VOA标准英语2009-African Activism Against Female Circumcision

By Carolyn Weaver¹
New York City
18 November 2009

A new film focuses on the fight by African activists³ against an ancient practice that is still performed each year on millions of girls: female circumcision, often known as FGM, or female genital mutilation. Opponents call it a human rights abuse that destroys a woman's ability to enjoy sex, is sometimes fatal, and frequently leads to lifelong pain and disability.

 
Agnes Pareyio helped found the Kenyan movement to end FGM
“I was forcefully cut when I was 14 years,” says Kenyan anti-FGM activist² Agnes Pareyio. “I tried to resist; everybody was calling me a coward. There was a lot of peer pressure on me that forced me to prove to them that I was not a coward.  But I hated it. So, I grew up hating it and made sure that not my daughter, not anybody who can listen to me, will undergo FGM.”

The village-by-village effort of education and persuasion⁵ that Pareyio and others like her in Somalia, Tanzania, Burkina Faso and Mali have taken on is the subject of "Africa Rising: The Grassroots Movement to End Female Genital Mutilation," made by Paula Heredia for Equality Now, a group that works to promote human rights for women.

The film opens with 14-year-old Mary Solio remembering the day she was cut. "My father decided⁶ to marry me off. I told him no, because I wanted to continue with my education,“ Solio says. “They beat me. They removed all my clothes and they beat me nakedly. I ran, but they got me on the way. I cry, but nobody was there in the forest.  I cried but I don't have anybody to turn to. They beat me the same day and they took me to the husband's home."

 
A Somali girl hospitalized after FGM, in "Africa Rising"
At least 100 million African women and girls have undergone FGM, which involves the removal of all or part of the female genitalia. Sometimes the remaining flesh is stitched closed, a practice called infibulation, leaving only a tiny opening for urination and menstruation, and making intercourse⁷ and childbirth painful and hazardous⁸. FGM can cause immediate⁹ hemorrhaging and death or a lifetime of pain, disability and severe emotional problems, doctors say.

Activists fight FGM by pointing out it is not practiced in most Islamic countries, and is not mentioned in the Koran.  In Somalia, where most girls are cut by the age of eight, the film shows anti-FGM activist Hawa Aden Mohamed visiting a classroom. She tells the schoolgirls that God created female organs for a purpose, and so removing them cannot be right. "People are just trying to change His creation," she says.  The grassroots campaigns also involve reaching out to circumcisers, who are usually illiterate¹⁰ village women, to teach them that FGM is wrong, and to help them find other ways to earn money.

In 2000, two sisters in Kenya, Edna and Beatrice Kandie, were told by their father that they would soon be circumcised. They sought help from human rights lawyer Ken⁴ Wafula, director of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, who successfully sued to stop the procedure from taking place.

“At the beginning my father was very hostile, because we took him to court,” Beatrice Kandie shyly tells the filmmakers. “It was the first time. We made history in Kenya by taking our father to court to stop us from being circumcised."

 
Former circumcisers at their co-operative mill in another scene from "Africa Rising" 
Although Kenya subsequently outlawed¹¹ FGM for girls under 18, the practice is still routine there. Girls now sometimes run away from home to avoid it. Agnes Pareyio, a member of the Maasai tribe, founded a safe house for girls, where she teaches girls about other cultural traditions to prepare themselves for womanhood.And she takes the anti-FGM campaign from village to village, explaining the law to parents and to circumcisers alike.

“We tell them, ‘Are you aware that you are breaking the law, and can easily go to jail for that?” she said in an interview. “And at times we tell them, ‘Are you aware that you expose your naked hands to people? You don’t know whether they have the HIV virus, and it can easily be transmitted to you.’”

Pareyio was in New York recently to publicize the film. She described how she was considered crazy when she began speaking out against FGM seven years ago. Her husband left her after others said she was trying to spoil their culture, and she raised her four children alone.

 
Schoolgirls wearing anti-FGM headbands in "Africa Rising" 
“In the beginning, it was tough,” Pareyio said. “My life was in danger, because I was trying to break the silence about a culture that was deeply rooted among the people. People believed in it and had never looked at it or even known the dangers, or wanted to talk about it. So, it was like I was crazy, because I was talking about the private part of a woman, which was a taboo¹² in Africa. Nobody can even mention the part that I used to mention when teaching them. But I insisted, because I knew having seen some communities who don’t perform it, I knew that this was just another way of oppressing our women.”

Now the subject is no longer taboo. “I’m happy now because at least everybody is talking about it openly, compared to those days,” she says. “These days I go to the field, and say ‘Well, I’ve called you here because I want to talk about FGM.’ So, we are moving towards stopping it.” Pareyio also invokes¹³ her Maasai culture in explaining why she does not let herself become discouraged by the decades of struggle that she sees ahead. “When you go to war, always be faithful [that you will succeed],” she says. “I have faith in me that one day women in the Maasai community will be free from the cut."

1 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

2 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

3 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 ken   

n.视野，知识领域

参考例句：

• Such things are beyond my ken.我可不懂这些事。
• Abstract words are beyond the ken of children.抽象的言辞超出小孩所理解的范围.

5 persuasion   

n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派

参考例句：

• He decided to leave only after much persuasion.经过多方劝说，他才决定离开。
• After a lot of persuasion,she agreed to go.经过多次劝说后，她同意去了。

6 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

7 intercourse   

n.性交；交流，交往，交际

参考例句：

• The magazine becomes a cultural medium of intercourse between the two peoples.该杂志成为两民族间文化交流的媒介。
• There was close intercourse between them.他们过往很密。

8 hazardous   

adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的

参考例句：

• These conditions are very hazardous for shipping.这些情况对航海非常不利。
• Everybody said that it was a hazardous investment.大家都说那是一次危险的投资。

9 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

10 illiterate   

adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲

参考例句：

• There are still many illiterate people in our country.在我国还有许多文盲。
• I was an illiterate in the old society,but now I can read.我这个旧社会的文盲，今天也认字了。

11 outlawed   

宣布…为不合法（outlaw的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Most states have outlawed the use of marijuana. 大多数州都宣布使用大麻为非法行为。
• I hope the sale of tobacco will be outlawed someday. 我希望有朝一日烟草制品会禁止销售。

12 taboo   

n.禁忌，禁止接近，禁止使用；adj.禁忌的；v.禁忌，禁制，禁止

参考例句：

• The rude words are taboo in ordinary conversation.这些粗野的字眼在日常谈话中是禁忌的。
• Is there a taboo against sex before marriage in your society?在你们的社会里，婚前的性行为犯禁吗？

13 invokes   

v.援引( invoke的第三人称单数 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求

参考例句：

• The Roundtable statement invokes the principles of the free market system. 企业界圆桌会议的声明援用了自由市场制度的原则。 来自辞典例句
• When no more storage is available, the system invokes a garbage collector. 当没有可用的存贮时，系统就调用无用单元收集程序。 来自辞典例句