Cut Quotes

“Maintaining custom and ritual among their people outweighs the horror of the suffering that they are prepared to see their daughters undergo. Being judged by their community seems far more important than the risk of losing their little girl.”
― Hibo Wardere, Cut: One Woman's Fight Against FGM in Britain Today

“We were kept pure for men, and then broken in by them. And what happened to us in the meantime was completely irrelevant in the pursuit of their pleasure, or their integrity, their masculinity. Were females really valued so little? Would my own daughters face the same fate?”
― Hibo Wardere, Cut: One Woman's Fight Against FGM in Britain Today

“To these women it is a rite of passage to be endured on the way to womanhood and it is also a security, a form of protection. The cutting will keep you clean; it will strip you of your natural desire; it will mean that your family is not judged; and, one day, it will hopefully ensure that your own child marries well, into a family just as upstanding as your own, thereby reinforcing the security of your family. To these mothers, FGM is not about needless pain, it is about survival.”
― Hibo Wardere, Cut: One Woman's Fight Against FGM in Britain Today

“Abuse thrives in secrecy, whereas out in the open it wilts and dies. The more we can bring abuse of any kind out into the world, where we can examine it and talk about it, the more likely we are to see the back of it.”
― Hibo Wardere, Cut: One Woman's Fight Against FGM in Britain Today

“There is an old Somalian proverb which says: ‘You can’t hide a dead body from its grave’. Its meaning? You can’t hide from your problems. Abuse thrives in secrecy, whereas out in the open it wilts and dies. The more we can bring abuse of any kind out into the world, where we can examine it and talk about it, the more likely we are to see the back of it.”
― Hibo Wardere, Cut: One Woman's Fight Against FGM in Britain Today

“This to me is the double abuse that women often suffer. A man can dump his wife for not sexually satisfying him because sex is very painful for her because of the cut or because, in some cultures, a woman might be opened and closed, and opened and closed at different milestones like after giving birth. So she denies him, and he in turn divorces her or dumps her at home and goes out and has sex with uncut women.”
― Hibo Wardere, Cut: One Woman's Fight Against FGM in Britain Today

“One of my colleagues in Holland was told by a Somalian man in a focus group discussion that he feels more pleasure when his wife feels more pain. He told them that he feels more masculine, more happy, the more pain she feels. I honestly believe that he represents a significant number of people in many countries who believe that putting a woman through pain during sex makes them feel more masculine.”
― Hibo Wardere, Cut: One Woman's Fight Against FGM in Britain Today

“Why was it my fate to be born a woman? I was in a nightmare and there was no escape.”
― Hibo Wardere, Cut: One Woman's Fight Against FGM in Britain Today