On a busy Spring weekend in Harvard Yard where bustling foot traffic filled the air with voices between the brick university buildings, a more somber group gathered in Emerson Hall of Philosophy for a screening of the documentary Secret of The Dawn.
The event was co-sponsored by the Harvard Extension International Relations Club and Healthy Tomorrow. Before the screening one of Health Tomorrow's volunteers, Wyoma, presented her own interpretative dance of hope for a better future.
The secret is an age-old practice of mutilating the genitalia of young girls by excision of the clitoris without anesthesia. Female genital mutilation is practiced in 28 countries, mostly in Africa. In Mali, the mutilations are done to approximately 85% of all females according to the documentary.
Secret of The Dawn opens at dawn in a Malian village. As the day progresses we see 37 young village girls ritually prepared for their ordeal by the women of the village. The innocent, questioning looks on the girls’ faces gives the viewer a shudder knowing of the horror that lies ahead.
The documentary discusses different types of genital mutilation and states that 140,000,000 females have been mutilated worldwide.
Without being told what is going to happen to them, the young girls are led outside the village so their screams cannot be heard. One by one, the girls are held down, stripped, and then cut with a small handmade knife. The camera spares the viewer the blood and mutes the awful, soul-chilling screams of the young girls.
Susan McLucas, of Somerville, is director of Healthy Tomorrow and has made twelve trips to Mali to combat the cultural mutilations. Susan spoke about the physical trauma to the girls including excruciating pain, excessive bleeding, painful scarring, and susceptibility to infections.
Healthy Tomorrow works with sister organization Sini Sanuman in Mali on an education campaign to end the mutilations. Using music, videos, posters, and billboards the two groups try to reach the largely illiterate public in Mali about the dangers of excision and the emotional damage done by the practice.
Tobe Levin von Gleichen, from Germany, described European efforts to help end the mutilations and praised a book her organization, Uncut Voices, has published. Blood Stains is a first-person account by Khady Sylla of her own mutilation experience.
Tobe described efforts at a large petition drive to get the Malian legislature to outlaw excision but acknowledged that clandestine mutilations would continue if the cultural traditions could not be confronted directly with the people.
Susan, in turn, told of lobbying efforts, so far successful in nine villages, where entire villages outlaw the practice reducing the influence of peer pressure to continue with the mutilations.
Both women said help is needed to save future victims of female genital mutilation.
For more Information visit: www.StopExcision.net
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