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> Bridal
Abduction > HIV / AIDS > FGE /
The Amazing Wedding
The bride, Genet Girma, with her new husband, Addisie Abosie,
poses demurely, eyes downcast, as custom demands, under an
umbrella on her rainy wedding day in Hobich-Haka.
On September 12, 2002, a young bride and groom made history
in Ethiopia by publicly marrying in defiance of centuries-old
tradition that requires young women to undergo female genital
excision (FGE) to make them “clean” for marriage.
Two thousand people from the region of Hobich-Haka (Forest
of the Lions) attended the ceremony. There were literally
hundreds of bridesmaids and bridegrooms – all wearing
hand-drawn signs placards rejecting FGE.
The young couple, Genet Girma and Addisie Abosie, wore signs
pinned to their wedding clothes. Hers: “I am so happy
to be marrying uncut.” His: “I am extremely glad
to be marrying an uncut girl.” The young couple organized
their wedding after learning of the dangers of FGE in a two-day
workshop carried out by the Kembatta Women’s Self-Help
Center. FGE is a primitive, health-endangering “surgery” in
which young women’s external genitalia are cut away
by elders, leaving them prone to lifelong infections, HIV/AIDS,
and death in childbirth.
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The wedding is
the most recent evidence that KMG programs, which provide
information and tools to youth and parents, rather than
impose readymade solutions, are
beginning to bear fruit. For the first time, Gebre says, she personally is
beginning to believe it is possible to end FGE in a country where the horrific
practice was once taken for granted. |
The wedding was attended by politicians and
covered by Ethiopian National Television who traveled to
the remote region from
Addis Ababa. Since then, the couple has gone to Addis Ababa
with KMG founder Bogaletch Gebre for interviews with major
media that have been broadcast in several languages.
The young couple also toured the United States with Boge
Gebre in December, 2002, as part of with the New York-based
non-profit organization Equality Now as a campaign http://www.equalitynow.org/fgm-tour/fgm_press_adv.html to end FGM.
Today in Ethiopia, girls are taking up Genet’s cry: “I
am not cut. Learn from me!” “The courage of Genet
and Addisie has struck Ethiopia like a lightning bolt,” said
Gebre. “People are beginning to say that this will
help end the cutting of young girls soon in Ethiopia.”
| Girma, 20, who ran away from
home when she learned her parents were planning to have
her cut, wants to be a teacher. Abosie, 21, who had watched
his own mother nearly die in repeated childbirths because
of such scarring, had secretly helped secure her obtain
medical help to avoid future pregnancies. Both Girma
and Abosie were disowned by their parents for the public
ceremony. Though both come from very poor families, they
hope to find a way to stay in school to complete their
education. |
The newlyweds’ placards
read, “I have not been cut, learn from me.” and “I
am marrying an uncut girl.” Some married guests,
on their own intiative, wore cards declaring, “Stop
excision. Protect our children.” |
>This public ceremony was
stunning not only because FGE has long been considered
mandatory, but because
the very term
for it, which translates as “getting the dirt out,” is
taboo; it is virtually never spoken.
“
One of the wonderful things about this wedding is not only
that Girma and Abosie are standing up against FGE,” says
Boge Gebre, “But that their marriage is based on love.
They are making decisions together out of mutual respect.”
Some of the 300 bridesmaid wearing
signs declaring their refusal to be circumsized.
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