It was in the late evening of June 9, 2024, when Kadiatu F. Koroma, a 33-year-old woman noticed that her nine-month old pregnancy was due for delivery.
As a resident in a small village around Waterloo in the Western Area Rural district, getting access to a proper medical facility was challenging.
Kadiatu’s only option was to seek the help of traditional birth attendants in her community, as their services are approved by the government of Sierra Leone in places where community health centers are not available. Her Family took her there during that late night in June,2024.
In the early hours of June 10th, 2024, her baby boy was born.
Sadly, for Kadiatu, going to the traditional birth attendants was never a chance she wanted to take, but she was left with no option.
Narrating her ordeal, she became worried when she met with those in charge of such a skeptical and unassuming delivery especially when she was told to lay on a cold-hard metal bed with barely any medical equipment as one may anticipate.
While Kadiatu was praying for a safe delivery, she never thought that her genitalia would be the center of attraction and focus of the women in the room.
For the traditional birth attendants, this was a perfect moment for them to knife Kadiatu since she failed to do so at an early age.
In Sierra Leone, a woman is never considered a complete one without going through the Bondo initiation which is widely accepted.
As they may have it, Kadiatu was succumbed to psychological torture when they told her that the delivery process was not progressing, as they wanted, and it would take them some time and processes to get it done.
For fear of not losing her unborn baby, she heeded their advice and without further consultation, Kadiatu felt a deep cut and sharp pain that she would not expect.
“I never saw it coming and all that I felt was a deep cut and sharp pain. My wailing at that moment could only be taken as a normal labor pain that every woman goes through,โโ she said.
At the end of the process, the traditional birth attendants succeeded in two things; delivering the baby at the same time removing the genitalia of Kadiatu.
The matter of Kadiatu couldn’t pass for any police station or law enforcement agency since it is considered a normal practice for women.
She became the talk of the community where people mocked her for not being initiated at an early age.
Cases like these not only poses a deep trauma for the victim but also a great threat to her well being as these Sowei’s are powerful figures within their communities as their presence is everywhere within Sierra Leone.
There are several women today living with fistula in Sierra Leone today as a result of such barbaric act. This has made humanitarian organizations establish a center called Aberdeen Women center in Freetown for treatment of such cases.
Kadiatu like many other women who were forcefully circumcised against their wishes, felt betrayed by the tradition and deep culture in the society, by the government who has failed to safeguard the dignity, the pride of womanhood.
Sierra Leone is a small country located on the West Coast of Africa.
With an estimated population of eight million people, 83% of women aged 15-49 have undergone female genital mutilation, a decade-long female genital mutilation seems to be a barbaric culture that successive governments have failed to eradicate.
Despite advocacy groups like UNFPA and UNICEF calling for an end of FGM, there is no specific law in Sierra Leone criminalizing Female Genital Mutilation, which leaving women and girls vulnerable to this practice. Despite efforts to advance human rights, the absence of a dedicated and enforceable legislation hinders judicial investigation and persecution of FGM cases.
