As a teenager in the 1960s, Bogaletch Gebre lived in a village where every girl her age was subjected by their families to female genital mutilation—a practice the World Health Organization defines as a procedure “mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and age 15…that intentionally alter[s] or cause[s] injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” In 1989, Gebre returned to that village to challenge her community’s continuation of the practice, helping to spark a mentality shift that by 2002 would reduce the rate of the harmful traditional practice to 3 percent.
In the Kembata Tembaro Zone of central Ethiopia, slightly southwest of the capital of Adis Ababa, Gebre has led an incredibly effective initiative among members of her childhood village to halt the endurance of the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) and to shed light on the rights that women have access to as citizens of the country. Traditional non-governmental organizational practices are often impeded by misdirected funds and teaching methods grounded in a “savior syndrome”, but Gebre’s organization Kembatta Mentti Gezzima (KMG) Ethiopia is founded on “Community Conversations.” These conversations allow people to discuss issues important to them in an open setting, inviting them to release their own potential to effect change. Dr. Gebre where she spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars on June 20th of her experiences as a survivor of FGM and her return to Kembata Tembaro with the mission to “save one girl.” So far, she has saved generations.
Gebre is the winner of this year’s King Baudouin African Development Prize, financed by Brussels’ King Baudouin Foundation in celebration of the monarch’s reign from 1951 to 1993. Gebre expressed gratitude for the prize as a platform through which the issue of female genital mutilation has been brought to the attention of the world. Instead of attracting negative publicity in a sea stories of failure too often spun around the countries of Africa, the prize brings Gebre’s organization to global audiences through a lens of triumph. In Gebre’s words, the global community now hears of overcoming violence against women, and “that it is possible to stop”.
KMG Ethiopia is noted for its methods of fostering open dialogue among communities as a way to educate, rather than dictate—asking questions instead of enforcing abstracted curricula. Gebre spoke on the importance of understanding how to communicate—with and without language—with the people where you work, emphasizing that before you push an outside agenda you must first “start from where people are,” acknowledging their priorities so as to support their role “as agents of their own change.”
“Speaking about human rights in the abstract would not work” when those living in the Kembatta Tembaro Zone were dealing with immediate problems like a broken bridge, limited access to water, and isolation from health care. So Gebre’s organization worked to fix the bridge, build the first mother-child health center, the first school (now managed by the local community), and to “sensitiz[e] the community to the importance of ecological protection” after which “each individual in the neighborhood started planting trees.” Only at this point, she said, “the concept of how human life should be led started coming clear.” Gebre spoke on overcoming the common misconception that a culture is fundamentally at odds with human rights—“which is not true”, she said, advocating instead that “we must ask why violence against women has endured for so long” to open the door for questioning of traditions.
Once women understood the “basic truths” of their rights under Ethiopian laws, also understanding the medical harm of FGM and the absence of any support by religious or legal authority, they made a decision to change. KMG Ethiopia introduced community members to the international conventions to which Ethiopia is signatory and to which rights they were subsequently entitled. “We didn’t dictate, we didn’t say stop, they decided themselves...You couldn’t stop them…We taught the young, the old, religious leaders—that became their instrument.”
According to Dr. Gebre there are four themes perpetuating the subjugation of women today, and all lead to the message she deemed most important to take from her talk: “women must gain personhood”. Gebre listed these issues as 1) women’s exclusion from recognition in history; 2) a tradition of religious portrayal of women as cursed objects; 3) the absence of women’s work from the UN calculation of a country’s GDP; and 4) laws and resolutions meant to protect women but which were not enforced by the proper authorities.
Gebre made the important point that “women’s contribution to the human story is not told”. As generations come and go, she asked, how can they be expected to support women as contributing members of society if their forefathers taught that women’s contributions were not worthy of mention? She spoke bluntly on the implications of the Christian story of Adam and Eve, pointing out that “because of her inquisitiveness, God has cursed” woman, discouraging her from seeking education or questioning norms.
Women are further divested of value by the UN’s methods for calculating GDP, according to Gebre, as such methods neglect to include under their criterion for “every activity that is done by a human” that work done by a woman in informal economies. Gebre listed the multitude of roles that women hold, “particularly in African situations,” which are absent from this calculation of economic value in every country in the world. “She is a farmer, she is a weeder, she is a collector, she is a harvester, she is a processor, she prepares food, she is a healer, she is a counselor, she is a marketer, she is everything—and she does that without any payment.”
The fourth and final issue that Dr. Gebre attributes to the continued disenfranchisement of women to is simply, and most disappointingly, lack of enforcement of those laws already on the books. This paramount problem is a product of the first three issues that she addresses: as women are devalued in historic and economic realms, women become subject to social depreciation that spans generations. Breaking the boundaries of traditional discourse to understand these deeper social mechanisms is the beginning of the battle to enforce laws from the ground up. Gebre and KMG Ethiopia are on the forefront of this struggle. Gebre warned against the tendency toward incessant and idle talk in the face of peril, which can impede any progress in social issues, in the resounding final question she posed to the audience: “How long have we been talking?”
Photo: KMG Ethiopia, all rights reserved.
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One Woman's Fight to End FGM: 'If I Could Change, Why Not My People?'
July 19, 2013
As a teenager in the 1960s, Bogaletch Gebre lived in a village where every girl her age was subjected by their families to female genital mutilation—a practice the World Health Organization defines as a procedure “mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and age 15…that intentionally alter[s] or cause[s] injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” In 1989, Gebre returned to that village to challenge her community’s continuation of the practice, helping to spark a mentality shift that by 2002 would reduce the rate of the harmful traditional practice to 3 percent.
In the Kembata Tembaro Zone of central Ethiopia, slightly southwest of the capital of Adis Ababa, Gebre has led an incredibly effective initiative among members of her childhood village to halt the endurance of the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) and to shed light on the rights that women have access to as citizens of the country. Traditional non-governmental organizational practices are often impeded by misdirected funds and teaching methods grounded in a “savior syndrome”, but Gebre’s organization Kembatta Mentti Gezzima (KMG) Ethiopia is founded on “Community Conversations.” These conversations allow people to discuss issues important to them in an open setting, inviting them to release their own potential to effect change. Dr. Gebre where she spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars on June 20th of her experiences as a survivor of FGM and her return to Kembata Tembaro with the mission to “save one girl.” So far, she has saved generations.
Gebre is the winner of this year’s King Baudouin African Development Prize, financed by Brussels’ King Baudouin Foundation in celebration of the monarch’s reign from 1951 to 1993. Gebre expressed gratitude for the prize as a platform through which the issue of female genital mutilation has been brought to the attention of the world. Instead of attracting negative publicity in a sea stories of failure too often spun around the countries of Africa, the prize brings Gebre’s organization to global audiences through a lens of triumph. In Gebre’s words, the global community now hears of overcoming violence against women, and “that it is possible to stop”.
KMG Ethiopia is noted for its methods of fostering open dialogue among communities as a way to educate, rather than dictate—asking questions instead of enforcing abstracted curricula. Gebre spoke on the importance of understanding how to communicate—with and without language—with the people where you work, emphasizing that before you push an outside agenda you must first “start from where people are,” acknowledging their priorities so as to support their role “as agents of their own change.”
“Speaking about human rights in the abstract would not work” when those living in the Kembatta Tembaro Zone were dealing with immediate problems like a broken bridge, limited access to water, and isolation from health care. So Gebre’s organization worked to fix the bridge, build the first mother-child health center, the first school (now managed by the local community), and to “sensitiz[e] the community to the importance of ecological protection” after which “each individual in the neighborhood started planting trees.” Only at this point, she said, “the concept of how human life should be led started coming clear.” Gebre spoke on overcoming the common misconception that a culture is fundamentally at odds with human rights—“which is not true”, she said, advocating instead that “we must ask why violence against women has endured for so long” to open the door for questioning of traditions.
Once women understood the “basic truths” of their rights under Ethiopian laws, also understanding the medical harm of FGM and the absence of any support by religious or legal authority, they made a decision to change. KMG Ethiopia introduced community members to the international conventions to which Ethiopia is signatory and to which rights they were subsequently entitled. “We didn’t dictate, we didn’t say stop, they decided themselves...You couldn’t stop them…We taught the young, the old, religious leaders—that became their instrument.”
According to Dr. Gebre there are four themes perpetuating the subjugation of women today, and all lead to the message she deemed most important to take from her talk: “women must gain personhood”. Gebre listed these issues as 1) women’s exclusion from recognition in history; 2) a tradition of religious portrayal of women as cursed objects; 3) the absence of women’s work from the UN calculation of a country’s GDP; and 4) laws and resolutions meant to protect women but which were not enforced by the proper authorities.
Gebre made the important point that “women’s contribution to the human story is not told”. As generations come and go, she asked, how can they be expected to support women as contributing members of society if their forefathers taught that women’s contributions were not worthy of mention? She spoke bluntly on the implications of the Christian story of Adam and Eve, pointing out that “because of her inquisitiveness, God has cursed” woman, discouraging her from seeking education or questioning norms.
Women are further divested of value by the UN’s methods for calculating GDP, according to Gebre, as such methods neglect to include under their criterion for “every activity that is done by a human” that work done by a woman in informal economies. Gebre listed the multitude of roles that women hold, “particularly in African situations,” which are absent from this calculation of economic value in every country in the world. “She is a farmer, she is a weeder, she is a collector, she is a harvester, she is a processor, she prepares food, she is a healer, she is a counselor, she is a marketer, she is everything—and she does that without any payment.”
The fourth and final issue that Dr. Gebre attributes to the continued disenfranchisement of women to is simply, and most disappointingly, lack of enforcement of those laws already on the books. This paramount problem is a product of the first three issues that she addresses: as women are devalued in historic and economic realms, women become subject to social depreciation that spans generations. Breaking the boundaries of traditional discourse to understand these deeper social mechanisms is the beginning of the battle to enforce laws from the ground up. Gebre and KMG Ethiopia are on the forefront of this struggle. Gebre warned against the tendency toward incessant and idle talk in the face of peril, which can impede any progress in social issues, in the resounding final question she posed to the audience: “How long have we been talking?”
Photo: KMG Ethiopia, all rights reserved.
