Makalay Saidiatu

oseph Kaifala Esq, a Sierra Leonean writer, author of Adamalui has taken to Facebook with a controversial post as always. He has condemned the Bondo society which is a place used primarily for girls to undergo female genital mutilation in Sierra Leone. FGM is a key aspect of the initiation into this secret society.

Sierra Leone has one of the highest rate of FGM in the world. Nine in ten women are cut in Sierra Leone. Girls as young as three years are being cut. Majority of Sierra Leoneans have been seeing this practice as part of their culture and traditions, and therefore many has refused to speak against this brutal and inhumane practice. But for Joseph Kaifala and many more rational thinkers they have decided to speak publicly about the consequences of FGM and how Sierra Leone can use other greater machinery to transmit their culture to young girls with the exception of Bondo Society.

FGM for girls below the age of 18 is illegal in Sierra Leone. However, it is evident that people still practice it on girls all over the country.

Here are the words of Joseph Kaifala’s Facebook Post:

“There is nothing special about bondo bush. It is a place where old people fidget with little girls vaginas. If you want to teach girls culture send them to school. Again, we don’t need any bush cultural barracks. FMG is harmful to little girls and an anachronistic cultural practice. Our inability to accept that and change is indicative of a general developmental stagnation and unprogressiveness in our society. Y’all should stop senzationalising bondo bush. There is no cultural training happening there…none of the girls put through this harmful tradition graduate with any grand cultural enlightenment other than unnecessary scars, if they are lucky to survive the knives of often intoxicated grannies. Children can sing and dance Mende or Limba songs in regular classrooms.”