sane, and Jerry Campbell. The floor is yours, Susan. Lila, I'll get kicked out of here, Lila. Is it on top? Okay. It's a great pleasure to be here, to see so many friends and new acquaintances and to be on the stage with such distinguished guests. Like the other moderators, I'm not gonna take your time giving their extensive bios. So I'll just do a very brief introduction and then we'll get right to the questions. Kathleen O'Connor, my boss, is also a Deputy Chief at the Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section of the Department of Justice. Christine Nanjala is an Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions in Kenya. Jerry Campbell is National Lead for Honor-Based Crimes, Force Marriage and FGMC, part of the National Police Chiefs Council in the United Kingdom. And Maria Sane is a Law Student and Program Manager with Safe Hands for Girls in the Gambia. And I'll start with Kathleen. Within the Department of Justice, HRSP has been holding roundtables in cities around the country, including New York, Miami, Chicago, and other cities. Who comes to these roundtables? And what's happening and is it working? Yeah, so the interagency within the United States government has identified FGM as a critical issue that needs to be dealt with. We have a federal law which criminalizes FGM and in an effort to ensure that people understand that there is a law that criminalizes FGM, we have engaged with US Attorney's Offices in regions and cities where large populations of at-risk girls and women reside. So we, partnering with our US Attorney's Office, have convened roundtables to educate and to facilitate networks. We invite to these roundtables professionals, professionals who work with immigrant populations, professionals who are law enforcement, professionals from child protective services, education, medical community, to come together and educate on what is FGM? What are the complexities of FGM? Why does the US care? How does it affect US populations? And we engage with them to educate and to encourage them to start networking locally to address the problem. Has this been working well? Yeah, let me just give you one example. So recently we convened this group in Brooklyn, New York. After the meeting, the group organically came together and started networking among themselves. They will hold their second meeting by themselves organically next week. And this is all different parts of a society, both NGOs, federal, state, local officials, child protective, education, law enforcement, all coming together to holistically address the issue and to figure out what they individually can do to stop FGM, to prevent FGM. It is working. For example, the mayor's office in New York is looking at a public relations campaign where they will have on the subways and buses signs which say stop FGM. This is just part of the results that have come from these roundtables. Thank you. Christine, you had a team of 20 prosecutors and you have a large number of active investigations and cases prosecuting cutters in Kenya. Can you talk about what has been working within the Department of Public Prosecutions to help you achieve that? If I said it on that, I think we'll need a whole day because, and as I said yesterday, sitting here, I appreciate where the US is at. This is where we were at several years back. Kenya has moved a long way in terms of implementing the law against prohibition of FGM. And in terms of civil society advocacy and all that. For us, I think we've reached at the field of where we are talking about implementation. Advocacy, implementation of the law, tying it all together to actually bring us to a point of abandonment of FGM. At the DPP's office, what we have done and what has really worked for us is engagement with various stakeholders because we have to realize we are at a point of where a multi-sectoral approach is what is required in order to move towards abandonment of FGM. We can talk about the donor funding, we can talk about doing what, doing what, but at the end of the day, asylum mentality does not work. We all need to come together, each and every sector. Government needs civil society, civil society needs government. And the networks that we're building on the ground are what are going to propel us into ensuring that this is actually done. An overview, we've handled 79 cases so far. Out of the 79 cases, we've secured 10 convictions with the highest being a seven-year sentence in Kenya. And we have faced several challenges in terms of implementation of the law and all this actually arise from the community itself. And that is where the civil society then comes in for us because we need witnesses to actually prosecute our cases and secure convictions. Without the witnesses, there's not much that we can do. In Kenya, we also have the anti-FGM board and the chair of the board is actually seated right there, Honorable Nina Jibiki-Limo. It is a state organ, we are a state organ. We've got various civil society represented here. I can see the girl generation. I can see quite a number of us represented here. And the reason we are here is because we work together towards ending FGM. And the DPP has provided a pivotal role in terms of implementation of the law. And we will not stop prosecuting. So civil society, please join us and find out what you're going to do with the children who are coming out as a result of this prosecution because we're still going to put people behind bars. It is working, it can be done. It is just one of the tools. Thank you. Jerry, over the last several years, the British government has taken a whole of government approach to trying to eradicate and prevent FGMC. Can you talk about how this has worked in terms of investigating and policing? Okay, our absolute starting point is that female genital mutilation is a crime. It is one of the serious forms of child abuse and it is a fundamental abuse of women and girls' human rights. But the significant part of this is about debunking and demystifying some of the unknowns, the superstition and the myths which surround the subject. So there has absolutely got to be something about what I would call the honesty of the conversation. But the key part of that is how do we deliver, it's the how we deliver the honesty of the conversation in an honest, transparent and open but understanding way which is non-judgmental. The UK approach and particularly the UK policing approach is about collaboration with partners. It is about the mutual understanding and respect that we have got with the not-for-profit organisations, many of which are here from the UK in the audience. That was Leila Hussain. I've already heard from her. But it is about the absolute collaboration of partners. We have an absolute resolution in our commitment to work with and across government with the not-for-profit organisations who have been at the absolute forefront of change and influencing change within the UK. I know this because I've been on the receiving end of some of it. But a policing strategy is about what we call the 4Ps. It's about prevention. It's about protection and safeguarding. It is about working in partnership and, of course, it is also about prosecution. But let's be absolutely clear about this. When we start talking about prosecution, it means that a girl has been mutilated and cut. It means that a girl has sustained a very severe graphic injury whether it's physical and a combination of psychological. So we have got to absolutely work together to prevent, protect and safeguard in the first instance. But, of course, arrests and prosecutions are really important as well. They're really important for us because they send a clear signal to victims and potential victims around empowering them to come forward. They will be believed, they will be supported, but it sends a clear signal to perpetrators and potential perpetrators. We want to be in a position to disempower those perpetrators. But also key to this for us is about something we call community-driven solutions. Given the deeply ingrained cultural nature which drives this harmful practice, then if we really want to prevent and eradicate within a generation by 2030, the real true solutions must come from those affected communities which undertake the practice. Men have a fundamental role to end the practice. So there's something in this for me about the Big Brother movement has absolutely got to complement and it's got to complement and support the Big Sister movement as well. Thank you. Thank you. Marie, you are a law student and you are very active in the campaign in the Gambia to get the law passed to end FGMC. Can you tell us what techniques you found were most effective in mobilizing community support and government support for your efforts? And first in the Gambia, I think the most effective strategy that we use was putting the youth in front because as youth, we have an authentic voice that everyone can hear. So in the Gambia, the campaign to end FGM is mostly youth led, notwithstanding we have certain institutions or organizations that have been working on ending FGM for the past three decades. But because of the fact that the campaign is youth led, we had our voices heard by the government and communities as well. But even though we had that in place, we also needed certain strategies that we can use to convince the government that FGM needs to be banned. And for us at Save Hands For Girls, one of the methods we use was, we started by having an MOU with the Ministry of Health. Through that, we were lucky enough to get a land from the president. And through our communication with the ministry, we were lucky to pay a visit to the president at his hometown in Kenilai. We had this discussion less than a week. It was like the president has banned FGM. So I think what the president needed was just to have an honest conversation with the youth. Because for him, he said he's been doing research for the past 22 to 21 years from the Quran. But because the youth had come in front in here, he had this honest conversations with the youth and then FGM was banned. So I think it's very important that we put the youths in front. Or when we go to meetings, the youths are in the menu. It's also important that we are also on the table since our names are on the menu. So we need to have these discussions with them as well. Very good, thank you. The countdown clock is running down. So I want to ask each of the panelists to identify the biggest challenges that you see in your, standing in the way of your efforts to, or all of our efforts to end FGMC. So in terms of the United States, we are behind the efforts of my colleagues here on the stage. We're linked to this. We have a lot of catching up to do, but fortunately we have leaders up here and others in various countries who are really forging the way for us. And so we are learning from that. We are taking the work that they have done and looking to implement that in our work to prevent and respond to FGM. That's one of the challenges. Another challenge is knowing how many girls are affected by it here in the United States. As you may know, the CDC came out with a study and said that 500,000 girls and women in the United States are at risk or have been cut. Those are extrapolated numbers, however. So they're based on extrapolation, not on actual evidence from individual females. So knowing how big the problem is, where it is, how it affects girls, who does it, where it's done, why it's done, all of this is information that we still need to collect. Mandatory reporting would be extremely helpful in that regard, and that's something that we're working on. We are working with the interagency and with local and state law enforcement and child protective services, education, medical communities, all of that. We're trying to pull them together and get networks, but the United States is vast, and we aren't just dealing with one culture practicing FGM. Immigrants to the United States come from all over the world, and the complexity of FGM by society is very different. So we're trying to educate ourselves, educate others, and it's a very big challenge, but there are a lot of passionate people who are working on this issue. We have leaders to follow in their footsteps, and I'm confident that the progress that we've made in a very short period of time, which is about two years, we're building on that progress, and I am very encouraged by that and hopeful that we are really going to make inroads in the next several years. Thank you. Christine? For me, this is how I look at it, sitting from a prosecutorial point of view. And never in my life, when I actually joined the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution, allow me to deviate a bit. I thought my work will just be pushing files. I close a case, I'm done. I close a case and I'm done. Never, ever did I imagine I'll be dealing with matters FGM. So for me, the biggest challenge is us. It is you, it is me. And it is our inability to think outside the box. That is a challenge. Because these are issues that are here with us. But for every law, for every problem that is there, there is always a way around it. Can we get out of our cocoons, get outside the box? Let the box fit inside the circle. Just get out of it completely and look at it. Because what we have done, I think has never been done in the history of prosecution in Kenya. Because no prosecutor has ever gone out of the office to actually engage the public in dialogue. It does not happen. And very rarely will you see it happening. But there's always a creative way, an innovative way of dealing with every situation that we face. So we need to get above ourselves, look outside the box. And I think we actually will be able to eradicate this by 2030. We are the challenge. Let's do it better. Thank you. Jerry? We are not going to legislate, arrest and prosecute a way out of this global problem. So the real challenge is about education. It is about education. And it is about education. Coalition of partners in law enforcement must work hand in glove with prosecutors. Law enforcement and prosecutors must work hand in glove with not-for-profit organisations. And all of those different actors within this global battle must work hand in hand in partnership with affected communities to identify the sustainable solutions for change. I agree. For me, without prejudice to the fact that we have a law in place, for me the greatest challenge I have as an activist is the fact that there's a law in place. Because as an activist, I would rather tell people why the law is there than telling them the consequences of breaking the law. It's always important that you create awareness as activists that the fact that we have a law in place is important for our advocacy. But then when it comes to community outreach, it is important that we focus on the health effects, why people should stop the practice of FGM, why the government has come on board to ban the practice of FGM. So having that in place, just going to communities telling them, if you do this, you go to life in prison. I think that's the wrong approach. It's important that we have it and it should be used as a last resort, but there are other things that we can focus on that can help us on FGM by 2030. So that's the challenge that I have and I encourage youths like me and everyone in this hall to use that approach and then use the law as a last resort. That's what I have. Thank you. So now we have 15 minutes for questions. We'll start on this side of the room so we can get the microphone to you easily and I'll just remind the audience that I try to keep your questions brief so we can make time for everyone. Yes. Hi, my question goes to Maria. My name is Lisa Kamara from the Gambia but I think I need to ask this question to Maria and maybe with the help of Christine on stage they can help us figure this out. The current case in Gambia, what is happening? What do you think is going to happen next? The old woman that's in prison that was not lawfully... The case was in court but then she went to prison. No one had about what happened. She's not even prosecuted yet. Why did she go to prison? I think the charges... What happens to the baby? If the baby was alive? I know the baby died but then what would happen to the baby if the baby was died? If the baby had died? Because we know in Gambia we don't have shelters where we can keep those babies. So what would happen in Gambia legally? I think the case had gone a long way. We were at the point of judgment but the day we were supposed to have the judgment the defense counsel failed to appear in court. But then the situation right now is like I always say even though we have the law in place even though we continue doing these prosecutions I think it doesn't only need to continue it needs to accelerate. And that is where Gambia is feeling at this moment because this case should have been put on judgment a long time ago but they're delaying this case. The woman is in prison and they're not doing anything about it. The child is dead. They've promised to have a person post-mortem but they still haven't done that. And that's the reason why the case is still holding but at the moment I don't think they're willing to let the woman go even though she's entitled to certain rights but because of the current judicial system in the Gambia she's not being allowed to come out and voice her opinion even though what she did was wrong but I still feel she's entitled to certain rights. That's what I think. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. My name is Anita Karouman from Sierra Leone country the head of Garcha and its work. In our own case in Sierra Leone I was just going to ask the Gambian, Maria we have in a whole lot of fishes legislation everything they're well-written laws but there is no enforcement. And we as activists we're still struggling. Quite recently we had two cases. A 19-year-old dead the minister of Shishu Waafi took up the case bringing out some post-mortem result that we are not satisfied with. We cannot challenge that because we are limited. And another 28-year-old was like given a refugee status now in the US they had to intervene to free her off from Kenema, the eastern part of Saudi Arabia. It's really difficult for us as activists. What would you advise? Like in the case of Sierra Leone you still have to add fast things. There is nothing like political will for them to come on board and say yes we're going to do it. But we are struggling as activists to see how we can help the girls and save them in the situation. We are really handicaps. Our answer tied we cannot run. What would you advise us as activists and what would the US government will do to support us in this fight for the government to see it it is our duty to safeguard and protect the children? That was for me, okay. Okay, so my humble advice to your country is this. That but if it is that but like you say I think it's important you test your laws. That's it. In the gambler that is where we failed before the advent of the banning of FGM. We still had certain laws that we could use to ban it like we have assault. FGM is assault. We could have used it. Sorry, may I intervene? Yes, you can. Maybe just to echo what she's saying and I know we've had this discussion. We had this discussion in our office at one point and how we ended up with it is that we said look at your laws in totality because one of the mistakes that we normally do is that we isolate FGM and you look at FGM as a single act but when you start looking at the totality of FGM you can see that it stretches on various spheres of life. When you go to the bill of rights, it fits squarely. You're talking about the right to life, the right to health, the rights of the child. It fits squarely in all that. In Kenya we have the Penal Code. I know you might have something similar like that in your country. There are offenses in there that actually where FGM will sit and sit pretty. You're talking about the offense of assault, the offense of grievous harm. Those are things that are actually there in laws that you already have and my advice to them was can you test your laws? And my advice to you is can you test your laws? Because we will not, personally I cannot engage and tell you that this is the way that you should go in terms of Sierra Leone. Because one, I do not know your judicial systems. I do not understand your laws. It will need me for me to have a sitting, look at all your laws, understand your judicial system, understand your political system. Then we see how we can, something that can actually be done with it. So it's something that I'll also throw back to you. Can you understand your systems and then now get strategies from your system on how you can deal with it. Bottom line, think out of the box. So I've been asked to get three or four questions at a time. So if we have all the hands, we'll try to get a few questions and then the panelists will answer them. So there's two in the back. Why don't we get those, or three in the back? Good afternoon. My name is Maria too. I am from, finally, Girls Matter from New York City. I'm asking, just asking the question from what the lady asked. If this is a global issue, why can't we have an international law to cover everybody? It is there. It's there in various conventions and in a new end resolution. Yes. My name is Kenya and my question is to Kristin. In Kenya, we are doing a great job in terms of implementing the law and making sure that the people who are practicing FGM are persecuted. But I want to share with you because I find myself in a very hard place where we rescue girls that are being or have been already been cut. Then their parents are taken to the police station and the girls who are already bleeding are taken to the police station because it's a government, it's now a case. And there are no proper places for them to be cared for. And after that, of course, the parents have been put in or they end up paying the bail to get out. And there's a lot of complications, issues that are going on there. So how do somebody like me, who is facing that situation, what is out there in Kenya that can help me? Because I know the children's office always tells me we don't have a safe home for them and then you have now the extended family coming against you. So what is there that can actually ensure that people can come and report these cases and actually ensure that they are protected? Any other questions? Thank you. Ms. Howard Tarawali, an activist from Sierra Leone, the CEO of Chief of Every Step Count Foundation. I'm actually talking in regard to the questions and it's a coma just acts and the answer was actually given by the black lady behind me. The question is why don't we set up laws that govern all nations that are involved in the movement? The reason being is where I'm coming from, Sierra Leone, there is no law governing this act and our voices are not even heard. There is no freedom of speech in my country and the current minister of social welfare is against the movement. So you don't even have the right to say anything that has to do with FGM openly. If you do that, you have to really be somebody. And for us recently, we did a flash mob right across the county with the help of Antionita but it was her for us. We were receiving messages all over the place. People were just saying, oh, I don't want you to be part of that movement. They are gonna persecute you. You've been prison, all sorts of things. And recently a young girl was in prison simply because she actually spoke to her mind. She said, oh, why do they really need to increase the price of fear? She actually said something about the government and she was in prison for that. We were all over the place saying, you should free Theresa now. She should be freed now. All over the country. The youth were all over the place. So the truth of the matter is there is no freedom of speech and we've actually tested all our laws, if not all, but 80% of our laws. But guess what? These laws have been influenced by the politicians. So there is nothing we could do about it if you guys don't set up laws that will govern all of us. You have to take the act now. We have to take the move now. You have to set up laws. I mean, rules that will govern all African nations and all European and American nations that are involved in this movement for our voices to be heard. If not that nobody's gonna listen to us and we'll end up losing our careers. And this is what we stand for. Please, we need your help because we don't have the voices you have. Thank you. So it seems that two of the questions are kind of the same. And that is since FGMC is a global problem, why can't there be a global international law that bans that? And I'll let the panelists tackle that. To have a law, you need a court that has jurisdiction over that law. And we don't have that international, I mean, we have certain courts that have certain jurisdiction over certain crimes. But there is no international court that has jurisdiction over the crime of FGMC. So we do look to national prosecutions and national law enforcement to implement or execute national laws. I would say that I think that the voices in this room and the NGOs, the activists, like safe hands for girls, equality now, these are the organizations that can really be the voice and frame the issue and push the agenda to make it an international effort to end FGM. But the national prosecution has jurisdiction only over certain places, certain persons and certain crimes. Thank you. Anything else? I don't know whether Sierra Leone is a dualist or money state, but we have international conventions that can be signed, ratified and domesticated by your state. So if they are not signed, ratified or domesticated, there is this thing in international law, wherein if you have exhausted all your local remedies in your state, then you can go to the international court. So it's all part of exercising the remedies or the options that are available for you. You can't just rely on your state. If they fail to listen to you, fulfill your rights, then you have the right to go to another state or to the international court. And that is the African Court of Justice for you. But it also depends on how you frame your issues. So back again, what is legal framework in your country? You have to understand it. Back again, you have to understand the politics and how to go around it. So it's basically strategy, strategy, strategy. To answer your question, Kakenya, I understand and I know of the issue of where the girls were taken to the police station and they were bleeding. It actually nearly cost me my job. But one of the things that we are telling our prosecutors within the counties is that that is something that should never, ever happen again. And what we tell the networks that bring the girls to us, that the first stop for every girl who's under gone a cut is at the hospital. That is what we tell them and that is what is happening right now. I know the case you're talking about. And it still takes me back to what I was saying. The importance of a multisectoral approach of coming together and working together. If you call me and tell me that you have a girl somewhere and one to three is happening, I will raise the county commissioner, I will raise the police, I will raise the anti-FGM board to make sure that they can raise someone in civil society who can actually look after the girl. And most of the cases that we are handling, we always follow up. And we ensure that the girls, if there's need for them to be committed into our home, we ensure that they get committed into homes. However, we'd like us to also start thinking about this approach of having community protection structures. Because we are having a problem reintegrating the girls once we remove them from the communities. We seriously need to think about that. I am one of the people who does not advocate for institutionalization of children. I believe the children are better placed within the community. That is one of the things I believe. So we try and do the best that we can do within our systems. Our system is not perfect. That's what we have to accept. But we have done the best that we can do. Thank you. Unfortunately, we're out of time. But thank you for your attention. I'm sure the panelists have talked to you. Thank you. That was an excellent discussion. So I'd like to... We have the third and final in this series of her story on CUT. We have Chloe's story. Find it to be a real joke when privileged American girls go on feminist rants about things they can't possibly understand. Acting like they're sisters with girls who are actually suffering. And no, at Chloe Bradford, I don't consider a guy telling you you're hot while you walk down the street suffering. The hypocrisy is hilarious. Acting like they understand the complexities of other cultures and trying to preach about real shit, whether in line at Starbucks or waiting to get a Brazilian wax. SMH. Hashtag first world problems. Hashtag slacktivism. Hashtag I don't need feminism because. Chloe Bradford, by the way, so that comment was directed at me. That's pretty much the response I get any time I post something. And usually it turns into a 500 comment thread where people just dog pile on each other. Guys from my school call me a slut or a bitch or a feminazi for posting about things going on in the world. But I post anyways because I have to. Privileged. It's true. Does that mean I'm not supposed to care? Does that mean I can't be angry? Almaz is privileged, too. She is, and okay, we experienced different degrees of privilege or however you're supposed to say it, but she has parents who love her and a house and a computer. And she's gonna go to college someday, you know? Four months ago, I know I'd never be in that situation. It's just not in my life. And I feel like no girl should ever have to be in that situation no matter what her background is. And I'll post about it all I want. Almaz has been my best friend since we were little girls. We live on the same street in Minneapolis. We played at the same park. We ended up at the same school. We're different, but we get each other. Hello, glorious diamond Dorothy Pittman Hughes. You can be different and still like sister out, you know? Four months ago, Almaz started sobbing in the middle of AP World history. She just ran out of class and I went to go check on her. Almaz was hyperventilating and shaking in a bathroom stall. And I was like, what's going on? What's happening right now? And she just cried. And she said, I really don't like my life right now. And I started laughing. You do so well in school. Your parents are always proud of you. You're an insanely talented writer. So what the hell are you even talking about? And she said, I can't tell you. You won't get it. And you'll hate my parents. And you'll think my family is twisted. There are definitely things I don't fully understand about Almaz, meaning I don't live the same life as her. So I could never fully get everything going on with her. But vice versa. I mean, I have two moms, actually. She definitely doesn't get what that's like. But I listen and she listens. And so I said, I can try and get it. And even if I don't, I can still try and be there for you. So Almaz's family is Eritrean and they own a restaurant in Little Africa that's kind of like the hotspot for people who live in Minnesota who came from East Africa. Almaz said some people from her mosque were hanging out and talking with her parents about flying a woman to Minneapolis to cut girls in the neighborhood. I had no idea what she was talking about. I mean, when people say cut in reference to girls, I usually think of girls who self-harm, you know? But then Almaz explained what she meant when she said cut. She told me that when this woman arrived in the U.S., she would cut parts of Almaz's body because that was a tradition in her culture and this cutting signified purity and cleanliness. And she really thought that her parents had decided not to do it to her, but clearly she was wrong and there was nothing she could do about it. Then she said, I'll be disgusting. Everything will be mutilated down there and no guy will ever want me. And the thought of Almaz being mutilated was horrifying to me. And so I said, but you should do something about this. It can't be legal. This sounds like child abuse. I mean, you should say something. I probably shouldn't have phrased it like that. Almaz started screaming at me. She said, I knew you would be judgmental. You've met my parents, Chloe. Do they seem abusive to you? They think this is the right thing to do. You want me to report my mom and dad? Did I tell you to report your mom that time she smacked you when you called her a bitch? No, I would never do that. They're my parents, I love them. Do you want them to be deported? Plus no one even knows about cutting. You didn't know. So who knows if it's even illegal here? There's freedom of religion. To my parents, this is part of our religion. You're never gonna get it, just get out. I stayed for a few more minutes until it seemed like she'd stop crying and then I left. But that night she called me. She said, it is illegal here. I looked it up. And I just said, okay, then she didn't say anything. So I said, what are you gonna do? What can I do? She said she had a plan and she asked me if I would think through exactly how to do it. So we went to Starbucks. A week later, Almaz confronted her parents. She told them she loved them so much and she respected them and she knew that she was only who she was because of them. She told them she knew what they were planning to do. She asked if they could agree to respect her body and agree to not have her cut. They said no. So she went for it. She told them it broke her heart to say this but she needed to protect her body. She told them that cutting was illegal in the US and in many other countries including Eritrea and that when the woman they hired to do the cutting arrived in Minneapolis, she would call the police and report it. If she was cut, she would call the police and report it. If they took her phone away, she would signal to me in a way they would never figure out a piece of masking tape on her bedroom window or the bathroom window, which I would see from the street and then I can call the police, social services and school administrators with my moms and give them these letters Almaz had written about what she heard at the restaurant and what might be happening to her. She said she really didn't want it to come to this. She didn't want them to be deported or put in jail but she would not be mutilated. She didn't want that for herself. Then she apologized for disappointing them. Her mother slapped her face. Her father literally spit on her. Then they grounded her but Almaz was not cut and the woman never arrived in Minneapolis which means other girls in the neighborhood probably weren't cut either. Things are still weird with her parents but they're getting better, I think. Almaz is 15, man. Imagine what that must have been like. I mean, she came up with that plan and she carried it out. She's super girl. Test her if I could tell her story here and she was cool with it. And she said, man, people are really weird about lady parts all around the world, right? And I laughed. I was like, yeah, I mean, here it's all like wax your vagina. Get rid of that hair so you're clean and wash good so it's pure and fresh and it better not be too loose or too tight or too fleshy. And then for close to 200 million women and girls out there it's even worse. It's like we're going to cut your genitals so you'll be clean and pure and honorable. Damn, world, just let our bodies be whole. And Almaz said, yep, you get it. And that's why I post on social media because people can only get it if they know about it. So I'm putting it in their faces. Hashtag deal with it. Your eyes, Ethan. Ethan's the kid that posted that comment about me, by the way. Hashtag uncut. Hashtag sisterhood. Amazing. Amazing. So I would like to now take the opportunity to welcome our fifth panel on the role of religious and community leaders in ending FGM. Manal Omar is our moderator. And then we have Pastor Emmanuel Bamba, Imam Alastrani, Imam Babali, and Arsalan Suleiman. The floor is yours. That's my number. That's my number. I think that we can, since there's more chairs wherever you're comfortable, Arsalan, if you want to. I'll bring it in. I've got this. Fun and thank you. I mean, this topic is incredibly important and crucial. And I think one of the things that we can all attest to is we know the Almazes of this world. And when people talk about a lot of people that have great injustices happen to them, it's really easy to slip into a victim talking when, in fact, the Almazes are innovative, they're resilient, and they find solutions with very limited resources no matter what. And I think that is always worth celebrating on the other end, is recognizing that spirit of resilience, but also the fact that they don't stop only with their own survival. They really go on to become active citizens on issues that pertain to the community at large. And I think the last panel really set up this panel well right outside of our boxes. We need to be innovative, and this means all hands need to participate in all sectors, whether it's government, civil society, even the private sector, however we can do to really come together to combat. And I think one of the things that we always ask ourselves when we're going in and we want to change attitudes and behaviors, we're not just looking at a legal perspective, is who holds moral authority? Who can really convince people on the street in terms of communities about shifting change? And oftentimes that goes back to community and religious leaders. As holders of part of the moral authority, the role can be very, very essential. So I want to acknowledge that because not oftentimes religious leaders and community leaders are built in, particularly from a design phase, so your presence here I think is very important to be working with the activists and to be working. And I guess the first question that I want to pose to the panel is what do you see today as your greatest challenge in communicating the messaging? Let's start with you. Thank you so much. So I'm Emmanuel Bamba and I'm very glad to be here today. I'm originally from Guinea in West Africa and I am a Christian, Pentecostal, but born in Guinea, which is around 90% Muslim, even we who are Christian, circumcision was practiced and still practiced in our community. So I up till now have not really gotten to being gay in a campaign. It's only thanks to aunt here who is very active with her husband that I have now taken upon myself to talk about this because I have two girls, my wife and my mother and my many aunts were all circumcised. So now my girls fortunately are not. So my fight today and my objective is to, as a man and as a leader, community leader and faith leader is to talk about this around us and when we go back, when I go back to Guinea, my mission is to talk about this around me. So for now I have not had a specific challenge per se because I have not confronted the issue. So maybe my challenge was there. I was not committed, now I'm committed. Peace be upon you. My name is Imam Babeli. I was privileged to belong to a religious, purely religious family and I found my ancestors built a very good reputation for me between Senegal, Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone, Nigeria. Everybody who knows Sehumar Foutal and one of his ancestors. Anyway, I have been involved in advocacy to ban female genital mutilation over 40 years ago. Why? Because when I was very young, my closest sister who was born after me died as a result of female genital mutilation. So I was naturally convinced that this cannot be right. But I didn't have at that time the enough resources of knowledge to fight against it. So I took it upon myself doing research and being an Islamic scholar. I did all research and when I become known as an activist of this subject, I was many times sponsored by UNFPA and American Embassy themselves and State Department to go all over the world to many countries to add more knowledge in Iran, Egypt, Guinea, Conakry, Sudan, name them to learn more. So I am comfortably good enough to address the issue of female genital mutilation. So if you ask me today, what is the challenge I fear I know? I know the main challenge is religious and tradition. Number one, most religious people today are not equipped enough to know their religion as they should. They are just doing things as this is the way we found our grandfathers and grandmothers are doing. This is our tradition and it's a taboo to talk about it. But thanks to the Almighty, we've been fighting this and now everybody can say it anywhere in the Gambia. Though it is banned politically in the Gambia, it is banned socially, legally in the Gambia but knowing the third world countries very well to have a beautiful constitution, beautiful law and to reinforce those laws is a different thing because you have the political influence there, you have to know who and who is who there again. So there it comes again. We need the back of all the world. In fact, people were asking about to do or legislate an international law to ban it everywhere. It's already there. There are a lot of conventions. There are a lot of conventions in the world which can be used to condemn it. And Islamically if there's nothing like FGM in the Holy Quran there's nothing like FGM in an authentic Hadith there's nothing like FGM in a civilized society. And it's harmful, it's abuse of child, it's girl child. It is a deterrent to their health, to their reproductive health and so forth. I cannot say all what I know about it within five minutes. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thanks Manal. And I also want to thank all of the sponsors for this really important summit. It's really a pleasure and a joy to be here and participate. Normally it's not a great feeling to be on an all male panel but I think on this subject and this issue and looking out at the audience we see a number of men in the audience. This is an extremely important for men to be here and to be part of this conversation because one of the main barriers that I still see and it's great to see pastors and Imam speaking out on this and they're more and more who are doing it around the world. But there's a lack of education about the practice and there's a lack of men that are also speaking out and part of this conversation. And I think we need to address that both and I think the efforts of religious leaders are critically important because as the pastor and as Manal you were mentioning, it's really important to get past just the legal restrictions but you need to get it into the communities. You need to ensure that the community leaders are the ones who are speaking out on this. And religious leaders have their pulpits and they also have the authority to be able to get across those messages and to inform their various followers about the truth whether there is actually a religious connection to the practice or not and we know that there isn't. And also about the general guidance on health matters. They also have an important role to play on that. So I think it's really critical for our religious leaders to be able to speak out on this and to do so more and I think we can help to end the practice if we can get more religious leaders educated on this and get more of them to speak out as the Imam and the pastor are doing today. Thank you. You all already began to touch on the next question a little bit but in terms of successes, what is the primary key that you've found to unlocking successes and having traction? And again you already touched on it in terms of involving men, in terms of looking at it in terms of the conventions and more broadly but in your own practice and where you've seen success what was the key element that opened the door for change? Imam Babali, since you've been working 40 years I'm going to start with you on this. Yes, to answer to your question is that it is always important and in fact in Africa it's not possible for a woman to be listened to about female genital mutilation without having the backup of men and religious people because the way it is viewed islamically, particularly in West Africa, Islam is expected to be heard from a man, from an Imam, from a highly respected person. That's why in my organization, which is Gamco Trab, which we've formed jointly, we've been fighting against it in support of I, my very self and Imam Omar Drameh, may God sympathize him, he passed away and Imam Faienke and we have a couple of Imam, four of us who backed our organization and wherever we intend to go as it is, I'm very well known in West Africa, they expect to receive Imam Babeli, the ground is already prepared and our woman also has their own approach, like Jaha, she has her own approach, her own strategy, because we need strategies. You don't need to go to any society and condemn them in total. You have to listen to them and exchange with them and show them respect, sympathy and of course financial support because most of the circumcises are doing this not because it's a pleasant job, but it's the job they found, their grand-grandparents were doing and they feel this is my role in my society and this is where I make my survival. So to stop it, you need to subsidize them or to give them a change. So it is a very good approach to assist the organization financially so that they can have an alternative of income for the women that circumcise and have the religious backing of them and in Africa we all know. Man talk, woman listen, this is the reality and we've been fighting all along to have the equal role in our societies. In fact we have gone far away but still need more. We need a better place to educate our girl child to help our girls to educate them and then to make them open to the society in a very positive manner. Thank you. I started by saying in terms of successes I don't have any number to give today but the fact of me sitting here is already a success because as I said it doesn't it kind of feels like it didn't concern me but now since I started hearing about this I have interest in this and I'm willing to be talking about this to be promoting wherever they have events I am willing to go there and talk about this so in terms of success by me being here we already have some success. And that's a significant success. I'm curious if you can remember what was it that you heard that shifted you from not necessarily being involved to saying I need to be involved so what was the line or what was the talking point that led to you being here today? I believe specific measures I cannot point finger to it but what I can say is this the awareness, the fact that they are event that are organized and that are themed around the FGM made me to start thinking about this and then to be willing to participate so as I was attending this event I remember my sisters and then my aunt who were young when they were going to be circumcised so I thank God did not have the experience of the Imam where someone got seriously ill and then even died but now because I am a father I am a leader whatever I do, we do as leaders sets an example so we have to be acting the way we want the people who are following us to act so from now on we are in this together I think one of the things that we found and one of my colleagues here I am sure you all know Mariam she was critical in getting our office the Office of Religion and Global Affairs involved one of the barriers that we have seen is that the human rights community sometimes hasn't really engaged well with the religious community there is sort of a distrust or a sense that religion isn't very compatible with universal human rights I think that has been a barrier that also bleeds into the women's rights area where you have the activists who have for a while seen religious leaders as potential barriers not as potential partners and I think that is changing I think initiatives like this summit prove that there is a way of changing that mindset and actually looking to religious leaders as partners in this effort and I think that is a huge key to success is to not assume that just because for centuries religion has been used as a justification for this practice just because that's true doesn't mean that religious basis is a. accurate or b. something we can't change because with engagement when you have the religious leaders look at the actual text and look at the basis many of them are seeing that in fact there is no actual textual basis and in fact the arguments that may have supported it are very loose and actually don't stand in the face of scrutiny especially when you look at other factors such as the health of the individuals involved, their lack of autonomy and the decisions, etc. so I think as we overcome that barrier as we increase the engagement we're going to be able to overcome and strengthen the coalition that's being built around this issue and that's one way that we've done our work at the State Department in our office I work as our envoy to the OIC and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation which is an organization with 57 member countries most of whom are Muslim majority countries their position on FGMC is actually the exact same as the US government position which is that they oppose the practice and so in collaboration with Mariam and other colleagues we decided to work with them to increase the awareness of this issue within their own organization and member countries and to partner with them so that they can use their own networks of religious leaders and other individuals to raise this issue within their own networks so I think that as we expand that engagement hopefully we'll see greater success towards ending FGMC If I may add it's true what the broader said but there are certain so-called religious leaders they are real obstacles to the process of development due to their ignorance of their religion the issue here is not the religion all religions after all belong to one creator who is Allah they are our brothers what the fuck of the matter is those who claim today to be religious leaders when they are not educated enough they don't know the religion itself how it is and they don't know what is tradition and what is culture and what is obligatory this is our problem number to the other success that I may mention here is fighting against HIV-AIDS is in a very strong link with female genital mutilation whenever I am presenting something I go through HIV because HIV is very well known it's popular, it's been publicized all over the world and using that passage can take you right away to FGM and then you can condemn them all thank you I would just add even at one point with the campaigns on HIV-AIDS it was a very difficult campaign until the religious leaders came on board it was the involvement of the church that significantly shifted the HIV-AIDS campaign so going back to the idea of the religious leaders I know that there is so much experience in the audience so I want to turn to the audience and save as much time for questions and answers I'll start in this quadrant down here I see you down here two actually we'll go with this line here so we'll do three in a row and then I'll move over to this quadrant so we'll do three here and then I see you and we'll get her Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen that was a very interesting panel discussion my name is Alima Tudimonikeni and I'm actually from the United Kingdom but originally from Sierra Leone I know there was not part of this but if anyone wants to join the Sierra Leone people to raise awareness and challenge our government we have a hashtag called Notting My Name Sierra Leone at SL so you can go on to Twitter, Facebook and join us you can write to us and we will send those letters to our president calling for a ban on FGM so please we encourage you all to join us thank you my question to the panel regarding faith what are the sort of I know you just mentioned about some of the obstacles I know sometimes religion sort of plays a part in resistance to change what are the sort of the challenges you face faith is then used again not to interact in the subject of women and gender and sexual issues good question good afternoon repeat the question I'm not very clever okay I will good afternoon I am Maria Tu I'm from the Gambia I'm the girl generation brand activist ambassador and a program manager for thinking women I have a question to Imam Babali I just want to ask how do you relate to other religious leaders in the Gambia and also have you ever attempted to engage them in a conversation about FGM thank you thank you okay my question goes to Imam Babali again you would see from the Gambia the reason why we are asking a lot of questions to Imam is our main problem in the Gambia our main challenge is religion Gambia is about 95% Muslim and we relate we associate FGM to Islam during your absent Imam last February correct me if I am wrong we say fans for girls happen to bring together Imams of all the regions in the Gambia in one house in Paradise Hotel and Jaha correct me if I am wrong there was a day they nearly fought in the hall and all the people walked out about FGM so there is a lot of people I would tell you that still support FGM religious leaders and you know people look up to you guys in the Gambia you said it and we went to Supreme Islamic Council for support before we organized that particular event and they sent us away they didn't want to be associated with us because of FGM and this is after the ban this is after the ban this was last February so we have a big issue when it comes to religion in the Gambia and I want to ask you how you can help I know you've been doing your quarter but then we have real issues how best can you engage the other Imams in the country do we need to do we need intervention from countries like Saudi and other places that we look up to as Islamic states thank you thank you so Imam Babali is starting with us and a lot of the questions were and I think they're tied in terms of you know what do you do in terms of expanding the network that you have but beyond just other Imams but to other religions and it ties to your question of what do you do when people are then using Islam or any religion back as their primary argument because it's not just obviously going to be one directional so we'll start with you Imam Babali well excuse me if I don't get your quicksum rightly I was trying to focus on what you're saying but some of them have escaped from my mind I'll start from that Gambian lady who has a quicksum which she know better than I do what is my relation with the religious leaders in the Gambia she fully well known that I was arrested and sentenced because of this advocacy in 2020 and in 2013 because I was really using my pulpit and enough journalists to advocate for condemnation of that penalty and at the same time FGM and the like my biggest problem not those who are not Islamically educated my biggest problem is the religious leaders themselves simply because you know there are a lot of school of touch different school of touch and there in the Gambia in particular or in Africa if I may say it in Africa to be a religious leader not necessarily you studied Islam you know what Islam is all about it's because your family settle you came to a religious family no matter you are educated or not you are the leader there and in many cases those people have more influence than many others my backbone, my protection after all was because of the family I belong to and the tribe so here what we need is to engage those religious leaders themselves and to work with them and on them to realize that FGM is not only on Islamic but it's harmful and it's deterrent and we were successful I mean doing that if you can remember there are many occasions we call drop of the knife and drop of the knife we did it in Basel we did it in Mansoconco we did it in Bakau in many parts of the Gambia because religious people were convinced and they convinced their congregations so to my sister what was her question again her question was the same thing is what happens when they are using religion against you when it comes back well there are many people because of their own ignorance they are using religion even against themselves not against you but themselves even because if any parent think sending your girl child to school is a violation of Islam you need to learn Islam because our holy prophet advised us to educate women than even more than men because when you educate one woman you educate the whole nation it's only one man because we know as he said as our holy prophet said your first teacher in the family is your mother and that's the reality mothers are more close to their kids than the fathers particularly in Africa so really your answer is we have to work with them we have to engage them but the main factor of our problem is ignorance number one ignorance number two ignorance number three and if I may have next our problem and we can only fight this fight if we have partnership with those who can support generously and then we can be in the field again as you know I was in exile today is my best day of the world when the head of state who sent me to exile hadn't been the assistant of American Embassy at the State Department I would have been killed of course with UK Embassy because they know me I have been working with them I have been receiving this Peace Corps from America orientating them giving them background of our country traveling with them so I was seen as a student of America which I am not I need freedom for everybody thank you I have you right here there was one question in the back and then right over there those three ok thank you for giving me this opportunity my name is Emos Leuka from SAFMA Kenya and I have a question to the Imam is part of the leadership of the community and maybe it's different in our case because it is a culture that is deported in our area it's not the religions but leadership is the same in every society so when I when he is talking about the issue of working with the leaders I refer the same and thinking of working with the cultural leaders in my concept because I belong to the council I want to there is one challenge that I am undergoing in my experience with working with the leaders is that sometime there is a hidden respect that because they want to respect you they don't want to oppose you when you are there but when you are not there there is that you are not talking about what you have agreed together so I want to ask you as a leader who has experienced you have many years and I have because I am only working in this field for 6 years and you say you are working for 40 years is that happening to you and if it has happened how have you been tackling thank you alright thank you there is over there right in the middle it's the person over here and then the woman in the scarf in the back I'm sorry we are not going to be able to get to everyone those are going to be the last three questions hello again hello again I'm sorry that we Gambians are dominating here we just wanted to Imam Babali my question is now that Jame is no more yay so how can we involve the madrasa school in the country on this fight against FJM and then the last question is in the back hi everyone my name is Ifrah Ahmed I'm Ifrah Foundation and also a big sister movement my question is that as a young activist Muslim woman going to Somalia and dealing with religious leader has been very difficult as the Gambians say that when they first spoke about FJM they walked away but Somalia they did not walk away but was very hard to convince the religious leaders to take part and end FJM so as a Muslim community or even imams based in Europe America would it be possible that you guys to take the lead and bring it back to Africa and deal with the Muslim community especially the imams to actually educate and take FJM on their own board because Somalia what we more had was only people who can change and end FJM religious leaders are the imams and we were told imams if they can go to mosque every Friday and they say that we have to say no to FJM so would it be possible that the Muslim community based imams or even the Muslim community in Europe and America to take this as young activist in Africa campaign FJM would you do same to bring this you are saying here today to back in Africa thank you so I'll turn to the panel I mean the first question is how do you deal with the challenge when there's hidden respect and one thing is said during the time that you're meeting and something else is done outside and then the other question is how do you pull in the medrasas and the education and the third thing is is there a role for the imams that are in the west particularly the US to help start this conversation again back in some of the more traditional like Somalia so Arsalan should we start with you and we'll go down I think the last question first I definitely think there's a role for religious leaders not only in America but in other parts of the world who may be perceived as having more authority or may have focused on this issue a little bit more than perhaps some of the other community leaders I think the more you can build momentum the more you can show that there's a growing number of scholars and other religious leaders and actors who are investigating this issue and looking at it from the scholarly perspective and concluding that this practice in fact has nothing to do with the religion and should be banned and should be ended I think that helps those processes and so one of the initiatives that we had worked on at the State Department was to elevate the voices of pastors and imams who are doing this kind of work and there was a video that was made and was distributed and showed at US embassies and consulates around the world where you had religious leaders who are going on film saying that yes in fact from an Islamic perspective from a Christian perspective this has nothing to do with our religion and I think the more initiatives we can do along those lines the better we can help to address this cause Thank you Yes I think you have said it all I don't have much to say about this one All right and we may actually be on time Pastor Yeah I think as my colleague already said what is important because we are now in an era where the generation are using and relying more on social media and the media but social media is an extension to the media so the more use we make of social media probably the greater the chance we will have to impact the generation because the imam that exists today may be a little bit of a lost cause for someone who is pessimistic but for the upcoming ones if you start talking about this and you continuously inundate the ways we should make impact I believe so use social media also to pass the message because sometimes dangerous for you to go on the ground and confront these situations I wanted to add one thing to the question about the respect I forget where that was the human respect I think that's a big challenge and I think one of the answers like the imam was saying before is to keep the engagement and keep the dialogue follow up later and if you haven't seen Jaha's journey you should see the film because there's a really great example in there about how Jaha was engaging with the lead imam in Gambia to deal with the issue and the discussion she would keep going back and forth but she was always respectful and she was making her point and looking at the facts and eventually you may not get an answer out of the first meeting or second or third but there may be steps out of each meeting where they come closer to your view and come closer to having a fuller understanding so that persistence I think that engagement is critical and it's difficult I mean people can be activists on this for 40 years and still not see results that have to happen and people are doing it you know safe hands and others all of you here today Thank you and one of the big things and a lot of the issues I've negotiated on women's issues is no is an invitation to a longer conversation it's never the end so see no is an invitation to a much longer conversation If I may come here from that Gambian lady about how can we take the subject to the motherless Thank you Well our experience taught us that we have to engage with the ministry of education department and this we have done it we work out a syllabus where this subject can be taught in school and can be discussed by using the reproductive Islamic health subject or you call it family planning subject so in this subject you can maneuver and you can teach all about sexual relations with female genital mutilation HIV and AIDS and the like Gambia we were able before I was sent to exile we were able to put that in the syllabus of the Gambia government the support of the U.S. Embassy because U.S. Embassy they have a project there I don't know if you are aware of it and the sponsor all of us when we are to approach government department that's the only way you can put it to the motherless Thank you Thank you all for another piece to the very important puzzle we now like to draw your attention to the screen we have a special message from the U.K. Secretary of State for International Development Good morning everyone and thank you Shelby and Jaha for inviting me to make this address and I'm sorry that I could not be with you in person the U.K. is firmly committed to ending FGM both at home and abroad we cannot and will not tolerate any form of violence against women and girls last week I announced an extra aid package to combat the abuse of women and girls across the globe this includes funding to 40 grassroots groups working specifically to end FGM and child marriage and yesterday the Home Secretary hosted an FGM event in London to reiterate the U.K.'s government's commitment to tackling this unacceptable practice a commitment first made by our Prime Minister at the Girl Summit in 2014 changes happening women who have been cut themselves are deciding not to cut their daughters since 2008 over 15,000 communities representing some of the 17 million people have made public commitments to end the practice 13 countries have enacted criminal legislation against FGM and 14 have policies or frameworks in place to tackle the practice but progress is not fast enough and current funding levels are insufficient to end FGM in a generation we need to see more political commitment, more money and more action FGM is a form of violence against women and girls and one of the most extreme manifestations of gender inequality I can think of we cannot relent in our efforts to tackle the problem only when we live in a world free from FGM will all girls be able to grow up free to fulfill their true potential and this is why I call upon each and every one of you at the summit to come together to continue to rally behind the Africa led movement to end FGM both globally and within the United States whether you are a funder, a policy maker or making a difference on the ground we all have a role to play together we can and we must end FGM thank you so we are extremely grateful that the UK Secretary of State is again committing to taking this end to FGM forward and we hope everybody in this room will do the same before we take our break I just wanted to make two quick announcements one is to bring your attention to the faces of defiance that are on display upstairs by Jason Ashwood and the lovely Leila Hussein take some time to look at that project it will be quite exquisite and we also have a list all of you who are invited we're asked to share small bio in your contact details we'd like to share that with everybody in the room and to continue networking beyond this conference so if you want to opt out please let us know and we'll take you outside that list but otherwise we will share that with everybody please be back promptly at 3.15 thank you okay I'm putting all my things there and I'm going to go over what's up oh no we thought about it but it's it's kind of a joke but I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't Oh, you can? Yeah. Yeah. What the fuck? Um, Darcy? I'm going to introduce this person. I'm going to introduce this person. You want to come back up and we'll have a glass of water. I'll show you the rest. You look inspired. Thank you. Are you ready? Are there more people we're expecting or not? Everyone take their seats. Was I mic'd? I thought Megan. Hi, we're inviting everyone to take their seats so we can continue. Welcome back. We're going to continue our conversation now with our sixth panel, focusing on the international sustainable development goals. Moderating today's panel will be Kathleen Kinnist. Kathleen, do you want to introduce the panel now that they're seated? Absolutely. If you all want to move closer, we can make it even more intimate. Again, we are going to run this panel with a rapid fire of questions and then we're going to bring it back to you and make sure we have this engagement. This panel is called International Sustainable Development Goals. Though I wish I was about 30 years younger, like Larry Thompson. I am not Larry Thompson. We regret that she's not here today but she's quite ill and has no voice. So I will act on her behalf. So I'm going to very quickly introduce our panelists so we can hear from them what they're putting together, not only on this very, very interesting day but the big picture. On my left is Susan Markham. She is the Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Susan has been doing this work for as long as I have known her. Welcome. Dr. Kuwaiti, he is the Executive Director of the Inter-African Committee on Harmful Practices. He is, this is a regional and international non-governmental organization affiliated with the United Nations, the African Economic Commission and the African Union. Welcome, Dr. Nafi's Diolp is a coordinator with the UNFPA UNICEF Joint Program on FGMC. She is joining us today from New York then. Yes, from New York. I see Montreal and I'm like, oh, New York from New York if you're doing UN. We have Mary is sitting on the end, but in your book, we have Dr. Faith Mawangi-Pow, who is the Global Director of the Girl Generation. Welcome. And finally, Mary Wanda is a part of the Equality Now team. She is the end FGM program manager of a big job here to do today because they are really having to go from where we have been, really at the three-foot level. We've spent a lot of time talking about the community, the local. We've covered nearly all the sectors from religion to health, to security, to policing, to activists. And now we're going to really look at that 30,000-foot level. Do these development goals make a difference? And what are the challenges now that we have a sustainable development goal number five about gender equality and the other 16? So I'm going to first turn to my colleague on the left, Susan, to say what is the biggest challenge with these new SDGs? And how can they make a difference when we're talking about FGMC? Well, thank you so much, Kathleen. And for the USIP and other sponsors of this day, it's been a fascinating conversation and I think long overdue to bring FGMC into this broader conversation. And quite frankly, we think about the SDGs at USAID in two ways. First of all, we are part of the US government's work to develop our strategy on how we report on the SDGs. And then with USAID, we're really looking to the countries where we partner and do our work to help them implement the SDGs in their country and be able to report on them. I think one of the challenges of the SDGs, which is fairly commonly known, is that the 17 goals and the 169 targets. I mean, that's just such a huge number and finding ways to focus ourselves on some of these is going to be difficult. If they're all equal, then they're all not as well focused on. But I think with FGMC and the other traditional harmful practices that exist around the world, if you can focus and end some of those, focus some attention and resources on those, it underlies many others. You know, if we work on FGMC, if we work on gender-based violence more broadly, if we can prevent and respond to these issues, it helps us have more economic empowerment. It leads towards greater political participation of women and it helps gender equality. So I think there's so many, but if we can focus on a few, it not just helps with this specific issue, but helps many other issues as well. Thank you, Susan. Dr. Keote, harmful traditional practices. When did that terminology come forward? How has it helped our international framing of this practice? And what do you think about number five in terms of FGMC? Thank you very much. I would like first of all to congratulate the organizers of this amazing event. And I stay always surprised to be only the man among women. We have to change this figure. We need more men to be part of this fight. Harmful traditional practices. That is history of the fighting against female genital mutilation. In 1985, 1984 in Dakar, February 6th, we gathered Africans, some countries, and we said we have as Africans to create with the support of the international community an organization that can fight against female genital mutilation. That time we were saying female circumcision. And then it was really very, very, very big challenge to talk about circumcision, female circumcision. And that time female genital mutilation was not created. And this term was not accepted, female circumcision. Religion leaders, populations, how you can report circumcision to women. Circumcision is for men. So it was very huge and strong opposition. We discussed during two days, at the end of the day, we said okay, because it's very difficult to go directly through the female genital mutilation or female circumcision. Let us put into a package called harmful traditional practices. So when we come to the community, we can open our package and we'll talk about some of them and we will bring out the female genital mutilation. It was a strategy. That's why, but we found that we, after some study of inter-African community, we found 13,000 harmful traditional practices, 13,000. But the most important of them are female genital mutilation and child marriage. So maybe if the question will come, I will explain a little bit how the inter-African community is fighting against harmful traditional practices. Rapidly, I'm very happy to be part of this panel because for IEC, this fight, this fight to eliminate female genital mutilation and for me, the world are very important. I'm talking about fights, fighting. It's not abandoning. If I abandon my wallet, somebody else will take. So it's not abandonment. It's elimination and fighting to eliminate these practices. We don't need to be scared to say female genital mutilation. We, it's going towards Africans. We accept that it's mutilation. So you guys from New Zealand, where we are from Japan, from US, from England, don't scare this mutilation. Carrying is just a famous to not shock Africans. We are not shocked. We acknowledge that it's part of our tradition which is very, very bad. So let's fight against female genital mutilation and we have five strategies. One is sensitization and advocacy. Second is law. Third is helping the circumciser to stop that and fourth is taking care of victims and fifth is networking. So I'm very happy to be here. I want just to recall that for us in the African Committee, in 2003 we said we have to create one international day, zero tolerance day. So we did it and now every year we have February 6th, which is the birthday of IAC. We are celebrating and then in 2012 we said we need resolution, UN resolution. We got it. So let's fight it together. It's not African problem, it's a humanity problem. Thank you so much and thank you for setting the context and also for really appointing out that how we name things is how we claim things. And it's the language is important. Pivotine, Nofi, tell us about how your organization and your efforts are going along this path with both the SDGs and FGMC. Thank you so much. I will start by celebrating the courage in the room and commanding also to the organizers that some of them I know are working and we are working together since 20 years on this issue. So thank you so much again to have the courage to organize this kind of event and bring back again this issue on the forefront of our mind, our media and everybody and policymakers. I would like to say that I'm coordinating the UNFPA, UNICEF joint program on female genital mutilation cutting and which is the world largest program and the world largest response to eliminate FGM in one generation. The program started in 2008 supported by a lot of member states and a donor's country and thanks a lot to all the donors that are contributing to the program. The program is covering currently 17 countries, 16 in Africa and Yemen. However, we are supporting also and providing technical assistance to a lot of other countries, Colombia, Indonesia, Iraq, Georgia recently and Russia are coming on board very strongly on this issue. So this is why somewhere I will come back and say that for us and for the UN it's not only harmful traditional practice but it's a harmful practice because we have a lot of other practices that are not any more traditional and emerging practices that we want to take also into account into this SDGs 5.3 target. I would like to say that that has been a lot of work and to make people recognize that FGM is not an African only issue but it's a global issue and the proof is now that countries like Russia, Georgia and Ola are coming and the data are following and of course Malaysia and Pakistan and South Asia and Colombia and Ecuador, Panama. So we today are in a situation that where we need to somewhere reinvent ourselves. After so many years of implementation of the program, seven years of supporting civil society organization, governments, networks, media and all and having done a lot of efforts and we wanted to really command the work of the government here because that was one of our key issues. The NGOs like the Inter-African Committee was working already for years there doing things and all but we said it has to go under the leadership of the government in a coordinated way where civil society organization are going to all sit together and coordinate the response. So I think that today the challenge for us is one is the cross-fertilization between all these different countries and experience that are there. You know, people are working for years. We have accumulated a lot of experience with religious leaders because of the previous panel, health providers, issue of medicalization and all. It has been a civil society response and all a lot of experience there and we need to make sure that we are not always thinking about things like we are starting from scratch from something new. So really again framing, we have to recognize what we've learned already. Exactly. And keep educating ourselves along the way and how much has been done. This idea of harmful emergent practices. I'd love to come back and think about that too because I think it is important for us to see the full continuum and 13,000 harmful practices. I wanted to just come back to that. Dr. Mawangi Pal, tell us what is the biggest challenge you are seeing right now in your work? Thank you so much for having me. I think this is an exciting opportunity. I think I wouldn't even look at the challenge. I look at the opportunity, the biggest opportunity we have. I work for the girl generation and the girl generation is is governizing a global movement for young people, for stakeholders working together to add FGM. Yesterday at the activist meeting we launched the global youth movement to add FGM and I want to shout out to the youth in this room. We have not forgotten you. We are thinking about you because you are the leaders. You are the people really who indeed can add FGM in one generation and I'm very proud for that. When I think about the STGs, I see them as an opportunity. The UN resolution gave us a mandate and it's what has been carrying us and it's what has given us the credibility to even talk about FGM in some of the countries we work. We work in 10 African countries and there are some countries with people represented here where people have been afraid to even call out the name FGM. And when we have another new mandate on the STGs, I would hate for us to really start turning it upside down and say what are the challenges of STGs? I would like us to look at it in the eye and say what are the opportunities that STGs give us as activists, as stakeholders working to add FGM because that is yet a new mandate and it's our responsibility. I listened to what my colleague from Kenya said, Christine talking about getting out of outside the box. I think it's our responsibility to hold our governments accountable. We have developed an accountability framework for STGs, giving people grassroots organizations the voice, telling them this is your mandate. This is really the Bible which you can use to go to your government and you tell them how are you protecting my child? How are you adding FGM in this country? And I think that's how I would like us to look at it. It was only established this year so it's not even a year old. This is a baby. Let this baby walk. Then we can say what are the challenges this baby has? For me, it's an absolutely incredible opportunity for us to take hold of it and really run with it because that is the mandate through which we are going to add FGM by 2030. That is a mandate through which we are going to unlock new resources for FGM because I know, I hear all of you, there isn't enough money to add FGM. I agree with somebody who said that if this was an issue for men, I'll give you a quick story. I remember my mother saying that she has got to go down the hill to get water. And she was saying if this was a men's responsibility, we would have had a pooling mechanism, pooling the water from the sitting room and we get the water there. So, I think it's the same issue on FGM. We need to look at how can we be innovative, how can we step outside the box and make this happen because I believe we can add FGM not by 2030 by 2025. There we go. That's how we talk. Thank you so much, Kate. Mary, I'm going to ask you the same question. What's the biggest challenge that you see with these new SDGs but then how do you apply it on the day to day in your work with Equality Now? Thank you very much. I think as Faith said challenges always come also if you flip them they become opportunities because I see SDGs as simply a framework. I mean, it's a framework. If you look at it, all the things included in the SDGs are actually derived from legal commitments on various issues, be they climate change or women's rights or economic rights and being a framework or simply commitments that are not legally binding then the issue is enforcement and learning from the MDGs the critical element that is required is the political will because we saw that where countries were committed they developed the action plans and they monitored progress. The ones who did not have any commitments on MDGs, they did not accomplish anything. So for me one of the MDGs is how will they be translated into action? And for us working to end FGM how will that action translate for me to protecting more girls from FGM and to providing services to the survivors to educating people about FGM? So for me that is a challenge. How do we ensure that? Then it becomes an opportunity for us because we have learned a lot from the MDGs to say how are we going to hold account governments to be able to develop very clear action plans which we must ensure include FGM and how are we going to ensure that they go beyond that and set aside adequate resources and then you and I how are we going to hold them to account using the national mechanisms we have? How do we hold them using the regional mechanisms we have like the African Union? How are we going to use the treaty bodies we have for instance for those in Africa? How will we use the treaty bodies at the regional level and at the international level? Because at the end of the day if we do not maintain the pressure then for me it will be a framework it will just be a pie in the sky because it will not have any meaning until we breathe life into it so that at the grassroots level people get to know SDGs means more protection for me, more services and more enjoyment of my rights. Thank you very much. I'm going to actually pivot right now because here's an opportunity to talk with people who are shaping policy and making it and also implementing it. So I'm going to take my first round of four questions so I'm going to start right up here I see number one and is there some more questions up there? One, two, three, four one, so right in the middle please could you raise your hand, the man with the white shirt was the first one. Thank you and then I'll come to this side next. Thank you. All right, quick questions comments, but please introduce yourself. Thank you. My name is Ramon Dukwai, brand ambassador for the Guild Generation. I'm trained equation to the UNFPA programs across the world. We have no problem. I'm from Nigeria and I've been trying to throw this question out. Well in Nigeria they selected five states to work on and due to this they said to have more prevalence in Nigeria. So what we are noticing is that most people go to other parts of the country. Your question? Yeah, I'm going, I'm coming there. Most people go to other parts of the country. Sorry, like what I'm trying to say is those people move out to other communities that are not defocused to have their daughters mutilated. So it's not possible to extend the campaigns by the UNFPA because almost everybody is thinking about what you're doing. It's not possible to extend beyond the five states so that we can have all that's involved than just focusing on the five states alone. Excellent, thank you. The next person was right behind the gentleman. If you could just stand up please. Yes, I'm Michael Graves. I work on communication strategy mostly for nonprofits. When we're developing narratives and how we talk about FGMC especially when we're working in development it's important for us to incorporate what's happening in the policy world when we're building out those narratives and trying to create advocates for these organizations. Thank you so much. The next person that was I pointed to would you just stand so our dear volunteer, thank you. All right, and then there'll be one more question here and I think it was you after that. Thank you very much. My name is Raouf Jacob. I'm a documentary filmmaker with World Wide Cinema Frames. My company's done a lot of work on FGM, our last film Sierra Leone A Culture of Silence the last chapter focused on Bondo Society in Sierra Leone. I'm actually a Sierra Leonean myself, born and raised. Quick question for you in terms of we've heard education today. It's come up throughout the panels. My question and this is an element of my next project which we're working on now. What are the challenges of education or the realities of implementing? Sexual education that has some elements of the health hazards associated with FGM within academic curriculums at the private sector and hopefully gradually to the public sector but not just to primary secondary or tertiary education but to practitioners who as we know are sometimes over 60. What are the challenges and the realities of implementing that and will that serve as an instrument to abolish FGM through education? Thank you for your question and then this woman right behind Thank you, go ahead stand up so she can find you. I know who you are. Hi, thank you. My name is Ase Tusi. I am the founder of the Finally Girl Mother and the Children Center in New York City. So I would like to know what the promise you will give to us today to encourage us to motivate us for the job we are doing to end the FGM. This is my question. Okay, very good. I'm going to move back to our panels. These are going to be fast answers and I have no speeches now. Just a quick question. Who would like to talk about this situation in Nigeria and the five state? I think that was to you now. You are going to talk about it but very quickly. Yes, very quickly. We started to support the Nigerian Air Force two years ago and of course we conducted the study and we looked first at DHS and then we conducted another study to look at the district level because DHS is only so the issue was that there was a concentration on six states. And six states in Nigeria is already a lot and the population Nigeria is one of the countries with Egypt and Indonesia both populated and where the women living with FGM are the most numerous one. You need to think about the means and the funds that we do have and in addition the human resource. So for me even two years working in those six states we still have a long way to go. I recognize a lot of work that you have done you guys including having the traditional rulers making a public declaration of abandon FGM. I think that this is it for those, for at least one of the states where the traditional ruler decided because when they decide this is the end. But let's just try to make a better effort in some of those states before we even think about scaling up to other states because it's already a lot of capacity development that need to be done there a lot of human resource that need to be mobilized a lot of funding that need to be injected. Thank you. What about the narratives and how people who write for policy shapers and makers who write in general can do a better drama. I think that was part of the question. I think we need a social change communication initiative and I think one of the key things is to be able to communicate simple. My friends can say is make it simple stupid. Is that what you say? It's making it very simple very clear what to ask because if you give too much information people don't really respond to it people don't have time to read about it but it's important. I like what equality now are doing in terms of the law. They are making it bite size really accessible information about very big legal documents even myself when I consider myself educated and I'm proud of that I cannot actually understand that but when I see the pieces of work equality now are doing it makes sense to me so it's the same in your communication make it simple and I always like what you think don't tell people what you think they want to hear tell them what they want to hear find out who are the people you are talking to because it's not one size fits all in response to people's needs I wanted to say quickly about the lady who said what is the promise we can give you to encourage you one of the thing we are doing as a girl generation is to galvanize a global movement following the global movement you've been inspired you will know that you are not alone now you know we know about you now that's a success that we know that you are there then from there we'll walk this journey together and then we'll figure it out yeah I'm going to pick up on also this question of know your audience and the question from our colleague the cinematographer this issue of a generational divide I mean this is big how do we communicate to so many different generations with so many different attitudes about this this is a good question and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate ICUSA what we have seen today is very important about generation we are going to the community when people are 40 year olds 60 so but if we start at the young for example what we have seen today 7 old, 8 old 6 and we start there showing to them the consequences of female genital mutilation they will grow up with that so and we are now sharing this opportunity example I think he was actually asking about the other side I was asking about the realistic implementation of sexual education into academic curriculums throughout countries where we can implement the health hazards associated with FGM not only to primary secondary or tertiary education but the adult practitioners who are practicing FGM ok we have two types of education when we talk about education we have formal education which is a school I was talking about that but we have also our traditional education this is non-formal education at grass root level in the village we have some culture some part of our culture where we are coming together to learn even if it is out of the school so we have to do both together both must be done at the same time I know Susan asked to say something and then so just very quickly I think it's actually pretty realistic we've done a good job with HIV AIDS where we talk this is how it's transmitted this is how sexual organs work this is what sex is and because of that issue it's opened the door to realistic conversations about sexual and reproductive health around the world whereas I might have thought especially coming from the US where we are still having these conversations I think in many places around the world frank conversations are taking place and they need to happen in both the formal and informal sector on the policy question I just wanted to say for policy makers they need to understand that policy is a global strategy to prevent and respond to female genital mutilation but it's not all there is and they have to understand that policy only gets you so far until you are working with religious leaders in the grassroots movement and girls and boys themselves so that's what I would try to communicate to people like me yes in terms of inclusion in schools I think we have seen the rise of fundamentalism be it religious or traditional and all that and what happens is that when most civil society groups have called for that you either see the traditional leaders or the church come up and say you cannot teach sexuality education and I think Kakenya pointed that out that remains a challenge in terms of FGM we have seen advances with most countries introducing education on the effects of FGM and how young girls can protect themselves from FGM we have seen it included as courses in medical schools for trainee doctors and nurses and we have also seen we have also had groups integrated in the community that reach out to the cutters by training them on what are the impacts of FGM that get them to get those ceremonies like dropping of the knife and all that so that is happening but also being realistic that we have that obstacle where sexuality education is still seen as some area that you need not touch yes thank you so much I'm going to go to what will be our last questions today and I'm going to try to find some people who we haven't heard from forgive me are there some people who haven't asked a question ok you're it anybody else who has not been able to ask their question today then this woman here and then this woman here and those will be our three last questions before our next hello to all everyone there I come from Liberia I work for women's solidarity incorporated and it's a privilege to be here today to represent my country but that again a responsibility to go back home and reach out what I have learned so my question is what mechanism has been put for grass rooter to fill the action of their millennial development thank you thank you so much this woman right here in the lab if you would stand please sure good afternoon what I was trying to do good afternoon my name is M. Yenera Ismail I'm an advisor to the permanent observer of the organization of Islamic cooperation United Nations and one of the things we've been able to do over the last two years is try to bring awareness to member states on the efforts you are making on the ground which we've been met with some skepticism a little bit because it's coming from our office and we're traditionally seen by some member states that we're supportive of FGM which is not the case at all the OIC has a very strong position against FGM and I'm really proud of that effort what we hear from you I think is what role do you think regional organizations that already do interfaith and interfaith dialogue how do we incorporate your work into what we're already doing in terms of trying to dispel myths about the surrounding religion I've heard many colleagues here say that they're having this challenge so I'd like to hear your views thank you for your question and this will be our very last question as we welcome Congressman Crowley thank you to her my name is Sarata Kande and I'm a youth ambassador for IAC today I want to say thank you for everybody for being here and also IAC for giving me the courage for actually speaking up because when you talk about FGM I'm a victim and I think it started from us from the beginning we want to continue forward to end it but don't forget about us as victims I know the United States have something called asylum case but basically my question is how do you ensure us protection for us that are courage enough to speak about FGM because like back to his question most doctors don't know about FGM when I learned about health in high school we never talked about FGM when I started talking to my friends about FGM in high school I was looked at a different way and now that I have that label on me what type of insurance that the United States could give me saying my family won't come back after me wow I think we could spend an hour on your questions as well and we don't have an hour we have about a minute so I'm going to ask you in rapid fire fashion if you would either respond to one of the comments or questions and one last thought so I don't want you to think that I am ignoring your question but obviously USAID we do not focus in the US but I can certainly put you in contact with colleagues at other parts of the domestic agencies that can help you answer that question because we are talking within the government about how we can address FGM within the United States but second of all with regard to local organizations and the SDGs and the global goals hold your government accountable helped collect the data help implement the programs that are going to help the countries meet the goals but also hold your government accountable on the issues you care about as well I want just to share one of the concrete accountability what we are trying to do in 2012 as I said we convinced the UN General Assembly to vote UN resolution yesterday what we have done with IEC USA our branch here we said we have to bring some concrete things here during this meeting not just coming drink the coffee and talk very well and we went yesterday embassy to embassy with a declaration here saying you guys you have already adopted the resolution in 2012 you have to sign here on behalf of your government that you are still going on working against FGM and we did it yesterday they have their signature here embassy to embassy and also we called thank you to IEC USA and the last thing that I would like to say we called also Organization International because here is English we said it's not only English speaking people here you have to make a declaration so I have the privilege also I'm very glad to see that we got also declaration from the Organization International of Francophonie which is bringing for 84 countries together they made declaration to support our girl summit and we will give that declaration to the organizers. Thank you so much. I will take from where he ended the declaration what we did know and accumulated evidence from social science research is that there is a lot of people either at grass root level at country level at international level regional level and all who do not see the benefits of FGM who do not support the continuation of FGM who are even against FGM so those voices need to be heard those voices need to be take out and we need to really turn up the volume so for the OIC Organization of the Islamic cooperation I really respect and I know your policy because I'm working with the Geneva your Geneva colleagues one of the things I haven't heard so much is in small forum like that that you are expressing it but we haven't heard any public statement by the OIC to the members where actually a lot of those countries with practicing communities are from the Muslim and are member of OIC so we do want to hear your voices your statements using the media using the radio and making everybody understands that the religion and the Islamic religion do not have anything to do with this practice so I think that that will be a very important element to add to what we are doing but the social norm approach about that we have heard a lot about the education but the education is just one step another step is to organize diffusion of the information the public commitment from politicians from communities from services health providers everybody so let's all together turn up a little bit more the volume and express that and you will see that the other will gain because at the end of the day we do not support this practice and want to end this practice but they need to know that other people are ready also and they can join the movement. It's my two last panelist for your forgiveness but our time is very short we are going to turn up the volume I think we all agree on this and thank you and will you join me in thanking this excellent panel. Thank you. It's now my extreme pleasure to welcome somebody who has been an absolute advocate for ending female general relation. We heard from Senator Reid this morning but we've had two amazing members in congress and in the House of Representatives it's Joe Crowley and he has been a friend to this issue he has advocated both quietly and loudly he's held press conferences when we needed them and he raised attention by gathering other members of congress to write a letter to the President and call for an interagency working group which really started the momentum of all of this bringing us together and so it was really behind again with another letter writing campaign of getting a global indicator for the SDG that target that we're talking about at this panel is because there was a letter from congress going to the President requesting that the United States stand up and ensure that there be a global indicator. Zero Tolerance Act was put forward. I could go on I don't want to go on. Thank you very much. It really is an honor for me to be here at the Institute for Peace what a beautiful building what a great concept great idea and it's great to have the physical plant here itself and I would never shy away from the notion of peace we need more of I want to thank everyone for participating here today I want to thank Equality Now for all that Equality Now has done to bring attention to the issue of FGMC and trying to find a way towards ending the practice throughout the world including here in the United States you've been such a leader on this issue and such a resource for me and for my staff as we work with you to end FGM for all girls everywhere there are really so many leaders here I would like to recognize but I would use up all the time that I have as this is truly an all star lineup that you have provided here today I do want to thank the Wallace Global Fund the Human Dignity Foundation and once again the US Institute for Peace for all your contributions to this tremendous event today but let me single out one very special person for recognition she's one of the most passionate fighters to end FGM and really one of the most passionate fighters in general that I have ever met I don't even like to look at her because she gets me emotional so Jaha I'm going to speak about her but I'll look over here for a second I have a 16 year old girl if anyone ever did to her what Jaha and others have gotten to go through to be a peaceful person you don't have to tell me how wonderful Jaha and the safe hands for girls are because I know you already know that but she continues to motivate and inspire me to do better and to fight harder every day Jaha and I know how much work you and all of you quite frankly from Equality Now have done to make this event so special important so when I would say for Jaha and you all brava thank you lighten me up a little bit by bringing the best and brightest minds on this issue under one roof this summit shows just how much the US not just the US but the entire international community how serious we are about ending FGM in this generation FGM is an extensive problem so we need extensive solutions we need to approach ending FGM through laws through education and outreach and through trusted leaders in our community many of you know or you should know that I first came to this issue after learning about a dangerous loophole in US law that allowed girls to be taken overseas for what was known as vacation cutting these girls may have been living in the United States where FGM is illegal but they were being taken out of this country to become victims of FGM with no protection under US law so I sponsored the Girls Protection Act to make it a crime to take a minor out of the country for the purposes of receiving FGM the law basically says girl outside of the United States for the purposes of FGM you can get the same penalty as if that was performed here in the United States through your allowance the Girls Protection Act was about putting the law firmly on the side of girls and when it became law in 2013 it brought the US in line with what European countries had done to protect girls travelling abroad this law primarily acts as a deterrent knowing that something is against the law will provide an important incentive for people to turn away from the practice of FGM but beyond this law more needs to be done in here in the United States and globally to encourage people to voluntarily reject FGM and that's why I'm so pleased to work with this broader community of activists energized leaders to fight for such an important cause I firmly believe that ending FGM in a generation is an achievable goal this is an achievable goal it may be a challenge but it is one we absolutely must rise to because we can effectively make this happen I come to this not just as a member of congress but as I said before as a husband and as the father no girl should have to go through FGM not here in the United States not anywhere in the world on the international scale I was so pleased to have FGM included in the sustainable development goals because it will make a big difference in how the world responds to FGM I was really hard to have a number of my colleagues in congress join me in strongly urging the US to lead the way including a global indicator for FGM in these goals it also reminds us that FGM is not just limited to one country or to one region here in the US I have introduced legislation that will lead to a national strategy to fully address FGM in our own country we need prevention and intervention programs that fully address FGM and we need a comprehensive approach to find the solution such as raising public awareness especially in communities where this practice is prevalent in establishing an emergency hotline to help at-risk girls and their allies we also need to arm our children law enforcement officers and medical professionals with the tools and resources they need to help at-risk girls FGM is not a simple problem it intersects with a wide range of issues including health education, law, justice immigration and travel and our foreign policy I know that some of our US agencies working on these issues are represented here today I saw USIG here earlier I want to thank all of them for the work that they are doing and to encourage them to keep that up we all have a role to play so thank you to all the advocates for holding our feet to the fire as I heard the good doctors say before even with a change in administration even with so many pressing needs worldwide we cannot let this issue be overlooked please keep pushing us keep pressing us to do more and to do better keep reminding us of what we are fighting for I'm sorry that I couldn't come for the whole day I have to admit I was a little busy on the hill I've got a couple of things going on on the hill but I'm glad to speak just ahead of the panel about best practices and solutions I'm so glad the day will wrap up with us looking forward at what we can and must do to help end FGM so before I turn this back over to Shelby or to who will be introducing next panel the important topic and these great panelists let me just say this that I will never stop fighting on this issue I am proud to have the opportunity to be a leader in Congress this is the kind of issue that helps me be a better person, a better congressman I know we will dealing with Senator Reid in his leadership I'm sorry that I was not able to be here to hear him speak this morning but I will keep working with anyone and I mean anyone who's willing to join us in this fight working together I know we can make a difference on a serious note it's sometimes hard to imagine that this issue will get the same level of attention in the next administration that it's had in this administration but I don't think we can regardless of what happens let up it may take a little longer than we initially anticipated but I do think there are good people on the other side of the aisle who want to see an end to this practice as well I know there are and we have to just remind them of their responsibility to do that and remind the President-elect that there is a responsibility of the United States to help move the world forward and to help move the US forward as well so with that I just want to thank you all for inviting me here today and I want to say I never want to let you down but more importantly I can't let the little girls down because that's what it's all about thank you all very much which end, I'm on the very end maybe the biggest for last Lucien's panel because this is also a part of the planning committee that's behind all of this have something that was substantive of a multi-sectoral approach that this doesn't happen just from one area but it really needs everybody coming together across government civil society and these groups came together with their colleagues so they're much deeper than what you see right here and over the last several months they've been coming together to decide what are the key recommendations what are those things that are needed to end FGM within these different sectors so what I'm going to ask them to do now is just give us the top line because we don't have time to go in them they will be attached as part of the summit report and you will see what those recommendations are but right now I just want to have them top line if we can and let me just go down the line and tell you who we've got here we've got Jeannie Smoot with Tahare Justice Center all the bios are in the packets with Sanctuary for Families we have Rachel Clement with ICRW we have Rene you've seen them all now and we head of our health campaign and with Georgetown University Medical Center did I get that right we have Angela Peabody we have Lina Smart with SWF International and we have Jaha Dukre so I'm going to ask each of you we have the different panels enforcement this is the state's recognition about what New York State is actually doing at their multi-sectoral level with foreign policy health care, education, immigration activists so if you guys could each and we're going to be at a we have a short amount of time for a lot of very important work but could we just go down the line and tell me what's your top four what are the top line recommendations and of course as Shelby said many people contributed to this and I want to give a shout out to Mariah Tahir with SyOat for helping shape and shepherd these recommendations from the law enforcement group but the overarching thing you heard repeatedly today is that laws are just one part of the solution and that we need to think outside the box that we're not going to legislate or prosecute our way out of this but it is a tool in the toolbox you may be surprised to hear how this group then thought it could be best used against this one of the things that we were clear on is that FGMC needs to be recognized and classified as child abuse by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and how critical this was to galvanize the kinds of responses, the protocols the training, the best practices and that there was a role for both federal and state to play in that whether it's as setting gold standards best practices convening whatever this was also critical because without that you might have situations where the individuals who are turning to others for help who should be in a position to help them child protection and others are not even aware of the laws or trained on how to implement protective protocols so second realization and very key was that FGMC is a form of violence against women it's not only something that affects at risk girls but also women as well and that needed to be recognized in every program office department grant funding stream that handles violence against women generally needs to see this as core to its mandate and if it doesn't see it that way it needs to be legislated, made specific, made explicit to do that for example within the violence against women act that galvanizes a lot of our domestic response to violence against women and girls a third recommendation was of course that law enforcement needs to work with at risk communities and that the focus needs to be on an education risk assessment and prevention that it's a multi-sectoral approach as we just heard and it's a critical way to leverage all of those partnerships in different areas not just within government but within civil society because there are legal limits to various persons authority and there are of course practical limits to their expertise and to what they can do law enforcement might be able to prosecute local child protection authorities that can actually take custody of a young person who's at risk or take her off the plane for example so the other focus of the group was on that the education and outreach should likewise be coordinated with community groups and focus on the harms of the practice the laws that are available also to help individuals to exercise their rights and available support services so what I found most interesting about what this group focused on was that sort of proactive approach to prevent before we need to prosecute to reach out to communities in partnership so that emphasis on partnerships on proactivity and on planning and concerted efforts because that's the way we felt that whether it was large or small pilot or permanent that those kinds of planning and commitments could really pull people together that needed to be pulled together because no one person, no law no agent has all the authority they need to take care of the multivariate needs of these situations and she came in on time excellent Mariamma the challenge is to you thank you so as you know New York may be one of the state in the United States with the higher number of women who have experienced FGM and girls who are at risk so what we did in New York lately is really to come up with a strategy to tackle FGM at the level that is not national yet but we work with the national level so we call it the New York working group I'm the only one sitting here today but it's really a group of 57 people and it's really very diverse people from African organizations some of them are here today and from the mayor's office from Children's Services Department of Health Department of Education Medical Practitioners Dr. Debora is here today and the people from Homeland Security Department of Justice Immigration NYPD Social Workers and Lawyers if I left anyone out I am sorry but it is really amazing to see how much people are willing to get together and work at the state level so some of the recommendations we have because we have this idea to create this working group at a local level it's really people to get together because many people are doing an amazing work there and we are more powerful if we get together and we combine effort and we work so one of the recommendations we have it's really to encourage people to come up with a working group and working group I mean really making it very diverse so that you can split the work each individual can have one expertise at least and I think if you do this it's going to be extremely powerful and then another recommendation it's really outreach and education I know everyone may have the same recommendation here outreach and education is extremely important but we cannot target just the community that practice it or the service providers I think we need to target the community that practice it and the service providers service providers need more education New York when I start doing this it was really hard when you talk about FGM people did not know and I'm glad to see where we are today because when you say FGM now people know what is it but believe me still there are people who do not know what is it we can never assume that everyone knows about FGM so outreach education is a very important service providers need to understand their reporting obligation FGM is a child abuse and the way we report every single type of abuse that a child can face this is the same way we should report FGM without thinking the same for example this is a cultural practice it is child abuse something else is really trying to encourage service providers to review every single clinical assessment they have like the first time an individual walk into an office you need to know with where this person is from and if this person is from one of the countries now we all know it's a very important to understand and educate them about here what's going on in the United States and again it will help us to understand to have the data how many people have been experiencing FGM before coming to the United States it will help us to put together programs to respond to the need because they are huge need there one last thing it's really involving the youth girls and boys we cannot work without them because it's really an issue that they are facing Rachel so from the foreign policy side of things I think I just want to echo a lot of what I've heard already in terms of coordination we have a series of excellent strategies policies and guidance in the form of an education policy an adolescent strategy U.S. global strategy to empower adolescent girls and there's actually guidance for USAID on FGM specifically so it's just taking all of these excellent policies and really implementing them and coordinating within the different agencies that have implementation plans to ensure that they're doing all of the things that they have the evidence to know how to do and do well each agency has a role to play so it really needs to be a whole of government effort to address all of these different efforts to prevent and respond to FGMC the United States is a leading donor on global health and education and as we've seen in the GAO reports that Senator Reed commissioned we don't do a great job of funding FGM specifically and I think even within these existing efforts and this existing funding there is a way for us to really address this and really integrate it into education, into health, into other areas and to really target these efforts I think there are a lot of great opportunities ahead we have a lot of new faces on the hill and in the administration and echoing that we need to educate people that this is a child abuse issue this is gender inequality and it's a bipartisan issue that we really can tackle together Excellent First of all a quick shout out to the 15 people who made up the health working group and some of whom are here this was truly a group that consisted of people from many different specialties so it's not just OBGYNs but it's OBGYNs and pediatricians and family physicians and midwives and sexual reproductive health experts and mental health experts so shout out to everybody for this amazing opportunity we came up with a bunch of recommendations I think one thing that we all agree on is the need to educate health care providers around the country regardless of specialty and create curricula that actually address all of the issues from the direct clinical care to methods of communication to ways of screening in such a way that is not judgmental and that we can create this partnership and trust relationship with our patients health education, health professional education is number one I think on our list number two we talked about multi sectoral collaboration so it's not just us in the silo of the health care world but working with lawyers and law enforcement and educators within our communities number three is the research aspect we I think if you were here for the for our panel there's a lot that we don't know from how many people were actually going to service how many women are and girls are at risk we don't know how many girls have been back to their countries and come back that we haven't been able to identify what are best practices we don't have all the evidence about some of these best practices so research is a very big element that actually may be the first thing that we need to do so that we can tailor all of our interventions based on that research community based collaboration everything has to be anchored in the community of migrants and immigrants and refugees and the women themselves who are affected or potentially their daughters and then finally advocacy within our professional organizations we belong to many professional organizations so making sure that our organizations stand up for women's rights against sexual violence and specifically address FGM and what the organization policies are related to FGM when we can learn about it a lot from the UK and from Canada but I think we're just beginning to hold our own professional organizations accountable that's a brief way I love it Angela thank you I'd like to thank the education group I think we're a group of six or seven that worked on this and I'll be very brief we have four top blind recommendations the first one is for the US department of education to develop and disseminate FGM educational and training materials to schools universities the diaspora community groups healthcare professionals like she just pointed out police and others upon request number two that the US department of state funds educators to develop programs that engage the diaspora communities and help train young leaders both boys and girls to speak up against the practice of FGMC third and educational toolkit to be distributed developed and distributed to every school district throughout the United States and I'm happy to say that I was appointed to that committee pardon me to work on developing that educational toolkit and we are just at the finishing stage of it and we hope to officially launch the toolkit approximately sometime in January of 2017 lastly to develop an app an application for FGMC that works great for young people because all the young people even if they're in the remotest village of Africa they all have cell phones and they know how to use apps and I think that will be a great way to communicate FGM and educate people throughout the world thank you I immigrated to the United States 24 years ago I was able to escape FGM being initiated into the secret society in Sierra Leone in 1992 the mechanism that we have today in the immigration department didn't exist it was extremely difficult it was surrounded by secrecy so I'm especially very happy to be part to be the one to tell you about the immigration recommendations for the FGM summit which of course focuses on prevention number one is the increased distribution of information about FGM FGC through existing channels of immigration so of course the most important part is to break the secrecy and also to inform communities and the population at risk about that immigration in the United States can offer to anyone who has come here like myself 24 years ago and can apply for asylum we also have a recommendation for increased distribution of information for refugees from the countries where high prevalence rates occur and of course it has to be culturally sensitive and situationally appropriate the most important part is that we intend to reach all members of each family meaning that when we are handing out the information we do not only want to give the information to the head of the family who in most cases when they come to the immigration borders just give the passports and all the documentations for the whole family but we want to make sure that each member of the family including the women and including the children and all the children that we have handed out prior to their coming to the U.S. number three very important engage with U.S. located embassies and consulates all over the U.S. of countries having high FGM prevalence to raise awareness and send information to their nation nationals this is really important because this is a very effective way to reach the community in a very structured way and number four which is also very important is increase the U.S. government and civil society activities to educate so again is education education education from all angles and raise awareness through outreach events and of course the importance of using people who already have trust in relationships with the community who have long-standing activities such as activists of course people who are trained and if anyone else decides to come and speak from the different immigration departments then they will be welcomed because of the trust in relationships that already exist and also because the importance of the benefits that will be presented during the community meetings so in my case I work mostly with African communities in Los Angeles and while I was sitting here I received a text saying that on Tuesday at UCLA there was going to be meeting on African immigrants issues so it's extremely specific and it's very important because I'm going to have a platform to go and explain and let them know what we all discussed today so that's it for now thank you. I get to read the recommendations from the activists and before I start doing that I just want all of you to clap for me. Without you we wouldn't be sitting here. The four key recommendations and I want everyone to understand that all of you your voices are reflected in these recommendations from the girl generation to the Sehio, Maria and your team to the big sisters I know a lot of you have heard of the big sisters and maybe you're confused as to what exactly are the big sisters the big sisters are and the reason why we decided to start the big sister movement is for years people have been narrating our own stories and we haven't been able to do that and a lot of people are working for our interests but they don't understand our communities and they don't live in our communities and we appreciate what everyone does but we also know that we are the answers to what's needed in our communities and we are the only way change can happen but we know that one person can't do it alone we need each other, we need that sisterhood even if it's not about resources but it's about if I have an issue who do I reach out to in the middle of the night if something is wrong I can call Dumtela I can call Ifrah, I can call Gift I can call Salimatu, I can call Lucy Ann, I can call Lisa in my team you've heard a lot about Jaha today the success that I have is not because of me it's because of my team I think I'm the most useless person on our team I do a lot of the talking and a lot of the ranting but they do the work every single day I wake up and say this is what I want and a lot of times I'm not the one that's doing that work it's them right there and across the room they pulled off today and if I sit here and take credit for what happened today it's not because of us and not just our team but the Equality Now team and our network and our donors and I want all of us here to leave here knowing that this wasn't my thing it was all of you and I can't thank you guys enough and I know I've driven all of you crazy and some of you stopped talking to me in the last few days because of how stressful it has been trust me half of my team wasn't talking to me but you've heard of one of them which was Maria she's the most smartest person that was behind the law in the Gambia after meeting Christian in Kenya but I'm gonna go on the recommendation because if I start talking about my team I won't stop the recommendations that came from the grassroots um activists is we want donors to trust grassroots activists to make the appropriate decision in terms of program structure and funding flexibility in their communities we want everyone to start looking at FGM not as a stand alone issue but a part of violence against girls and women that cannot be solved unless it's integrated with other issues it's linked with such as child marriage by going into communities that's part of that but we also want people in this room especially the advocates one thing that kept coming out is model replicacy if you know of another advocate that has done work in their community that has been successful you don't have to start scratch let's get rid of our egos let's start calling one another and asking each other how did you do it when we pushed for the law in Gambia people don't realize this but the idea came from Kenya it came from Christian and the DPP that's how we accomplished what we did she told us to test our laws and Maria spent all day in her office to try to figure out how we can test our laws in the Gambia she went back to the Gambia and worked on that and eventually we didn't have to test our laws because our government heard us and even I have that issue sometimes where pride keeps us from reaching out to the other person and saying how can I learn from what you did before we leave here we have a reception if you've heard from someone today that inspired you that moved you that you want to learn from it's not about egos no one knows it all ask them how they did it ask them to share their reports ask them to share what they did so that you can do the same thing in your community at the end of the day where we come from and our goal is the same and our vision is the same and what we are trying to accomplish is the same and together we can do it we can't do it alone and the last point is making sure that the movement is sustainable we can talk about ending SGM but if it's not sustainable it's not going to end thank you so actually just a quick I want to do two rows of very quick questions 2017 what needs to happen is each one of these groups going to do to get us closer to ending FGM by 2030 Jeannie you have like quick 30 seconds I think we're going to continue to work that's been undertaken as a group to continue to think creatively about law, law enforcement, child protection all of those as allies and tools to figure out how it can provide clarity around people's rights and to figure out how we can come up with some really concrete and even as I say pilot moments for collaboration I think one of the things that was mentioned in the New York example was the Child Protective Services had there maybe also mentoring the Child Protective Services head in Miami what is it that we can do that we can walk away from these understandings and say okay this here now and then maybe we'll ripple and replicate as we can Mariana number one we want to create a training tool a standardize a training tool that will be like for each sector we're going to target four sectors medical, education, law enforcement and social services but because the goal going to be different so we're going to make each for each sector a specific training tool that's one and number two we're going to come up and that's going to be very soon two pages of like a fact-shift information on FGM that we will distribute to many service providers including pediatricians, doctors nurses and JFK airport I'm so glad you are here and so that people know it is a crime, it is a problem and it is happening in the United States we want to build the group larger so we're going to invite more people and we're going to create kind of communication between service providers so referral going to be easy between service providers in the community you need a service you know where to send people we want to know who speaks which language who's working with which community that will make the work easy Rachel sorry well knowing we have very limited time I would just recommend that everyone pick up our policy brief on the resource table outside we have outlined a lot of our recommendations here it's very pretty if I do say so myself and we have recommendations on global health, education and under equality I would just say we are going to keep fighting on this issue and we are going to be educating all of our new champions to come and working from a foreign policy perspective to make sure that US dollars are going to really targeted interventions that work ready? I think in fact for this summit we brought together a very interesting and collected group of people from all specialties so I think for us the goal would be to maintain the momentum keep working together and maybe create a virtual network where we can exchange ideas, best practices and think about next projects, research and advocacy projects I think people have already stepped up to own some parts of this agenda so I think we are going to move forward with that continue to push for education in the schools until the US Department of Education decides to to include FGM in their curriculum that's the main thing that we are going to push for and we will just continue to develop these relationships and as Jaha said we have to work together we have to collaborate in our plans to do things how we will make it happen before 2030 for the immigration group we plan to concentrate on very intensive education and outreach within the affected communities and for 2017 we are planning on a publicly available national database of resources and of course all this is aimed at prevention and of course education being the key education not mutilation I would say for the activist group it's important that we fill out the form online that has the contact information and your bios chances are let's keep in touch when we leave here let's not leave here and not talk again if we have to create a WhatsApp group wherein we all say in touch let's do that I think that's one of the recommendations that I would make and fate and her team are here and I would say find out more information about that as well before you leave there's a lot of knowledge and a lot of resources in this room and don't leave without doing that if you're interested in learning more about the big sister movement it's just an idea for now but sign up once we have something concrete we will reach out to the sisters in the room and Jerry Campbell I heard you, you want a big brother movement for now be a big sister then we would move to a big brother movement last question, sorry guys that's for the reception, no questions this is a non-question panel except for up here can we end FGM by 2030 absolutely of course, absolutely yes together we can so we have 25 seconds I want to let you know also that these panels really were built on government and civil society collaboration and we, if I wish to have one thing that we want to do is ensure that that goes forward that we work together that we make this happen that all of these sectors, this is the multi-sectoral approach in this room on this panel and I think that what we really want to do I opened up at the beginning of the day and said staying together is a beginning keeping together is progress and working together is success thank you thank you to our donors thank you for being here you blessed us yesterday and I think I'm going to lose my voice after this but it would be a shame to leave without thanking you and we still have one last performance so don't leave if you're interested in dancing so I just I'm going to actually tell you also part of the one of the goals for this was to launch a U.S. network to end FGM please send your information as we also said we've asked everybody who is registered to share your contact details in a small bio please do it we will share it with everybody who has been in attendance and if you want to opt out if you haven't let me know I'm going to assume that you've opted in and I think that the idea here too is we want to stay together because together we can and it's I think we'll just close out because I want to say a huge thank you a huge thank you to Jaha a huge thank you to the Safe Hands for Girls staff a huge thank you to the Equality Now staff to Human Dignity Foundation to Wallace Global Fund to USIP it has just been a group effort of everybody coming together Shelby can I say one thing about Equality Now so Equality Now funds our programs in Atlanta and this morning they renewed our grant for our Atlanta program so Mamha can support the girls from Atlanta who are also in this room Giselle I don't know where you guys are but if you're here your program has been renewed which is very exciting for us so I want you to thank Shelby and give Shelby a hand she has been an amazing partner to me and yeah she has been there so it hasn't been a single journey we have done all of it together and we will continue doing it together until FGM is over yes and one other thing that we heard and I think it was excellent was some of the discussions were provocative and if that said anything to me it means we need to keep doing this we need to do this again and again and have in-depth discussions because we don't know all the answers but we're trying to figure them out we have a reception outside congratulations it's been amazing