Ending female genital mutilation: my hopes for my meeting with Gove

‘I went to Integrate Bristol right after college a single day when I had no idea what female genital mutilation even was,’ says Fahma Mohamed, left. Photograph: Irene Baque

If you had told me a year in the past that nowadays I would be meeting Michael Gove I would have said: “Yeah, correct.” Come to that, if you’d stated we had been going to record a song, I would pinch myself, except I was there for the song and you can hear it and I have the letter from Gove and it really is been in the news.

I would not have believed that my face would be on the front web page of a national newspaper. I would not have believed that the extraordinary Malala Yousafzai and the secretary standard of the UN would have supported my campaign, or that MPs this kind of as Jane Ellison and Lynne Featherstone would want to meet me, or that the director of public prosecutions would look for my guidance on ending female genital mutilation (FGM).

I definitely wouldn’t have believed that 230,000 folks so far would back the campaign and together we would make Michael Gove sit up and pay attention to us.

These days is a day for believing. These days we’ll get an early train from Bristol, and this afternoon we’ll sit across a desk from the education secretary, the guy who has a electrical power to break the wall of silence about FGM and finish it, at least in this country, through schooling. It truly is been a extended journey and I’m a modest element of a campaign that is created up of great organisations, huge and little, and several men and women fighting this practice.

Thanks to tireless operate from organisations such as Integrate Bristol – of which I am a youthful trustee – we’ve witnessed so much progress. Progress comes in plenty of shapes and sizes. It was progress that I went to Integrate Bristol soon after school one particular day when I had no idea what FGM even was. It was progress when we organised a conference, started out putting on plays about it and took the message to doctors and even boys (unheard of before Integrate Bristol). We have had plenty of support and genuine political progress as well – from the Departments of Overall health, Global Advancement, and Communities and Nearby Government.

Malala’s support is humbling and I cannot begin to express how much it means to all of us. I think we all truly feel that Malala’s campaign and ours are linked, they are both about empowering and liberating.

Now, as we head to London, it truly is time for some genuine progress from Michael Gove. If I had to name the 3 things that I would want to get out of the meeting with him, the 1st would be that he promises to publish to all schools supplying advice for teachers on how to educate youngsters about FGM in their schools.

I would like him to ask headteachers to train all personnel about the dangers of FGM and that he tends to make all schools educate children and youthful individuals about the dangers of female genital mutilation in an age-acceptable method ahead of the summer time holiday. He need to do this since the risks are huge and they final a lifetime, and due to the fact the summer time vacation is when youthful women may possibly be most at chance.

Teachers are sensible individuals, they can teach this tough issue sensitively and delicately – I ought to know, I’ve observed it take place. The quicker the message will get to schools, the quicker the cycle will be broken. In secondary colleges teachers will talk to tomorrow’s mothers, breaking the cycle that way. In primary colleges teachers would have the self confidence to get on this issue on the frontline.

Gove must create to them due to the fact of the hundreds of 1000′s who have backed our campaign and know it truly is the correct issue to do, who agree that this horrific abuse have to be stopped. It truly is essential that schools in all places get the message – teachers move and so do men and women. The FGM emergency demands to be tackled head-on, and tackled now.

For these who have survived FGM, it will mean so a lot. It will suggest that he has understood, he has heard, and he understands that it is, merely, child abuse. I hope he’ll want to be remembered as the particular person who broke the cycle of abuse, and stopped it.

Signal the petition at www.modify.org

Ending female genital mutilation: my hopes for my meeting with Gove