Thank you for visiting us. All Women are Free to Choose website is undergoing some overdue post-Covid updating and reconstruction. Feel free to scroll around and get up to date with some of our past activities and current press releases for both Sierra Leone and The Gambia. You can also follow our work on our new SLWAFC Facebook Page and other social media platforms in the near future. Contact us at any time for more information or to volunteer on our field sites in Sierra Leone and The Gambia.
Dr. Fuambai Sia Nyoko Ahmadu, founder and President, AWAFC
Dr. Fuambai Sia Nyoko Ahmadu, founder and President, AWAFC
Are you sick and tired of hearing FGM propaganda in the major news outlets, on social media, in your classrooms, at your doctor's office, and in all sorts of random places? Are you writing a paper on "FGM" and you just feel there's another side to the story (there always is!)? We've started putting together a list of academic sources - journal articles, books and more that are critical of the current FGM narrative. Take a look at more balanced references here. Arm yourselves with knowledge so that you will never be afraid to engage with your friends, family members, classmates and co-workers on this topic! Share this website with others and let's continue the conversation about our bodies, our culture, our religions, our choices...not just our rites but our rights as women!
We just launched out new Sierra Leone Women are Free to Choose Facebook Page Today!! Make sure you follow us and tell us what you think!!
"We are a bold movement of millions of grassroots and modern women of Bondo/Sande - the pre-ancient, all female, masked "secret societies" of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and The Gambia . Many of us are Muslims or Christians, rural farmers and traders, but also well-educated professionals, business women and women's rights activists. Our mission is to raise awareness about our African matriarchal heritage and traditions that pre-exist the patriarchal Abrahamic religions and faiths we uphold today. We also challenge western women's cultural appropriation of our female circumcision aesthetic and advocate for the decriminalization of all women's bodies worldwide! We invite you to learn more about who we are, our activism, our feminism, and importantly, our celebrations and performances of the rich complexity and fluidity of our ancestral gender ideologies!"
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Want to know more about what we do? Scroll through a random sample of our Past Events and Announcements below
Don't miss our key events open to the public:
Breaking News:
First Lady of Sierra Leone's Statement Receives Backlash
NOSLINA Diamond Award Winner 2018: Dr. Fuambai Ahmadu! Thanks to the co-founder of AWAFC for 15 years of service to Sierra Leonean and Gambian communities! |
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Read more about cultural diversity in Universalism Without Uniformity.
Thanks to all for attending the performance of Human Rites, a play inspired in part by the life of Dr. Fuambai Ahmadu and the writings of Dr. Richard Shweder!
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Watch more discussions following the performance of Human Rites on our new YouTube channel!
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Sierra Leonean Women Are Free to Choose and Gambian Women Are Free to Choose are now officially registered Community Based Organization in Sierra Leone and The Gambia.
SLWAFC is the first organized resistance to western financed anti- Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) campaigns, followed by GWAFC. We join hands with the governments of Sierra Leone and The Gambia, the Council of Sowies and Council of Paramount Chiefs to promulgate pro-choice female initiation for the 21st Century and beyond! The specific aim of SLWAFC and GWAFC is to advance inter and intra gender equality of circumcised women and girls and to advocate for the constitutional and human rights of Bondo or Sande members. Visit SLWAFC page here Visit GWAFC page here |
Controversial Views on "FGM"
By Brian Earp "In other words, there are apparently no firm data on how many (female) individuals have actually been affected by non-therapeutic genital altering procedures in the United States in recent years: 'being at risk' seems to have been defined as 'coming from a country where such procedures are known to be performed in some communities'...read more |