I forgave
her when I was pregnant. I saw the scan, the heartbeat, everything -
and my whole thought was to be a different mother. Knowing I was
carrying a child, I didn’t know if I was having a boy or a girl, I just
thought I can’t have this baby with all these things in my head: the
anger, the betrayal. I didn’t want to carry that anymore so I forgave
her. But I deemed it a private forgiveness.
As we spoke, my daughter waltzed in and was checking herself out in
front of the mirror, and I told my Mum: “I’m not going to cut her.” She
was very, very disappointed. After that I was never angry. I felt sorry
for her. This must be in her heart so deeply that she wanted
forgiveness, but for her the social stigma was still so strong she felt
that I would experience what she would have if she hadn’t cut me.
The minute they butchered me I thought, “No way is a child of mine
ever going to experience this.” But I wouldn’t have had any power to
stop my girls being cut if I was still in Somalia. And that, for me, was
something I prayed so hard for: that I never had kids in my home
country.