Real lives

by Alison Parker

Yala Danso, 16, is a young wife in Darsilami a village in the far east of the Upper River Region in the Gambia and a beneficiary of the joint Government of the Gambia, Tostan and UNICEF community development and empowerment programme. Sitting under the coconut tree close to her compound, Yala tells an all too familiar story of the challenges of harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C).

Her eyes became glazed as she started telling her story. ”I can remember that day clearly,“ she says. ” It was ten years ago and I was only six years old. I was living in the same house with my mother, cousins, aunt, and grandmother. It was in the month of April. We had all gone to bed the previous day quite happy, not realizing that our lives were going to change dramatically the next day. Our mothers had traveled the previous day to by goods in the next town“.

”Early the next morning at about 5:00am, I woke up to the sound of drumming and singing. I jumped out of bed with my cousins excitedly to find out what was going on. To our surprise we saw quite a number of women in the compound cooking and singing. We were then informed that there was going to be a grand celebration that day in the next village and we should all get ready quickly to go“.

”We were so excited,” Marie explained with a sparkle in her eyes. ”No school and a lot of food and music. We were 8 young girls in total raging from 6 –12 years. We willingly joined the dance over a mile to the next village for the celebration. We were then ushered into this huge compound thickly covered with palm fronds and thatch. On our arrival we were met by other older women and about 20 other young girls our age but these girls appeared so quiet and sad. I then started having a funny feeling about this celebration“.

”Afterwards things happened so fast that events became rather blurred. The only thing I cam remember was that I was suddenly blind folded. Screaming in fear I was carried to what must have been a hut. Strong hands held me to the floor and I was initiated. Later the blind fold was removed and a wrapper put around me. I can barely remember what happened after that as I was in so much pain. We spent of couple of days in the bush and were later brought back home“.

”But my ordeal was not yet over. Unknown to me I developed some infection and started having terrible stomach pains. I took all sorts of herbal medication and it was as if there was no cure. I finally had to undergo an operation. Due to my continuous ill health I lost two years of schooling. Though I am better now the doctors gave me a fifty-fifty chance of ever being able to have my own children“.