Having friends I can talk to has been an immense help. If something happens to me, at least someone will know. If a girl goes through infibulation and then disappears, we never find out. I stayed in bed for two days, wondering, “Is it worth it?” But then I felt guilty. The first time my picture appeared in a newspaper, I had death threats. It was a way of saying to these girls, “You’re British and we care about you as much as anyone else.” My vagina is British it doesn’t have a different passport. But I didn’t want to be treated with sympathy: I wanted to talk about survivors, not victims, and I wanted to prevent it.įirst came redefining FGM with the Home Office as an act of violence then defining it as child abuse. It was early 2011 when I first said, “I’m Nimco and I’m an FGM survivor.” A lot of people were shocked. People were saying, “How can mothers allow this?” but I was saying, “How can you, as a citizen of this country, know a five-year-old is about to be cut and stand by because you’re afraid to offend her community? You’re telling that child she doesn’t matter.” It was early 2011 when I first said, 'I’m Nimco and I’m an FGM survivor.' A lot of people were shocked It’s not up to communities to police themselves. I’ve seen community work being done for years, and it doesn’t work. I want to place the responsibility in the hands of the state. I got together with Leyla, and we started to do more with MPs. I wanted to educate people, yes, but this isn’t a question of ignorance it’s organised crime. Around 2010, I moved to London and came across people working around FGM, but I couldn’t see what they were trying to achieve. Then I started to see my silence as complicity. I had FGM as a seven-year-old, and later saw girls going through it, but I didn’t join the conversation. She is the co-founder, with Leyla Hussein, of Daughters of Eve, a non-profit organisation that supports young women from communities that practise female genital mutilation (FGM) Nimco Ali, co-founder of Daughters of Eve. That’s one thing I do see changing, and it’s really good. But the other thing is that you’re representing lives, and lives look all different ways and shapes. I don’t bring a suitcase with my dossier in it to an audition, I bring my body, so you can’t moan about the fact that you’re judged on your looks: it’s showbusiness. If I could go back, I’d say, “Think about the bigger picture.” Of course, it’s a visual medium. I spent far too much time when I was younger thinking about how much I weighed. I always tried to stay challenged and work hard, but also keep my hand in and stir the pot at home. My girls and my son and my husband are all way too much in each other’s business, I would say, but we’re close and that’s important. Decisions I made in my career were not always based on aesthetic criteria: was it near, was it going to be shot in the vacation? You make all sorts of compromises in order to have this other thing that you value. That’s a really tough gig, and I don’t know if I could have had four kids and done that. Going from job to job, never knowing where the next one would be, has allowed me to spend time with my four kids – more than if I’d worked at a desk job. Women have 17% of the influence, more or less, in every part of the decision-making process in the industry Twenty years ago, I would have been playing witches and crones. I’m 67, so mostly I get things for people that age, and there are wonderful projects that would never have existed even 10 years ago. But the material that comes to me is still interesting. Women have 17% of the influence, more or less, in every part of the decision-making process in the industry and, inevitably, that’s going to decide what kind of films are made. If they were overwhelmingly female, there would be a hue and cry about it. The influencers in our industry are overwhelmingly men: the critics, the directors’ branch of the Academy. ‘Women’s rights? We’re going to keep talking about it until there’s balance’ - Meryl Streep on equality Video by Marian Lacombe.
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