Panel discussion at Davos with Nick Kristof and me
I was lucky enough to meet Nick in Davos – in fact, he facilitated our debate about female genital mutilation. Half the Sky has hit the US by storm and this article in the Guardian today shows why.
In another session that Nick chaired with Melinda Gates, I too was shocked by his comparison with slavery. That “gendercide” is the issue of the 21st century, as much as slavery was of the 19th century and fight against totalitarianism was of the 20th century. But equally, this comparison made me come back to London and read more about William Wilberforce – about the actions of one person and how they helped to build a movement.
So much of what Kristof and WuDunn write about moves me – mirrors in fact so much of my own thinking:
If you are convinced you have stumbled across an enormous moral outrage, you cannot merely cast light on the subject. You have to do something to stop it. You have to effect change.
This is precisely what happened to me in Ethiopia and given the option to walk on by or do something to stop it, I have chosen the latter.
There are three things that intrigue me in this report – firstly, how to use the power of individual stories and what that means in terms of making a personal connection. This is something I tried to do in my plinth appearance in Trafalgar Square and in my video pitch to Davos – I have a photograph of two seven year old girls and use their names – Megdes and Tinnebab – as often as I can. What is hard is knowing where my responsibility to them lies.
Kristof and WuDunn use this example to humanise FGC: “Every 10 seconds a girl somewhere in the world is pinned down, her legs pulled apart and a part of her genitals cut off, mainly without anaesthetic”. Of course, I’m so entrenched in the figures now that my brain instantly tries to extrapolate how they’ve come to this. I struggle hugely with a blatant: “3 million girls are cut every year” – what does this mean? In some respects, a girl cut every ten seconds is more accessible. Says my thinking brain. Then I sit. I wait. I count to ten. Another girl. I count to ten again. Another girl. My god.
The second is that “the authors also remind us that genital mutilation was practised regularly in England until the 1860s. It too was eradicated.” This definitely needs more research – anyone interested?
And the third – well, I lived in Cambodia for six months in 2007. I had no idea of the scale of the trafficking or prostitution. Much as I don’t have a sense of the scale of human slavery in London, my hometown, yet I’ve just read that this figure could be 5,000 women. So what I take from this is that our eyes and hearts are opened when we choose to look, when we choose to see.
Half the Sky is here on Amazon for only £6.98 I haven’t yet read it but have just bought it. I also love the request to simply “open your heart” and do what you can. This is how Orchid got set up. Thanks to both authors for exposing this moral outrage and for doing something about it.
