I would like to say thank you so much to The Thinking Watermill Society for inviting me to the podcast. A few months back, My Voice Podcast and The thinking Watermill Society through the “What Do You Know About FGM” podcast series hosted 4 guests from 4 institutions that create awareness about the eradication of FGM in Uganda, Kenya and Europe. These amazing guests were Maria Angela Maina of Social Justice Insights Kenya, the Kakazi Foundation Uganda, Save a Girl, Save a Generation Platform and the End FGM European network and awesome minds speaks from Uganda. So some of our major findings where that FGM is the collective procedures that alter or involve the partial and total removal of healthy genitalia. FGM is for cultural reasons and not for medical reasons and definitely, it has no medical benefits. And, oh yes, I would like to say that one of our major findings were that FGM is definitely not female circumcisions. I know that many of us and many people call this female circumcision. But, it’s either FGM or Female Genital Cutting - nothing more nothing less. So if you having if you've been calling it female circumcision, at least now you know. Among the many complications and effects FGM can cause includes severe pain, excessive bleeding, infections and even death. We also found out that the origin of FGM is not that clear. Some researches pinpoint that it dates back to the Egyptian mummies and even before 5 BC. So, going into the common myths and misconceptions of FGM, we found that several myths and misconceptions on FGM with the Kakazi Foundation include the myth that fgm is just women's business or just a lady's issue and should be a conversation that's just within women. And, we saw that this is very wrong and this is one of the myths and misconceptions that people have had for a long time. Another is that also thinking that FGM is an African thing and yet several women around the world old suffer from this vice. Debunking these myths and misconceptions on FGM brought to light how information needs to get there about the fact that there’s FGM around the world. Then, we went ahead to have a conversation with the President of End FGM European Network to examine the relationship between FGM, illiteracy and poverty. In this episode we highlighted the importance of educating everyone about FGM and not just those in rural communities so that we stop people out there from assuming that it's only it's only those that are uneducated that practice FGM. And, we got to highlight and to talk about how even educated people practice this vice and still fuel it to happen in their communities. In our final episode, FGM and mental health, we delved into the effects of FGM and mental helth and saw that FGM not only causes physical pain to the victims, but also causes really deep psychological and emotional scars among girls and women who are cut, and that survivors need support. They need to know that it happened and that you are very very strong. So, therefore, in summary, FGM is a vice that we all need to fight collectively without discrimination because we all need those hands on deck. We got to find out that information is key and it needs to be out there for everyone and not just specific groups of people. Thank you very much.
