{"id":56379,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/56379/?format=json","text_counter":347,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Mrs. Noor","speaker_title":"","speaker":{"id":375,"legal_name":"Sophia Abdi Noor","slug":"sophia-noor"},"content":"I am a living example of women who have undergone the FGM. I went through the FGM at a tender age of five years. I was circumcised by an old mother who had eyes problems. She mutilated me and I bled for three days. Fortunately, I was near a hospital and that is how I was saved, but many of my age mates who went through that practice are not with us today. During my weeding night, it was not something that I enjoyed. I cried. I was in tears because it was very painful. That gave me a psychological problem, and I was not comfortable in whatsoever I was doing. Then during my first delivery, I had a problem. It was complicated and I was in labour for five days. They had to remove the child with a vacuum. That is why immediately I graduated from college I started talking about the FGM because that gave me a problem. For 16 years, I was on the ground talking about the FGM. I did enough research into the issue of the FGM. My community thought that it was a religious obligation, but unfortunately, FGM is not a religious obligation. It is not even in our culture. People felt that it is a religious obligation. Now that the society knows that this is not a religious obligation, we have a responsibility to protect the women and the girls of this country."}