Grace Reson was only nine years old when she saw women trickling into her family’s compound as the sun was setting the previous day.
Grace, now 16, had only been told their family would be hosting a ceremony and the guests would be many, and that is why she was given so much work.
“Nobody spoke to me about the fact I would be cut. No one warned me or prepared me,” she said.
A few hours before the women came, her mother had tasked her with more chores than usual before asking her to go invite the neighbours to a party.
She was instructed to tell them her sister was getting married.
Grace was speaking to the Global Youth Ambassador programme for the development of Story Zetu Anthology.
The programme is an annual learning exchange programme hosted by Planned Parenthood Global.
The next morning, she was woken up very early. The women told the nine-year-old they needed to do something for her but she had to remain silent.
“That was the first time I found out I would be cut, hours before it happened,” she said. “I screamed and tried to run but they caught me and pinned me down.”
As the elderly midwife entered the room, she was held tightly and her legs spread apart for the cut.
“After the cut, they said I was now a woman. I asked my mum why she did this to me and she threatened to beat me,” she said.
Feeling betrayed and confused, Grace wondered how at the age of nine she could be anyone’s wife.
“I asked myself so many questions since no one else wanted to answer me. Why me? How could I become a wife at this age? Why didn’t they warn me or ask me?” she said.
After she healed, she was told she could not go to school because she was ready for marriage. Unprepared for marriage, she opted to run to a rescue centre she had heard about.
STILL A CHILD
“My parents tracked me down and came after me. They asked for me to be returned. They said they had already ‘eaten’ and spent the dowry they received from my future husband,” she said.
However, the chief and the centre refused to give her up. Grace has since been at the centre for seven years and is almost graduating from primary school.
Her mother has to sneak out to see her after her father disowned her. He has not spoken to or seen her in those seven years.
Grace says she is against the cut because it is not in the Bible.
“I am against the cut because it is not in the Bible. Only boys are circumcised in the Bible. When I grow up, I want to be a nurse to help other girls,” she said. “I have also been actively telling younger girls here in school not to agree to the cut.”
For Naiputa Rakwa, her father would beat her every single day if she refused to sleep with him. At the age of 10, he had already booked her for marriage.
Naiputa is the lastborn of 21 children her father has from his three wives. Only two of them are girls.
“My husband was an old man who used to beat me every single day if I didn’t sleep with him. I became depressed,” she said.
A year later, driven by her passion to learn, she ran away to Naing’oi Rescue Centre. However, her father followed her to school and threatened to bewitch the teachers if they did not return her home.
“My mother also ran away from home since the incident and also from the severe beatings she would get every day from my father,” she said.
Her mother was also the only person opposed to her getting married at such a young age.
“I want to keep studying and progress well and hopefully become a doctor someday. My message to parents and elders is they should stop the act of child marriage,” she said.
“Police should arrest people who defile small girls because it’s destroying their future.”
NOWHERE TO RUN
Rarai Lolliyo was cut when she was only eight years old and married off when she was nine. Her mother had tried in vain to get her to safety.
Her husband, who was an old man, would beat her every day because she did not know how to be a lot of things.
Whenever she would seek refuge at home, her father would beat her before returning her to him.
“Every time I escaped, my father used to ask me if he should exchange me with my mother so I would be married to my own father,” she said.
During one of her escapes, she turned to help from her uncle but it was no better than her father’s or husband’s house.
“I was beaten and later returned again to my parents’ home,” she said.
Traumatised by everything she had been through, she told her father she would not return to her husband’s house. He then decided to marry her off to a different home.
“I became traumatised by all these occurrences because I desperately wanted to go back to school. My father did everything possible to discourage me,” she said.
Now 12, she was rescued a year ago after sharing her plight with a headmaster at her village. Her cousin, who was also being forced to marry early, had helped her get in touch with him.
“He listened to my story and took me to school at the age of 11,” she said.
She hopes to become a journalist in the future and is currently trying to get through the trauma of everything she has gone through.
“Undergoing female genital cutting and forced child marriage is traumatising and it will take time to get over, and I always pray to God to calm my situation,” she said.
PROVE YOURSELF
Leah Mbaira, 57, is an anti-FGM activist and former circumciser who lost her daughter after she underwent the process.
“I became a circumciser for girls a very long time ago. Female genital cutting was the order of the day. I did it to many girls in the community, even my own children,” she said.
To become a cutter, Leah says you have to prove yourself by first successfully cutting your own daughter. Also most of the circumcisers are also midwives and I was a midwife,” she said.
Despite attending church and listening to sermons on the vice, she did not stop.
“One day I circumcised my own daughter and she bled so much it was terrifying. She was rushed to hospital and unfortunately she died later that night. That’s when I came to realise that female genital cutting is not good,” she said.
Despite being seen as a traitor, she has not stopped talking to people in her community about the dangers of the practice.
“In the community, the main challenge is that some girls want to be circumcised because of peer pressure, even when their parents are not ready to do so. Those who resist have a hard time, they are isolated and ostracised,” she said.
“The cost of resisting is not worth it for many girls. There is a need for clear education and proper information on the dangers of female genital cutting.”
Leah adds female circumcision is something that needs to be talked about always and openly condemned.
“I always talk to my daughters on educating other peers on dangers of female genital cutting, especially in school, even though they have undergone it. I also regularly tell my daughters not to go to ceremonies where the act is being performed,” she said.
“This reduces peer pressure.”