Pregnancy complications take one woman from island paradise to nightmare at sea
Aisha Tiro Bahero, 30, knows what it means to stare death in the face. Three years ago, while pregnant with her fifth child, she began to haemorrhage dangerously. “I couldn’t stop the bleeding. No one could,” she said. But there were no health facilities on the idyllic tropical island where she lived – Kiwayuu, part of the Lamu Archipelago off the northern coast of Kenya. The nearest hospital was an hour away by motorboat, over wild ocean waves.
Former Ugandan circumciser says she will never go back to performing FGM
For decades, Turutea Chelangat was one of the most famous circumcisers in the village of Kaworyo, in eastern Uganda. She cannot remember the how many girls she performed female genital mutilation (FGM) on. “There were very many,” she said.
Dropping the knife: One woman joins the fight for women’s rights in the Gambia
For years, Aja Babung Sidibeh would gathered girls together in the Central River Region of the Gambia and prepared them to take part in an initiation rite. The girls would come stay with her until a circumciser arrived to cut them – a practice known as female genital mutilation (FGM).
In Colombia, efforts to end FGM are empowering women to be leaders
Solany Zapata first heard about female genital mutilation (FGM) when she gave birth to her daughter. Her mother-in-law insisted she had to cut her newborn’s clitoris. Shocked, Ms. Zapata refused.
Fifty years after a terrible childbirth injury, Kenyan woman gets a new lease on life
Decades ago, Jumwa Kabibu Kai was pregnant with her second child in the small village of Kidutani, Kenya. The area was poor and isolated – her nearest neighbour was 3 kilometres away – and there was no easy access to a health facility. But Ms. Kai did not know these circumstances would initiate “50 years of a long nightmare,” as she later described it.