Policymakers should promote ‘Bondo without Cutting’ to protect rights of women
By Alusine Sesay
Female genital mutilation (FGM), a procedure that intentionally alters or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons, is a violation of human rights of girls.
According to the 2019 Demographic and Health Surveys, ”Overall, 83 percent of women age 15–49 have been circumcised. FGM is more common among rural women than urban women (89% versus 76%.”
The Survey shows that, the prevalence of FGM increases with age 15–19, compared to 95% of women age 45–49.
There are fears that the number of girls and women who have been subjected to FGM during this covid period would have increased, but there is no official data to support this assumption.
Lawyer Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai, a human rights lawyer, said that FGM (also called Female Circumcision or Female Genital Cutting ) constitutes a harmful traditional practice and it’s recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women.
In Sierra Leone FGM is practiced alongside the Bondo Society, a cultural practice which is recognised by various ethnic groups in the country. The society is headed by elderly women called Sowies.
FGM procedures are mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and adolescence, and occasionally on adult women.
In August, a 19-year-old girl Fatmata Turay in Moborleh Village, Bombali district, Shebora chiefdom, northern Sierra Leone was alleged to have died just after initiation into the Bondo society. Few years ago, a 28-year-old woman in Kondebotehun Section in Kenema, eastern Sierra Leone, was alleged to have been forcefully initiated into the Society as a result of an argument between herself and a lady who is believed to be an initiate. The victim revealed that after being initiated, she was locked in a room for four days without food, water and medical treatment until a friend alerted the Police of her detention. She was released after the police intervened. In both cases, no person was prosecuted.
Lawyer Saffa Abdulai said section 33 (1) of the Child Right Act, 2007 made it clear that “no person shall subject a child to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment including any cultural practice which dehumanises or is injurious to the physical and mental welfare of a child.”
He also cited international instruments including Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, on the rights of women in Africa also known as the Maputo Protocol, urges States Parties to prohibit and condemn all forms of harmful practices which negatively affect the human rights of women and which are contrary to recognised international standards.
FGM is banned by the United Nations General Assembly through the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) which encourages Member States to put a stop to the practice.
The Lawyer said despite these legal instruments, previous governments have not been doing much to tackle the issue of FGM.
A Barrister and Solicitor at the High Court of Sierra Leone, Madam Christiana Davies-Cole said earlier that, it is disappointing to note that there is no specific law in Sierra Leone that is against FGM. The Police, she said, can only charge a persons accused of initiating girls with an offence of action occasioning bodily harm. “There are however, international instruments that have been ratified by our government that needs to be domesticated, and we need to hold the duty bearers accountable to domesticate these international instruments,” she said. She called for the enactment of a specific law to deal with FGM.
Many of the girls we spoke to said they were forced into the initiation by their parents or guardians.
The secretary general of the Forum against Harmful Practices (FAHP) in Sierra Leone, Madam Aminata Koroma said FGM is a contributing factor to the high incident of maternal deaths in the country.
According to the 2020 United States Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor report on Human Rights Practices in Sierra Leone , the law does not prohibit Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) for women or girls. According to a 2017 UNICEF report, 86.1 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 49 have undergone a form of FGM/C. UNICEF polling indicated that societal support for FGM/C remained strong in the country.
The report states that FGM/C was excluded from the First Lady’s “Hands Off Our Girls” Campaign in 2019 that called for an end to child marriage and sexual violence. “In December 2019 approximately 70 initiates aged above 19 underwent the Bondo secret society ceremony without the ritual circumcision as part of an initiative of the NGO Amazonian Initiative Movement. This alternative rite of passage was preceded by dozens of cutters (soweis) handing in their knives to demonstrate their commitment to refraining from cutting. The soweis signed a declaration against practicing FGM/C, preceded by the 2015 MOU the local soweis signed with the UN Population Fund to abandon harmful practices including FGM/C.
Madam Rugiatu Neneh Koroma, the founder and Executive Director of the Amazonian Initiative Movement (AIM), said that the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) aspect of “bondo” society should be removed based on health, social and economic risks associated to it. For this reason, her organization has initiated the new method of “bondo” without cutting as a pilot phase in the Port Loko district.
In this new method of bondo practice, Madam Koroma explains that Initiates are no longer subjected to FGM or
“cutting” rather, the ceremonies focus on the other traditional aspects of bondo, including celebrating the new initiates and upholding wholesomely the aspects of bondo society, including dancing, teaching women and girls to respect elders, how to take care of their husbands, children and members of the family, among others.
“Bondo society is a place where women can learn and imbibe the culture of good leadership in their communities,” says Madam Koroma, who explains that this is still the case with the new model — the only difference is that it no longer needs to involve shedding any blood.
One of the reasons Madam Koroma says FGM has persisted so long that many bondo initiators, called “sowies”, rely on income from parents, as payment to complete initiation ceremonies.
However, she says that, with this new model of “bondo without cutting”, sowies can still earn their livelihood for initiating new members of the society, without having to harm them through FGM.
“Another reason we want to push for the removal of cutting in bondo society,” she explains, “is that in many cases, underage girls do go into these bondo shrines without prior knowledge of [what will happen to them there] — which is an act of deceit.”
Besides being a violation of human and child rights to perform such harmful practices on girls without their informed consent, Madam Koroma says that FGM also carries no health benefit. In fact, women and girls who have experienced FGM face increased risks during and immediately after childbirth, including an increased need for caesarean sections and prolonged hospital stays.
“Women do not want a culture that will kill,” she says.
“Women have died at the hospital as a result of health implications from FGM. They want the culture that will help uplift their dignity.” This, she believes, is where “bondo without cutting” can help, by maintaining -without causing bodily harm.
In the area of providing alternative means of livelihood for the initiators or “sowies”, Madam Koroma stated that her organization has established a skills training centre where these women are being trained in income-generating arts including tailoring, soap making, and gara tie dying.
According to her, due to this initiative, over 40 long-standing sowies have now surrendered their instruments, promising that they will never go back to their usual practices.
Speaking from a United Nations perspective, the UN Women Country Representative, Dr. Mary Okumu, said that the bondo without cutting initiative brought by AIM is a laudable venture that needs to be emulated across the country.
Dr. Okumu called on other initiators in other districts to copy this new model, as it causes no health harm to either the women or the communities.
The Girl Child Network is a national non-governmental organization working to promote child rights in Sierra Leone. Its Director, Madam Anita Koroma, said that women and girls of this country have suffered due to the terrible practice of FGM, and many of them have lost their lives, dignity, or been permanently disabled as a result.
According to Madam Koroma, government has already passed a moratorium that girls below age 18 should not be initiated into FGM, but enforcement has been a challenge.
For one sowie, known as Sampa Soko, it was understanding the negative impacts that FGM can have which led her to join the “bondo without cutting” initiative. Sadly, she explains that she was one of those who initiated girls at Mile 91 last year, after which a 10 year old girl eventually lost her life, due to excessive bleeding after undergoing FGM.
“All what I have learned from AIM-SL, I see it with my naked eyes and I experience it long ago,” Sampa Soko says. “I am one among those that have disarmed and I will never go back into this cutting practice.”
