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Maryam (right).
Maryam
It hurts every time I think about it. I was in church when they told me I had to go home. I had already run away from home once before when I realised what was going to happen. But this time I couldn’t get away, they held me down.

“It’s better to bring the girls up properly than to put them through that. And now my own mother feels the same way!”


Name: 
Maryam Saiid
Age: 32

The midwife had a razor. I bled for a whole week afterwards.
I never talked to my mother about what had happened. It was a forbidden topic of conversation.

I still don’t enjoy sex.

I was married for a whole year before I got pregnant. And I still don’t enjoy sex. I don’t feel anything. I don’t know what my husband thinks. We can’t talk about it. I would feel as though he looked down on me. I don’t know what to do.
But my daughter, who is 13, won’t be circumcised. We’re agreed on that, my husband and I. It’s better to bring the girls up properly than to put them through that. And now my own mother feels the same way!