Some conversations stay with you long after they end and speaking with Hibo Wardere is one of them.
Hibo is one of the UK’s most courageous and compelling campaigners against female genital mutilation (FGM). She is a teacher, author, and advocate whose voice has reshaped how schools, safeguarding teams, and medical professionals understand this form of violence. But to talk with her is to understand something more fundamental: Hibo has always questioned the stories she was given.
Growing up as a Somali girl, she heard the traditional narratives passed down through generations, stories meant to explain, to justify, to silence. But Hibo never liked them. Even as a child, something in her refused to accept the logic, the cruelty, or the inevitability they claimed. That instinct, that internal rebellion, is the foundation of the woman she became.
The story she chose to tell - the one she wrote in her remarkable memoir Cut soon being made into a big screen film which begins in production next year - has already made and will continue to make an incredible impact. After decades of silence surrounding FGM, Hibo’s voice will reach even wider audiences, shaping the narrative on a scale unimaginable when she was that questioning young girl. As she told us she is ‘everywhere’. Her determination knows no bounds.
In our interview, she describes training doctors who still ask her, ‘Is it actually happening here?’ Her frustration is palpable and justified. ‘Would you ever ask whether child molestation is still happening?’ she replies.
Hibo intends to change that and with her team at Educate not Mutilate she already is.
While this interview is about Hibo’s story, it is also about resistance, agency, the refusal to accept inherited narratives, and the courage it takes to tell a story powerful enough to rewrite a future. Hibo’s life is testament to that courage.
We are honoured to share her words with you.
Please do look at her website and donate to support her charity or consider other ways that you could support her amazing work.
Please, listen to her message. Be fierce. Continue the fight.
