Leading the fight against FGM, Leyla Hussein- UWL alumni magazine 2017

Feature – Leading the fight against FGM

Leading the fight against FGM Alumna Leyla Hussein is a trained psychotherapist and multi-award-winning campaigner on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and gender rights. She recently spent time with Psychology Lecturer Dr Savin Bapir-Tardy to talk about her work as a campaigner and counsellor.

Leyla grew up in a number of countries, including Italy and Britain, and is originally from Somalia, where she was subjected to FGM. As a survivor and a trained therapist, she has devoted much of her work to supporting other women.

She set up the Dahlia Project based in north London with the aim of providing a safe space for women who have experienced FGM. It also provides therapeutic support groups in areas of London where there is a need.

Leyla obtained a degree in therapeutic counselling and a postgraduate diploma in psychotherapy from UWL (then Thames Valley University).

Savin Bapir-Tardy: How has being an FGM survivor influenced your work in psychotherapy and counselling?

Leyla Hussein: Even though I grew up in the West, when I was young I thought FGM was OK. It wasn't a subject teachers, midwives or doctors ever brought up. When I realised the awful consequences of FGM and how many women suffer from it, I wanted – as a survivor and a psychotherapist – to be able to help other women.

SB-T: Tell me about the Dahlia Project and how it differs from other support services.

LH: The Dahlia Project is the only counselling service in Europe for survivors of FGM, so it's quite unique. It's in a constant state of development, with changes introduced as we listen to the needs of women. For example, we noticed a lot of women were scared to come to certain locations because they didn't want anyone to know they were in counselling. So, because their safety is paramount, we now have counselling sessions in places such as libraries or schools.

It doesn't matter how nice you are as counsellors, you have to go to places where women are – you have to let them choose the location, the time, and then go to where they are.

You also have to realise that many of the clients can't read or write so sending them a letter, which is the way most counselling services operate, doesn't help them. I think about my mother. She would never have responded to a letter; she would only have responded to a phone call and an assurance she wouldn't be abused. This is something other counselling services wouldn't normally do because they want to ensure professional boundaries are set in place. I do find sometimes that other counsellors won't work with me because they feel I am breaking the rules as a therapist. They don't want to say to someone: “have you experienced domestic violence or a particular practice?” The ethos is that, if a client has experienced

violence, it's up to them to come and tell us. I understand this – you don't want to ask them to speak about something they don't want to speak about.

The other thing is that FGM is not something communities recognise as a form of domestic violence – nor is it always seen as a bad thing – so if you ask, “have you been the subject of domestic violence?” they would not recognise it as such. As therapists, our job is to help clients explore the abuse they've experienced.

SB-T: What are the main challenges you face in fighting FGM? LH: The biggest challenge I face on a daily basis is trying to explain to people how severe the effects of FGM are. This is one of those forms of violence that leaves a lasting scar: you have the physical evidence of it for the rest of your life. The fact that it is treated as an 'other' is another challenge. I was speaking at a big child protection conference in Birmingham a few months ago.

A police officer came up to me and said: “I've never heard of this but if I knew that a person had touched a child's genital area and, even worse, cut it, then the law would say this is a form of sexual assault.” But this is not the way FGM is categorised.

SB-T: Has your way of operating – your reaching out to women – impacted the way other parts of the mental health service operate?

LH: The main challenge is a lack of understanding and quite a lot of resistance to change among therapists. At the same time, the mental health service has a lot of other challenges so something like this is not going to be invested in. And there's a lack of commitment from decision makers and commissioners. I sometimes hear therapists say: “it's a choice isn't it?” Being quite blunt about these things, I like to relate it to their own lives – “what if that happened to your child?” Their reaction is then quite different. If you think about it, this is quite a racist comment and I tell these specialist therapists that they need to challenge their own discrimination in this area. There's a sense that it's OK for a bunch of black women to go through this.

• F emale genital mutilation (FGM) is a procedure where the female genitals are deliberately cut, injured or changed, but where there's no medical reason for this to be done.

• It's also known as “female circumcision” or “cutting”, and by other terms such as sunna, gudniin, halalays, tahur, megrez and khitan, among others.

• FGM is usually carried out on young girls between infancy and the age of 15, most commonly before puberty starts.

It is illegal in the UK and is child abuse.

• It's very painful and can seriously harm the health of women and girls. It can also cause long-term problems with sex, childbirth and mental health.

Source: NHS website

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Your University

Leyla's documentary The Cruel Cut. Photo © Love Productions 2013

Britain is a very conservative country and people – even therapists – generally don't want to talk about race and subjects like FGM. I don't think race is controversial at all and, when I was a student, I felt it was important to point out how few black people were in that room. When we talk about issues such as FGM, gender and race are a big part of the conversation and we have to discuss them. One of the problems is that we sometimes mix up cultural sensitivity with cultural relativism. As a result of being sensitive, of not wanting to appear racist, we have allowed a lot of children to be abused under our noses and a lot of women to not get the support they need.

no longer the case in child abuse cases. So making FGM part of child protection training and changing the rules of evidence in these cases – these are some of the things that need to change.

SB-T: Is FGM carried out here in the UK?

LH: I said from day one, this is my story and you have to take my approach. Luckily, I had a great producer and director and they understood that I needed this to be a documentary that could be watched by my 85-year-old grandmother, by teachers, by doctors; everyone from my five-year-old nephew to a judge, to a mother.

It was also important that the focus was on what happened in Britain. The experience was great but also traumatic: for three months I was reliving my experience on a daily basis. I insisted on having a therapist on standby the whole time so that all the women contributing felt supported and were given a safe space when they were telling their stories.

LH: It's carried out everywhere: in London and all our major cities.

A lot of women who come to my clinics were born and raised here and a lot of them were cut here.

SB-T: Have there been any changes in attitude over the decade that you've been campaigning against FGM? LH: There have been drastic changes but I am still not satisfied. It comes back to our laws and the policies pursued by the authorities.

One of my biggest battles is with the UK Home Office. FGM is considered a child safeguarding issue but it is not a compulsory part of child protection training, which doesn't make any sense at all.

The other issue is over taking cases to court. Any child who has been harmed by FGM has to give evidence in court against their own parent. What child is going to do that? I have met girls who have been cut here in London who won't come forward; they are worried about how safely they could speak against their parents. You wouldn't ask the victim of rape to do this, and this is 6

When I travel to other countries such as the US, or around Europe, I see how much we've done but it's still not enough; girls are still at risk.

SB-T: In your documentary The Cruel Cut, you talk about your own experience, the fact that you have a permanent scar from FGM. How difficult was it for you to make this?

SB-T: What has been the impact of The Cruel Cut? LH: Following the film, I launched an e-petition, Stop FGM in the UK Now, and it got over 100,000 signatures which meant Parliament had to hold a debate. Up until that time, the government had been ignoring me but now they had to listen. It was great to see MPs squirm on the benches of the House of Commons! One of the great things that came out of the debate was that the law has

Feature – Leading the fight against FGM

been changed so we can go out and protect a child. And I'm really pleased that the film is still educating people.

SB-T: And you showed it at UWL – how was that as an experience?

LH: I wasn't the most confident student, and I cried a lot while I was at University, so to come back and lecture to other students was quite an interesting experience. The University changed how I dealt with things and I always refer back to my time here and my tutor. I was honoured to come back – it was a really nice feeling.

SB-T: Of all your achievements, what are you most proud of?

LH: The Dahlia Project and what it has achieved. I have great examples of outcomes – women who've gone back to higher education, left abusive partners….they start smiling and go to yoga. Through the project, we can give them space, give them a big change in their life – I'd like to be remembered for that.

SB-T: Tell us about your psychotherapy training at UWL and how this has helped your subsequent work.

LH: It was Thames Valley University when I arrived – I was part of the transition when the name was changed. I was already involved in counselling and really wanted to update my skills, particularly how to listen to the women who were coming to the community centre and clinics where I was working. So originally I wanted to do the basic counselling course but I fell in love with whole process of counselling. I had a great tutor called Helen Adiran who gave me great advice. During my second year, she said to me: “take a year out to take care of yourself so you can become the counsellor you always wanted to be”. My initial reaction was “I'm not good enough”. But I followed her advice and came back for my last year and I qualified in 2010.

It actually was the best professional advice I've ever been given and it's something I've put into my own professional development work ever since. Everyone who works with me gets supervision and I know when someone needs to take a break, so I tell them to go and sort themselves out before they go out and see clients. I even do it myself. We're human, we have to know our limits.

Leyla speaking to UWL students

Dr Savin Bapir-Tardy is a Lecturer in Psychology

Read more about Leyla Hussein is a multi-award-winning campaigner on Female Genital Mutilation the School of Human (FGM) and gender rights. Her documentary The Cruel Cut with Channel 4 on FGM and Social Sciences at in the UK was nominated for a Bafta in 2014, The Amnesty Media Awards 2014 uwl.ac.uk/hss and Best Onscreen Talent category for the CDN Awards 2014 and Broadcaster award 2015. Leyla advises the UK-wide Tackling FGM Initiative, the Desert Flower Foundation and the Honor Dairies organisation. She also sits on Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary advisory group on honour-based violence. After her successful e-petition 'Stop FGM in the UK Now' she was called in to give evidence at the Home Affairs Committee inquiry into the matter. She also sits on the Board of Directors for Safe Hands For Girls, a non-profit organisation based in the US and Gambia and working with survivors of FGM.

Leyla was included in the BBC 100 women list of 2013, voted sixth in the Woman’s Hour 2014 Power List and was included in RedLine magazine's Women of the Year 2014. Her many awards include the Cosmopolitan Ultimate Campaigner Women of the Year Award 2010; the Emma Humphrey Award in 2011; and the Lin Groves Special Award for her work in raising awareness of violence against women and children. She received the 2012 True Honour Award by the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Right organisation, recognising her work on preventing honour-based violence and she received the World Peace and Prosperity Foundation award 2013.

Leyla blogs for the Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan magazine and The Guardian.

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