Khady Koita (born 18 October 1959) is a Senegalese activist against violence against women and female genital mutilation.
Khady Koita (born 18 October 1959) is a Senegalese activist against violence against women and female genital mutilation.
Koita was born in Senegal and raised by her grandmother in the Thiès Region. She underwent genital mutilation at the age of seven and was forced to marry her cousin in her teenage years. [1] She told Le Figaro that "[she] did not say anything because [her] upbrining did not allow [her] to say 'no'." [2] One year later, she was forced to emigrate to France, and lived with her cousin during sixteen years. She gave birth to her first child at the age of sixteen. Two years later, her husband married a second wife (co-wife) against Khady's consent. [3] Suffering from violence, Khady managed to flee with her children [2] and divorced in 1988.
Since 1996, Koita has lived in Belgium. [4] She co-founded the Group for the Abolition of Female Genital Mutilation (GAMS) in Belgium and became the chairwoman of La Palabre, an association that helps women in Senegal. [5] She is an activist against female genital mutilation a women's rights advocate. Since 2002, she has been the chairwoman of Euronet MGF (the European Network for the Prevention and Eradication of Female Genital Mutilation). [3] [6] [7]
Her French-language book Mutilée ("Mutilated") was published by Oh Editions in 2006. [5] [3] [8] An English language version, "Blood Stains. A Child of Africa Reclaims her Human Rights" appeared in 2010 published by UnCUTVOICES Press (Frankfurt am Main) and translated by Tobe Levin.
In 2007, Koita was awarded the Belgian Burgerschapsprijs Stichting P&V . [4]
Kurdish women traditionally had more rights than those living in other Islamic social and political systems, although traditional Kurdish culture, as most of traditional societies in the Middle East, is patriarchal, and in Kurdish families and communities, it has been "natural" for men to enjoy predominant power. Kurdish traditions, despite the religious pressure, have allowed women to work outside their home and alongside men, including militarily, and Kurdish histrory saw examples of women becoming military or community leaders. Pro-feminist values began gaining a significant weight among politically active Kurds in the 1980s, and Kurdish women's rights and equality have improved dramatically in the 21st century due to progressive movements within Kurdish society, and Kurdish women have played an almost equal role with men in struggle for democracy and Kurdish national liberation. However, despite the progress, Kurdish and international women's rights organizations still report problems related to gender inequality, forced marriages, honor killings, and in Iraqi Kurdistan, female genital mutilation (FGM).
The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children(IAC) (French: Comité interafricain sur les pratiques traditionnelles affectant la santé des femmes et des enfants) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) which seeks to change social values and raise consciousness towards eliminating female genital mutilation (FGM) and other traditional practices which affect the health of women and children in Africa.
International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is a United Nations-sponsored annual awareness day that takes place on February 6 as part of the UN's efforts to eradicate female genital mutilation. It was first introduced in 2003.
Katoucha Niane was a Guinean model, activist and author. Nicknamed "The Peul Princess", she worked, and later wrote, under the single name "Katoucha". She was known as the muse of Yves Saint Laurent during the 1980s.
The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, better known as the Maputo Protocol, is an international human rights instrument established by the African Union that went into effect in 2005. It guarantees comprehensive rights to women including the right to take part in the political process, to social and political equality with men, improved autonomy in their reproductive health decisions, and an end to female genital mutilation. It was adopted by the African Union in Maputo, Mozambique, in 2003 in the form of a protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.
Malicounda Bambara is a village in the rural community of Malicounda within M'bour Department of the Thiès Region in western Senegal, located northeast of Saly on the Petite-Côte and approximately 85 km from the Senegalese capital of Dakar. It is one of three villages all named Malicounda, but with affixes Bambara, Sérère and Wolof, each denoting the prevalent ethnicity. The three are closely connected through relations. Malicounda Bambara is especially notable for being the first village in Senegal to publicly abandon the traditional practice of female genital cutting.
Women in Senegal have a traditional social status as shaped by local custom and religion. According to 2005 survey, the female genital mutilation prevalence rate stands at 28% of all women in Senegal aged between 15 and 49.
The status of women in Iraq has been affected by wars, Islamic law, the Constitution of Iraq, cultural traditions, and secularism. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women are war widows, and Women's rights organizations struggle against harassment and intimidation while they work to promote improvements to women's status in the law, in education, the workplace, and many other spheres of Iraqi life. Abusive practices such as honor killings and forced marriages remain problematic.
Aissa Edon is a Malian midwife living in London and an activist against female genital mutilation (FGM). She has worked with victims of FGM in Switzerland, France, Belgium and the UK since 2016. In 2014 she established a foundation, The Hope Clinic, which raises awareness about FGM and helps women who have experienced it. In 2016, she was awarded a Mary Seacole Scholar Award by the Royal College of Nursing, and took part in 2015 was one of the BBC's 100 Women.
Awa Thiam is a Senegalese politician, academic, writer, and activist. She serves as Senegal's Director of the National Center for Assistance and Training of Women under the Ministry of Women and Children. She is an advocate against female genital mutilation (FGM), which she speaks on in her 1978 book La Parole aux négresses. She has a body of work published internationally, in both French and English. In 1982, she founded the Commission pour l'Abolition des Mutilations Sexuelles, which fights for the abolition of FGM. Thiam is among the women featured in the 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa edited by Margaret Busby.
Josephine Kulea is a Kenyan women's rights campaigner. Rescued from female genital mutilation and forced marriage as a child, she has since set up the Samburu Girls Foundation, which has saved more than 1,000 girls from similar practices. Kulea was recognised as an "unsung heroine" by US ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger in 2011.
Khadidiatou Diallo is a Senegalese advocate and the founder of the Groupe de femmes pour l'Abolition des Mutilations Sexuelles (GAMS) in Belgium.
Hortense Lougué is a woman human rights defender and the Executive Director of the Association of Support and Awakening Pugsada (ADEP), a non-governmental organisation that focuses on improving the legal, and socio-economic status of women and girls in Burkina Faso. She works extensively with young girls and women who have been forced into marriage, are victims of gender violence or have suffered female genital mutilation. Having been a volunteer in the Pugsada association, she became the coordinator and chief executive when the founder took over international duties in 2008. Her drive to do this originated from her experience of inequality and injustice.
Elisabeth Dior Fall Sow is a Senegalese jurist and legal scholar. She was the first female prosecutor in Senegal, appointed to the Republic at the Court of First Instance of Saint-Louis in 1976. She is honorary president of the Association of Women Jurists.
Lydie Dooh Bunya, also known by her married name Quan-Samé, was a Paris-based Cameroonian journalist, writer, and feminist.
Rugiatu Turay is a Sierra Leonean women's rights activist. who is a staunch campaigner against female genital mutilation. She is the founder of The Amazonian Initiative Movement, a nonprofit organization with the main objective of eliminating the cultural practice of female genital mutilation in West Africa.
Mariama Barry is a Senegalese novelist, specializing in autobiographical fiction. Born in Dakar, she spent her teenage years in Guinea before settling in France, where she is also a practicing lawyer. Her first book, La petite Peule, was published in 2000, then in English translation in 2010 as The Little Peul.
Diaryatou Bah is a feminist and secular activist from Guinea.
Hadja Idrissa Bah, also Hadja Idy is a child's rights and women's rights activist from Guinea, who was elected President of the Guinean Children's Parliament in 2016. She has advised President Emmanuel Macron on women's issues.
Le Pagne is a 2015 Nigerien film directed by Moussa Hamadou Djingarey. It was screened at the Ecrans Noirs Festival in Yaoundé.
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