KMG, the Norwegian Church Aid´s partner organisation in Ethiopia, recently filled a football stadium with people demonstrating against female circumcision, or female genital mutilation (FGM) as it is also called. At long last, the results of a five years long campaign are beginning to show. (25-NOV-04)
On the last day of October, approximately 100.000 people gathered in the town of Durame, far south in Ethiopia. KGM, the organisation that had called for and co-ordinated the demonstration, had equipped the female protesters with t-shirts saying ´I´m whole´. Quite a few men explicitly expressing that they no longer wished for their women to suffer were also present.
Proud to be whole
The Norwegian Church Aid supports KM and with an extra donation from NORAD, the governmental development aid agency of Norway, 5.000 medallions also bearing the inscription ´I´m whole´, sported by young women proud not to have been circumcised, had been bought. -This was fantastic evidence that patience, local initiatives, and hard work al really pay off, said Hans Birkeland from the Norwegian Church Aid´s office in Ethiopia.
