The woman who cut me was my mother\u2019s friend. She just thought it was the normal thing to do. I\u2019ve since asked her why she did it, and her excuse was that when I was born\u00a0they could tell from my eyes that I was strong-headed and they wanted to tame me, to protect me from their forecast promiscuity<\/p>\n
I was 15 years old when I got married. It had been arranged by my family and I\u2019d been sent to America to live with a man I barely knew. A child, alone in an unfamiliar country, I discovered that I was a survivor of female genital mutilation (FGM), when I had my vagina cut back open to have sex.<\/p>\n
I was subjected to infibulation, the most extreme form of FGM, when I was just one week old in my home country, The Gambia.<\/p>\n
The woman who cut me was my mother\u2019s friend. She just thought it was the normal thing to do. I\u2019ve since asked her why she did it, and her excuse was that when I was born\u00a0they could tell from my eyes that I was strong-headed and they wanted to tame me, to protect me from their forecast promiscuity.<\/p>\n