{"id":951,"date":"2015-08-25T15:25:17","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T15:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/?p=951"},"modified":"2015-08-25T15:25:17","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T15:25:17","slug":"sierra-leones-secret-fgm-societies-spread-silent-fear-and-sleepless-nights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/sierra-leones-secret-fgm-societies-spread-silent-fear-and-sleepless-nights\/","title":{"rendered":"Sierra Leone&#8217;s secret FGM societies spread silent fear and sleepless nights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"drop-cap\"><span class=\"drop-cap__inner\">W<\/span><\/span>hen 16-year-old Mariatu* goes to bed at night she is scared of going to sleep. She fears members of powerful, all-female secret societies are going to break into her room with the consent of her parents and kidnap her.<\/p>\n<p>Mariatu has good reason to be afraid. She has already fled her village in northern\u00a0Sierra Leone to avoid female genital mutilation (FGM) and expects to go on the run again to avoid being cut.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am not safe in this house. I\u2019m not safe in this community,\u201d she said. \u201cI am afraid, when I lie down to sleep, that one day they will grab me, tie me up and take me to that place.\u201d She is referring to the \u201cBondo\u201d bush, an area of secluded forest where FGM takes place.<\/p>\n<p>Mariatu\u2019s story goes to the heart of the challenges for anti-FGM campaigners in Sierra Leone, touching on the silent power of the secret societies, who carry out the cutting as an initiation into the group. It also speaks of the cultural and political significance of the country\u2019s ancient structures.<\/p>\n<p>In an unprecedented step, soweis, the women who hold the most senior rank in the societies, agreed to speak to the Guardian.<\/p>\n<p>Read more:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2015\/aug\/24\/sierra-leone-female-genital-mutilation-soweis-secret-societies-fear\">http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2015\/aug\/24\/sierra-leone-female-genital-mutilation-soweis-secret-societies-fear<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When 16-year-old Mariatu* goes to bed at night she is scared of going to sleep. She fears members of powerful, all-female secret societies are going to break into her room with the consent of her parents and kidnap her. Mariatu has good reason to be afraid. She has already fled her village in northern\u00a0Sierra Leone [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,98,4,311],"class_list":["post-951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-female-genital-mutilation","tag-fgm","tag-halo-project","tag-sierra-leone"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":952,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions\/952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}