Hours before the interview with Chewayit, I had to mentally and emotionally prepare myself to be horrified by what I knew I was about to hear. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is not an easy topic to write about let alone discuss – especially not with a victim of this heinous crime. I had read about FGM before and watched awareness videos that left me panting for air, but never spoke with someone who had actually experienced, and to this day, almost 40 years later, remembers the brutality of every single step of the mutilation process.

Chewayit Mohammed Idris was born in Nakfa in 1974 but was raised in Karora, Sudan as a refugee, displaced with her family by the attacks the Ethiopian Dergue regime had waged in an effort to conquer the city. She attended primary school but her parents refused to send her to Adebona to continue her education past the 6th grade as they did with the boys. 

It was around this time, at the very tender age of 7, that she remembers her innocence being ripped out of her – with five women pinning her down; one behind her, covering her eyes, one for each hand, and one for each leg. Can it get any more horrifying? Yes. It can. A sixth woman, armed with a needle but no anaesthetic, positioned herself in front of this helpless child and began cutting, pricking, and sewing one of the most sensitive parts in a woman’s body.

Chewayit smiles widely but looks away as she recalls the story. Obviously, even now, 40 years later, remembering that moment cannot be easy – even for a woman who had seen the atrocities of war, first hand. 

She continues to explain that of the different types of FGM/C practiced, the most common in Eritrea at that time, especially in the region from which her parents originated, is actually the most debilitating type. 

Its medical term is infibulation and involves the cutting of the clitoris and then sealing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a cover formed by sewing together the two sides of the outer labia. This practice leaves the victim with a very tiny opening through which to pass urine and menstrual fluid, too often leading to recurring, lifelong and sometimes life-threatening infections due to the accumulation of toxic fluids. In most cases, cutting and sewing is repeated later in life, with every childbirth, causing complications that can harm both the mother and newborn.

Even more than the procedure itself, which left me screaming and crying for days, it was the healing process that actually caused me more suffering

Apparently, this “healing” process involved her being tied extremely tightly with cloth and rope from hip to knee, leaving her unable to walk or sit properly. Urinating in this condition was a trip to hell and back, with the urine barely dripping, causing unimaginable pain and agony every time.

With her bright smile still in tact, Chewayit takes a very deep breath before continuing onto the next part of the story. 

She remembers being overly restless during this “healing” time, and doing everything she could to break free when the women watching her were not looking. When they caught a glimpse of her moving they would rebuke her mother saying, “the stiches will not hold and if that happens then she will have to do it again.”

Just as they had predicted, when the “cutter” returned to check her work, she ruled that the wound had not healed and that the stiches had to be performed again. 

As the writer of this story, and a woman, I simply could not control my reaction anymore. I panted and sighed. I could not think of how I would capture, in words, everything that Chewayit was explaining at this point. 

By the time the conversation ended, she was actually laughing at me for visibly cringing in my seat. I was cringing because I felt I was digging too deeply into a still fresh wound, carried with her, silently, for all these years. I wanted to be sensitive to her pain and agony but I also wanted to record just how brutal of a practice this is.

A moment of relief came when Chewayit explained that her joining the armed struggle for Eritrean independence in 1986, at the age of 12, was her ticket out of a stifling patriarchal society that would have most likely doomed her to a life of underage marriage soon after her FGM ordeal, as was the fate of many of her friends at that time.

Both her parents had just died when she moved to live with her sister and later her step-brother. It was around that time that she was exposed to what she described as “incredibly strong Eritrean women freedom fighters” and she wanted nothing more than to grow up and be like them. She said that listening to them speak and watching performances by cultural troupes that toured different communities at that time sparked a curiosity in her that she now recognizes as her second chance in life. 

Now imagine that: a child of 12 rationalizing that it is better to join a war than to continue living as she did up to that point. 

She was obviously too young to fight and so the EPLF enrolled her and other children like her in the Revolutionary School. She remembers enjoying every bit of the first few years.

Then, in 1988, Chewayit got another jolting reminder of what had happened to her when she was just 7 years old: her menstrual cycle. As is the case with all victims of FGM, because the blood has no way of leaving the body, the resulting pain during their menstrual cycle is debilitating. 

At first, Chewayit did not realize what was happening and kept ignoring the stomach cramps, back pain, and vomiting. She also ignored the clear fluid that was constantly dripping out of her. She did not know to ask for hygiene pads, which the EPLF had provided to all female fighters at that time, and instead used a plant leaf. 

The pain worsened and it was actually her caretakers at the Revolutionary School that recognized what was happening and immediately sent her to Arareb, to be operated on by a professionally trained midwife named Abrehet who was the first FGM/C and Fistula specialist in the field. It was in Arareb that Chewayit found temporary relief – at least for her monthly cycles.

Childbirth is yet another story. Chewayit and her husband, Yacob, whom she describes as a “gift from heaven”, have four children, and with every childbirth, they are reminded of a completely unnecessary and inhumane wound inflicted on an unassuming girl at the age of 7. Every childbirth comes with its own set of cutting and re-stitching procedure. Although it now took place in a safe hospital setting and by medical professionals, the mere fact that she had to go through this every single time is a grim reminder of how invasive FGM/C is.

The conversation with Chewayit lasted almost three hours and I kept thinking that her bright smile and bubbly energy were just a cover. I was terribly wrong. This woman who sat in front of me to be interviewed about a dreadful ordeal that happened to her when she was just seven years old quite literally exemplifies the quintessential Eritrean woman: her pain feeds her strength, her resilience, and her commitment to do whatever she can to help the Government of Eritrea reach its Zero FGM goal as soon as possible.

Altough Chewayit recognizes the long road ahead to declare Eritrea an FGM-free country, she finds comfort in knowing that the statistics over the past few years has shown a dramatic decrease: 95% in 1995; 89% in 2002; 83% in 2010. There is also evidence, through a study conducted by the Ministry of Health, of further dramatic decrease in cases involving FGM performed on girls under the age of 5 and under the age of 15: in 2014 it was %6.9 and %18.2 respectively. 

Lastly, she also happily notes Proclamation No. 158/2007, which criminalizes all forms of FGM/C and bans the practice. The Proclamation reads: “FGM violates woman’s basic human rights by depriving them of their physical and mental integrity, freedom from violence and discrimination, and in extreme cases, their life.” 

FGM violates woman’s basic human rights by depriving them of their physical and mental integrity, freedom from violence and discrimination, and in extreme cases, their life.

Although Chewayit herself bore four boys, she declares without a shred of doubt in her voice, that if she had had a daughter she would have never put her through anything remotely close to what she had gone through. 

Chewayit, nicknamed Awadiya by friends and colleagues, is one of the star dancers of the famous Sibrit Cultural Troupe, formed in independent Eritrea in 1992 but with roots that go back to the mid 1970s in the trenches of Sahel when cultural performances had a much bigger role than simply entertainment. Songs, dances, and plays of those days “conveyed a message of unity, hope, patriotism, resilience and the inevitability of freedom”. 

Needless to say, not one bit of the pain she went through as a 7 year old child or the agony she suffered with every childbirth comes through when you see her performing on stage – most especially the dance she is most famous for: the Hidareb bird dance, which quite literally looks like a woman taking off, and flying to freedom, knowing and claiming her rightful place in the world.

 Milena Bereket