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The discarded women of Mali live behind these walls. Photo from Family Care International.
I have mixed feeling towards Mali. I loved my time there and would go back in a heart beat… but. and it’s a big BUT. It’s one of the few countries in the world where female genital mutilation is still widely practiced and is legal. Many countries at least pay lip service and outlaw the practice on the books (it is performed anyway). But at least if it is technically illegal – it can be prosecuted AND when a government publicly proclaims something to be illegal, it is the first step in the permanent eradication against FGM. If FGM is still legal, there is not even a toe hold for the battle to begin.
- On my three and a half week journey up the Niger River, we stopped at a small village, miles from any road and days from a major city. A woman who looked to be about 50 [she was 31] came up to me crying, begging and pleading. My interpreter said, “She wants to know if you have medicine. She is sick.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“All women out here have the female cut when they are young. When they get married and have children, there are problems. She is in a lot of pain. If something doesn’t happen she will be turned out.”
TURNED OUT. As in – you are no good to your husband anymore so get the hell out. The “lucky” ones end up at the Fistule hospital in Mopti, where the women and some of their children have a roof over their head and access to food. The unlucky ones just disappear.
This shop next to the Fistule home is how the women make money to eat. Photo from the Catholic Relief Services.
The hospital – which is really more of a “retirement home” for women past their prime (read: anyone who has had complications due to an unsanitary and brutal cut) is a few blocks from the port of Mopti and the courtyard is full of discarded women and their children. Next to the mud walled courtyard is a small metal shop which sells jewelry and trinkets made by the women in an attempt to get money to eat and pay their rent at the home (because yeah – it ain’t free).