00:00In the Gambia, around 73 percent of women and girls aged 15 to 49 have
00:11undergone FGM, most before their fifth birthday. Many live with chronic pain,
00:17infections, childbirth complications and deep psychological scars. Yet for these
00:24survivors, clitoral reconstruction, a surgery that can help restore sensation,
00:30ease pain and rebuild confidence, is almost out of reach. Fatou Balde, a leading
00:35anti-FGM campaigner, says that most Gambian women would have to travel abroad,
00:41often to Europe, to access such surgery. For me, if I'm speaking to women, I don't
00:46want to raise their expectations that there is this service available which is
00:52far-fetched from our reality. With a fragile health system and limited
00:56specialist training, the Gambia's local hospitals lack the capacity and
01:00equipment for reconstructive procedures. For many survivors, the idea of another
01:06operation is also emotionally daunting. In Sarakunda, near the capital Banjul, 28
01:13year old Mariyama Fatajo remembers being caught at age seven. Years later, she still
01:19lives with pain and is uncertain whether reconstruction can truly restore what was
01:23taken from her. Even if we are given the chance of having it done to us, it's not
01:30going to be the same as what is taken away from us. I am not sure. I don't think it's
01:36going to feel the same. For Fatajo, healing means learning to live with what she has and
01:41fighting to protect younger girls from the same fate. Further along the West Coast
01:46region, Mariyama Sanyang was caught at six. She reveals that the harmful traditional
01:52practice robbed her of sexual sensation. She sees the procedure as a possible
01:57lifeline. My belief is my clitoris was caught. It was thrown. So where am I going to
02:03find it again? If clitoral restructuring is available in the Gambia, I will consider it as a survival. And I
02:12believe it is here to empower me in my matrimonial home. Activists say that for
02:18now, the priority must be ending FGM itself and upholding the 2015 ban, which is currently on the
02:26legal challenge. But across the continent, some survivors are already finding hope
02:31through clitoral reconstruction. Somali model Zeynab Jamar is at the forefront in pushing for this
02:37surgery to be made accessible to survivors like her. But once I discovered that there is a clitoral
02:45reconstruction surgery for survivors, it gave me hope. And it made me realize there are so many
02:52girls like me, probably they don't even know that they have this, they have this opportunity where
02:58they can go and reclaim a part of their life back and some part of their body too. Her words echo a
03:04painful truth for Gambian survivors. Many have never heard of reconstruction at all. But for now, in the
03:11Gambia, the path forward is clear, strengthen enforcement of the FGM ban, and one day build the
03:18medical capacity so that healing surgeries are no longer a distant reality.
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