Living in a woman’s body: I was mutilated – and I swore I would stop this happening to another girl

I was told I was a coward if I resisted female genital mutilation. For decades since then, I have worked, and risked everything, to protect other girls

I was 14 when my mother and grandmother announced that I was going to have my clitoris, my labia majora and my labia minora cut out. They said that if I resisted I was a coward. In my culture, the worst thing you can be called is a coward.

I was never naive. I grew up as a Maasai girl in Kenya in the 60s and 70s. At some point in my childhood, I became aware that there was a rite of passage into womanhood. I was to have my vulva mutilated by an elderly woman using a blunt instrument. But I was also part of the first generation of Maasai girls to be sent to school, where I met girls from communities who didn't practise female genital mutilation (FGM). I learned from them that you can grow to be an adult with your vulva intact. That was what I wanted.