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Feature
Rebecca was 'cut' while pregnant with her daughter Emily. It's still happening today
Talking about FGM is taboo in some cultures, but this family is speaking out to protect other women and girls in Australia and overseas.
Published 11 May 2023 7:00am
By Sandra Fulloon
Source: SBS News
Image: Mother and daughter Rebecca Titany and Emily Korir. (Supplied, SBS)
Content warning: This article contains reference to rape.
Emily Korir is sitting at her dining table in Adelaide staring at her mother Rebecca Titany's face. She's on a video call from Kenya.
The two women may today live continents apart, but they remain close, separated in age by only 14 years and sharing a bond forged in pain half a century ago.
“I am a victim,” Rebecca says in a matter-of-fact way.
“I was very young, only 13 years old, and I was pregnant from rape. And they did it badly.”
The ‘it’ Rebecca is referring to, is Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), also known as ‘cutting’, which happened on the day she revealed she was three months pregnant with Emily.
“It has really affected my life up to today. There are many women in Africa suffering from FGM and I am one of them,” she says.
Rebecca's daughter Emily Korir at home in Adelaide. Credit: SBS / Sandra Fulloon
No action was taken when it was reported to the village chief, she says. Instead, she was blamed, and both mother and daughter were later treated as “unclean”.
I am a victim.- Rebecca Titany, FGM survivor
Rebecca says the FGM was performed by a local woman at the request of her mother, who has since died. It led to complications including pain, bleeding, and having to deliver Emily early, and she still has issues today.
Discussing FGM in Kenya is taboo and Rebecca has rarely spoken publicly about it, fearing retribution from her community. She only told Emily about what happened to her in 2012.
“When my grandmother found out that she was pregnant ... they circumcised her that night,” Emily, 49, says.
“No woman, no girl should be born to be put through that — not for religion, not for culture. It is not fair.”
At least 200 million women and girls worldwide have experienced FGM. It is practised in 31 countries, most often in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, according to UNICEF.
FGM refers to all procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. It is often carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15, sometimes by trained nurses using some anaesthetic, but often in someone's house rather than a medical facility.
“FGM is often used as a rite of passage for young girls entering into adulthood, however, it can be performed on babies and women at different points in their life as well,” says UNICEF Australia’s director of international programs, Alice Hall.
FGM is considered by some to be a prerequisite for marriage or inheritance, which makes it harder for families to abandon.
For Rebecca, it was deemed 'required' before she gave birth.
Emily is the first female in her family to avoid FGM.
Source: SBS News
“FGM is a social and cultural practice. It is often used to suppress sexuality and promote chastity among women and girls, but it is not endorsed by any religion. However, religious texts are sometimes used to promote or justify the practice.
“Where families or girls have refused to partake in the practice, they can often be disadvantaged or excluded from their community. So, there is a huge amount of pressure, which takes the choice away from women and girls.”
FGM is reflective of deeply entrenched gender inequalities.- Alice Hall, UNICEF Australia
The Kenyan government made FGM illegal in 2011, with a life sentence for perpetrators carrying out FGM that leads to death, but it still occurs. About 21 per cent of Kenyan women and girls aged 15-49 have been affected, UNICEF says.
On a visit in March to Kenya’s Kuria community, which records one of the country’s highest rates of FGM, Kenya’s President William Ruto repeated calls to stop the practice.
The United Nations is committed to ending FGM worldwide by 2030 and Emily is now doing what she can to help.
Through their charity, the BET Foundation, she and her husband Bernard Korir Tanui run campaigns in Kenya to end FGM and say the backing of Kenyan men is key.
“The United Nations, the whole world is fighting against FGM. In Kenya, the men also need to understand that what they're doing is illegal, morally and culturally,” says Bernard, who was also born in Kenya.
The charity runs alternate rites-of-passage programs for girls living in rural communities.
Bernard Korir Tanui at a BET Foundation event in Kenya. Source: Supplied / Emily Korir
"These mentors have finished school and university, they have not gone through FGM and they're doing well.
“So far, 4,500 girls have continued at school, with no child marriages and no FGM. We have changed the narrative for them.”
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimates at least 53,000 women and girls born overseas and now living in Australia have undergone FGM in their lifetime.
Emily has heard of FGM practitioners operating here but says other families will take teenage girls overseas for it.
"They need to know that whether it is done overseas or here, it is illegal and they can be arrested in Australia," she says.
Another mother and daughter team, Dr Fariba Willison and her daughter Nadia, are working to improve the lives of FGM survivors in Australia.
With Dr Tran Nguyen, they founded not-for-profit charity Desert Flower South Australia in 2018. It offers gynaecological, urological and psychological treatment as well as reconstructive surgery for FGM survivors, offering free services to patients who cannot afford them.
As a gynaecologist specialising in prolapse and incontinence, often a consequence of FGM, Dr Willison, 56, has seen more than 100 FGM survivors in Australia. Of those, she says around a quarter suffer complications.
“FGM survivors may have intimacy pain or menopausal issues when they are older. Or on the labour ward, some women who have had FGM need assistance to give birth,” she says.
“Other FGM survivors, like any woman suffering chronic pain, have more anxiety and depression and are more likely to isolate themselves from society. And some suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) related to the procedure which can be triggered by doctors or anybody who touches them.”
Dr Willison also runs a gynaecological practice, FBW Gynaecology Plus, in Adelaide, and operates at not-for-profit Ashford Hospital, using new techniques to reverse FGM.
“Our procedure is half a day in hospital and the patients are out. Of those that we have reversed, the surgery has been 100 per cent successful,” she says.
Dr Willison and Nadia, 28, plan to join Emily and her daughter, Britney Korir, in Kenya later this year, to demonstrate the FGM reversal procedure to doctors there.
Emily Korir with her daughter Britney, and Dr Fariba Willison with her daughter Nadia. Source: SBS News / Sandra Fulloon
“I want to train other doctors to see more patients and deliver to them skills that I have learned.”
After learning of her grandmother's story, Britney, 18, shares her family's passion to end FGM and is an ambassador for her parents' charity.
“FGM happens to girls who are younger than me, even aged four to eight. It is just so sad, knowing it can have lifelong complications or even lead to death,” she says.
“It has to stop.”
Emily Korir with her mother Rebecca Titany. Source: Supplied / Emily Korir
“Delivering the other children was a big problem,” she says, due to FGM complications.
“I still have symptoms now, like trauma, scarring and many urinary tract infections.”
She hopes the next generation will have a different life.
“I am happy because my daughter and granddaughter are fighting FGM.”
“I want FGM to stop by 2030, and we will do whatever it takes.”
For help and support with FGM visit the Desert Flower South Australia website at
If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit
