Summary Of Half The Sky

This particular class session started with Nicholas Kristoff’s Half the Sky documentary on FGM. It is difficult not to get too emotional in this course because the film showed how Ms. Edna Adan, an FGM victim herself, stood up against it and later on established an organization that works towards its elimination. Ms. Adan is a truly inspiring person. She worked at the United Nations (one of which was being the WHO representative of Djibouti) and used all her lifelong earnings and retirement benefits to build a hospital in her home country, the Somaliland. She narrated how she cashed up all her savings and available resources to start an office under a tree next to the present site of the building. She mentioned that the construction took four years to complete the
When Kristoff asked if given compensation equivalent to her FGM sessions, she immediately defended herself that she would stop the practice. Prof. Bertini mentioned that the FGM practice is based on several beliefs biased against women. Thoughts of preserving women’s chastity until and loyalty during marriage rationalize the stitching up of the reproductive organ. Preventing women’s promiscuity is another reason for removing some of the parts of the female anatomy. The practice is heavily embedded in the culture, passed on to succeeding generations; as grandmothers went through FGM, so did the mothers, and the daughters, and potentially their future daughters if no political intervention takes place. A girl in Somaliand at risk of FGM has an added dimension of discrimination against her gender. Thanks to the tireless dedication of Ms. Adan for advocating against its eradication. However, the fight against FGM is yet to be won and more people, not just women, are needed to follow Ms. Adan’s path. There are many other countries that need the likes of