“I Wish I Had Been Given a Choice”: In Sierra Leone, Women Are Reclaiming the FGM Debate

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — The question arrived not from an international human rights organisation or a grassroots protest outside Parliament. It came instead from inside the government of a country where few subjects remain as politically sensitive as Female Genital Mutilation.

Should a girl be allowed to decide for herself?

This week, Sierra Leone’s Minister of Gender and Children’s Affairs, Dr. Isata Mahoi, proposed what she described as a middle path through one of the nation’s most enduring and emotionally charged debates: girls under the age of 18 should be protected from undergoing FGM, while adult women should retain the right to choose whether they wish to participate.

The proposal immediately reopened old wounds and revived a national conversation that touches nearly every aspect of Sierra Leonean society — culture, politics, health, religion, identity and the meaning of consent.

For Isatu Kamara, the answer has been clear for decades.

No one ever asked her.

Now 59, Kamara remembers being taken for initiation into the Bondo society when she was just 11 years old. She recalls the excitement that surrounded the occasion. Women danced. Family members congratulated one another. She understood that she was entering an institution many regarded as a source of honour and belonging.

What she did not understand was that a permanent decision about her body had already been made.

“I wish I had been given the right to decide for myself,” Kamara said during an interview. “If I had that choice, I don’t think I would have gone into Bondo.”

Nearly five decades later, the memory remains vivid.

“My kids will not go through what I went through,” she said. “They can choose whether to go through the Bondo Society or not. They have their right not to.”

Her voice is one of many now reshaping Sierra Leone’s FGM debate.

For years, the conversation has largely been framed by politicians seeking to avoid alienating voters, activists demanding legal reform and traditional leaders defending an institution many believe has been misunderstood.

Increasingly, however, women themselves are reclaiming ownership of the discussion.

They are speaking as survivors, mothers, grandmothers, community leaders and custodians of tradition.

Some want the practice ended. Others want it preserved. Many simply want girls to have the opportunity to choose.

A Delicate Political Tightrope

Dr. Mahoi’s proposal represents one of the clearest public statements by a senior government official on the issue in recent years.

“Because FGM is harmful and inflicts pain and also health wise on children, we want children below 18 years — let us leave them,” she said during a government press briefing.

“When they have passed 18 years she can decide for herself whether she wanted to go into it.”

The minister sought to reassure those who fear that efforts to curb FGM amount to an assault on Sierra Leonean culture.

“We are not touching Bondo,” she said. “Bondo is a tradition on its own but the link it has with FGM is our own problem. FGM we called it harmful because it falls under harmful practices.”

For generations, Bondo has occupied a revered position in many communities across Sierra Leone.

To its members, it is more than initiation.

It is a sisterhood.

A support network.

A repository of cultural knowledge.

Within its teachings, girls and women learn about social responsibilities, family life and communal expectations.

Critics, however, argue that these values can be transmitted without cutting.

Dr. Mahoi said the issue cannot be separated from broader challenges affecting girls.

“Because we know how FGM is linked with early marriage and teenage pregnancy,” she said. “It has a direct link. There is none that you use and leave the other one, especially in a society like Sierra Leone.”

Her advocacy is shaped by her own family history.

“The reason also I have always said that I am a product of early marriage where my mother was married when she was so young and that was when she gave birth to me,” she said.

“I like sharing my real life stories. Whenever the harmful cultural practices are mentioned, deep down, it always hits me and they are things I don’t joke with at all.”

Yet translating concern into legislation has proved extraordinarily difficult.

Dr. Mahoi disclosed that efforts to include an explicit FGM provision in Sierra Leone’s Child Rights Act failed to gain parliamentary approval.

“As a minister of Gender and Children’s Affairs you all saw the steps we took in the first place to put the laws together — the law which we called the Child Rights Act — which we are unable to pass the FGM clause in it because parliament thought they are not ready to put that clause,” she said.

Instead, she suggested that broader legal protections against harmful cultural practices could eventually be tested before the courts.

“I think that it would be determined by the court what is the clause that is in the act that protects children from harmful cultural practices,” she said. “It is there, it is not hidden. The only thing we are waiting for is for the law to set a precedent on that.”

The Health Consequences

Behind the political debate are the experiences of millions of women.

According to the World Health Organization, FGM has no medical benefits and can cause severe pain, excessive bleeding, infections, urinary problems, menstrual complications and lasting psychological trauma.

Women who undergo the procedure may also face increased risks during childbirth, including prolonged labour, obstetric tears and complications affecting newborn babies.

In Sierra Leone, the prevalence remains among the highest in the world.

Government figures cited by Dr. Mahoi indicate that approximately 83 percent of women aged 15 to 49 have undergone FGM.

Health practitioners say these statistics translate into real-life consequences.

Women may present with chronic pelvic pain, scar tissue, sexual dysfunction and obstetric complications years after the procedure.

Because FGM is often practised within respected community structures, many endure these experiences in silence.

Across Africa, UNICEF estimates that approximately 144 million women and girls are living with the consequences of FGM, contributing to a global total exceeding 230 million survivors.

While countries including Kenya and Ethiopia have reported declines following legal reforms and community engagement initiatives, progress across the continent has remained uneven.

A Survivor’s Journey

Few people embody the complexities of the debate more than Rugiatu Neneh Turay.

A former Deputy Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs and founder of the Amazonian Initiative Movement, Turay also underwent FGM at the age of 11.

Like Kamara, she remembers anticipating the celebration.

“I had been looking forward to it because I always liked to dance,” Turay recalled in an earlier interview. “I did not know I was going to be cut.”

Then came the moment that changed her life.

“My mother had warned me not to allow anyone to touch my private parts,” she said. “So I fought when they put their hands on me. I fought hard. Then I felt the sharp cut.”

Her mother had died only weeks earlier.

The experience transformed Turay into one of Sierra Leone’s most prominent campaigners against FGM.

“People say I am influenced by Western ideas and that I am disturbing our culture,” she said. “Yet I am speaking as a survivor of the practice. I didn’t just go through it, I almost lost my life.”

Still, Turay insists that culture itself is not the enemy.

“Culture is not static,” she said. “It changes over time. We have to examine the culture to see what is it that we like about it, and what is it that we don’t like.”

The Other Side of the Debate

Not all women believe that the conversation around FGM has fairly represented the Bondo society.

For many members, the institution remains an important source of identity and community.

Hawa Turay, a senior Bondo member in southern Sierra Leone, worries that outsiders often reduce Bondo to a single act.

“People only talk about the cutting,” she said. “Bondo teaches respect, discipline and prepares girls for womanhood. It is part of who we are.”

She believes reform, if necessary, should emerge from within communities themselves.

“If changes are needed, they should come from us,” she said. “Not because people think our culture has no value.”

Her perspective reflects a broader reality: Sierra Leone’s FGM debate is not simply a battle between tradition and modernity.

It is a conversation taking place among women themselves.

The Right to Choose

As Parliament hesitates and the courts remain silent, Sierra Leone stands at a crossroads.

Should childhood initiation continue in its current form?

Should lawmakers prohibit FGM for minors?

Can communities preserve the aspects of Bondo they cherish while abandoning those that cause harm?

There are no easy answers.

But women like Isatu Kamara believe the starting point should be simple.

She bears no bitterness toward those who initiated her decades ago. They acted according to what they believed was right.

Yet when she looks at her children and grandchildren, she imagines a future defined not by obligation but by choice.

“My kids will not go through what I went through,” she said. “They can choose whether to go through the Bondo Society or not. They have their right not to.”

For generations of Sierra Leonean women, decisions about their bodies have often been made by others — by families, communities, politicians and tradition.

Now, their voices are reshaping the debate.

Some defend Bondo.

Others seek to reform it.

Many simply want girls to have what they never did.

Not freedom from culture.

But the freedom to choose.