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'My mother apologised': A survivor's journey after genital mutilation
Sara Kahsai wants all survivors of FGM to seek help and not suffer alone.
By Amy Cole
West Midlands
Published 4 hours ago
Sara Kahsai grew up in Sudan but moved to Birmingham, England, in 2022 after marrying a bus driver from the city. But as she settled into married life and her new home, she was coming to terms with a life-changing discovery. She realised she was a victim-survivor of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a procedure she had endured as a young girl.
She was floored by the revelation and, not least, the excruciating pain she was now beginning to fully understand.
"The shock was massive," she said. "It made it difficult with my physical relationship with my husband - but he was very kind and very patient with me."
Warning: This story contains descriptions of the practices involved in female genital mutilation
Sara turned to the one person she knew must have orchestrated it - her mother - and asked her why.
"I was a baby. It was the culture to do it for everybody," she said her mother, still living in Africa, told her. "When I spoke to my mum she was really upset and she apologised to me."
Child abuse
FGM involves the partial or total removal of female genitalia for non-medical reasons, and is practiced in some parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. It also happens within some migrant communities in the UK, where it is illegal and treated as child abuse. It is also against the law to take a girl abroad for FGM.
Reasons include social acceptance, religion, misconceptions about hygiene, and preserving a girl or woman's virginity. The Home Office website cites World Health Organisation figures showing three million girls undergo some form, external, of the procedure every year in Africa alone.
When Sara fell pregnant, she finally told health professionals she had endured FGM as a child. She was immediately referred to the specialist FGM Clinic, run by midwives at Birmingham Women's Hospital.
Midwife Renata Hanif deals with around 200 cases each year and says her job is to ensure the wellbeing of women and safeguard unborn children.
"Some types of female circumcision can affect the vaginal delivery," she said.
They offer deinfibulation - a procedure that can be carried out during pregnancy to separate fused tissue and enable safer births.
What is FGM, where does it happen and why?
Published 6 February 2019
Victim-survivors of FGM can also experience difficulty with urinating and menstruating, the midwife said. Women are more prone to infections and sepsis, and can suffer from severe and ongoing pain, as well having to deal with psychological trauma, anxiety, and depression. Many patients find it hard to talk to her about what's happened to them, Hanif said.
"It is very difficult, very emotional. It's very difficult for the woman to actually come forward and to come to the clinic... I explain to them that I'm here to help."