Fighting The Cruellest Cut

As a child in Africa, Khadija Gbla experienced the horror of female genital mutilation. Now in Australia, she has m ade it her life’s work to bring this violent practice to an end. She speaks courageously and openly with Sue Smethurst.

- Sue Smethurst

Khadija Gbla was packing leaflets for a community health workshop in Adelaide, when a picture caught her eye. Curious, the then-15 year old, who’d not long arrived in Australia after escaping a bloody civil war in Sierra Leone, studied the pamphlet’s pictures intently. They showed how the vagina and vulva looked after different forms of female genital mutilation.

“One particular image struck me because this was what I looked like,” she says. “It was a very sudden and brutal realisation that this health program was actually for women like me. I had no idea that I was different until that day. I didn’t know what female genital mutilation was or in fact that it was bad. Now I did and it explained a lot.”

Female genital mutilation (FGM), sometimes called female circumcision, is a blanket term that encompasses all procedures that intentionally remove, alter or injure the female genitals for non-medical reasons. Operations are sometimes performed by doctors but very often they’re backyard jobs, using kitchen knives, razor blades, scissors or even broken glass, without anaesthetic. Some cultures believe the ritual ensures a girl is “clean” or “pure” for her husband. In some cases girls are given clitoridectomies. In others girls have had their vaginas sewn closed.

There are no medical justifications for these procedures, which can cause excruciating and lasting pain, permanent scarring, heavy bleeding, lifelong reproductive issues, infections and even death.

For Khadija, those diagrams sparked a terrible awakening. She knew there must be many more women like her suffering the impacts of FGM, so she began to speak out, publicly sharing her very personal story, offering support and help to others.