Global Roundup: Sierra Leone Child Marriage & FGM, El Salvador LGBT Rights, Women in Syria, Nigerian Women’s History Documentary, US Gay Elder Prom
Global Roundup: Sierra Leone Child Marriage & FGM, El Salvador LGBT Rights, Women in Syria, Nigerian Women’s History Documentary, US Gay Elder Prom
Curated by FG Contributor Samiha Hossain
A young girl holds up a picture urging the end to the practice of FGM. © Equality Now
Hundreds of thousands of girls are married before turning 18 in the West African nation, where a persistently patriarchal society puts women at risk of multiple forms of gender-based violence. Sierra Leone has some of the highest rates of child marriage, teenage pregnancy and maternal mortality in the world. The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act criminalises marrying girls below 18 with jail terms of at least 15 years or a fine of more than €2,000. It also bans men from living with underage girls and sets out a compensation package for those who are married or fall pregnant before turning 18.
Bans on both FGM and child marriage had already been included in a sweeping Child Rights Act, but the legislation has been stalled in parliament. Josephine Kamara, advocacy director of Purposeful, which funds girls’ rights activists in Sierra Leone and around the world, wrote on the Guardian about how urgent it is for lawmakers in the country to end FGM.
Child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM) are deeply interwoven, yet an amended Child Rights Act of 2024, laid out to protect girls from all forms of violence, including FGM, is still awaiting parliamentary approval. Girls’ rights campaigners and feminist activists are concerned about the move to separate these fundamental human rights issues from each other. -Josephine Kamara
Kamara discusses how both child marriage and FGM are inseparable, as being cut is seen as a precursor to being a woman and being fit for marriage. She also mentions A Bloodless Rite, a film made by Purposeful and activists, which powerfully illustrates feminist solidarity and possibility of sacred female spaces. Ultimately, Kamara says, FGM is an extension of patriarchal oppression and a manifestation of sexual violence against women and girls. She adds that Purposeful and other feminist movements will continue to pressure the government to support the strategy on the reduction of FGM, and to pass the all-encompassing Child Rights Act, pending since 2016.
Photo by Marvin RECINOS / AFP
Last month, Bukele announced the dismissal of 300 employees from the Ministry of Culture for promoting “agendas” incompatible with his government’s vision, which several officials celebrated as a defense of “the traditional family,” “faith,” and “life.” And days earlier, the Ministry of Culture had approved the presentation of an LGBT play at the National Theater, abruptly canceled after its first performance. LGBT people are left “in a vulnerable situation” when people hear the president define them as “unnatural, anti-God, anti-family,” according to Luis Chávez, a gay man who serves as a pastor in the religious organization that has been gathering for about two years in an NGO’s house.
Shortly after sweeping the elections, Bukele attended in February, like his Argentine counterpart Javier Milei, the largest conservative convention in the United States, which gave a standing ovation to former President Donald Trump. That same month, the Ministry of Education announced that it removed “all traces'' of gender perspective from school textbooks, a decision applauded by conservative groups and criticized by human rights activists. Also in February, the Ministry of Health eliminated a protocol with which sexually diverse people received care “free from stigma and discrimination” in an HIV/AIDS prevention program, said Aranza Santos, from the Alejandría LGBTQI+ Collective.
[The government and part of society] want to deny our existence and faced with that, we have to raise our voices, demand and fight for our rights. -Grecia Villalobos, activist from Concavis Trans, an organization defending transgender rights
The LGBT community realizes that the struggle will be long but are determined to continue fighting. Andrea Ordóñez, a 30-year-old pharmacist, and her partner Fiorella Turchkeim, a 30-year-old psychologist, both attend an improvised mass in the garage of a house in San Salvador. The so-called Santa María Magdalena Community is an Anglican-inspired organization that defines itself as “radically inclusive,” is “a respite” amid a climate of “intolerance.” Turchkeim and Ordóñez plan to marry in August 2025, but they will have to travel to Costa Rica, where same-sex unions have been legal since May 2020.
Om Feras
38-year-old Om Feras spends her days crafting embroidered pieces and overseeing five other craftswomen on the outskirts of Darayya, a western suburb of Damascus. In 2012, Om Feras and her family were forced to flee to a neighboring town. A few months later, her husband disappeared, leaving her to care for their three young sons alone. In 2016, she received news from Syrian authorities that her husband had died. After the war ended, Om Feras returned to the area, rehabilitated her home, and has since been working hard to re-establish a normal life.
I was shy, but now everyone says I’m strong. The work changed how I see myself and others, and it broke some stereotypes about Syrian women and their presence in the labor market. -Om Feras
55-year-old Salma Sayyad, a civil society activist in Jaramana, an eastern suburb of Damascus, runs a civic space for cultural activities called the Nissan Cultural Forum. Salma noticed that the war left many women as the main breadwinners. She believes in giving women access to decision-making positions so that women face less exploitation and discrimination in the workforce. Salma herself faced many challenges working at the Ministry of Economy and in the humanitarian field.
[The Nissan Cultural Forum] gives me hope to meet people with shared dreams and visions and work with young women who grew and studied in war circumstances yet work and succeed in their lives. They will be the changemakers in the future. -Salma Sayyad
Beesan Salhab, 23, is an aspiring scholar who is currently completing her Master of Arts degree in Damascus. However, she is also trying to gain scholarship abroad. Some of the reasons she mentions include the high cost of living in Syria as well as the societal perception of women and girls.
It is not always easy for a young woman to live alone, ride a bicycle, and move around. Some people tell me I’m brave; others criticize me with surprised looks. -Beesan Salhab
Photo by Peeko.HD/Lanaire Aderemi Productions.
Lanaire Aderemi’s recently premiered, debut documentary film, record found here contextualizes the history of Nigerian women as protest organizers.
Prior to this, Aderemi has been doing compelling work driven by her curiosity for digging into historical events. In 2021, her eponymous production company launched Story Story, an immersive, storytelling podcast series detailing three seminal happenings from Nigeria’s past and an episode detailing the life and times of the great pre-colonial ruler, Queen Amina. One of the Story Story episodes is centered on the Egba Women’s Revolt, an event Aderemi has now explored in multiple forms. She developed three plays that invariably intersected the revolt with the Aba Women’s Movement of 1929, issues of child marriage and female genital mutilation, as well as more contemporary resistance movements led by women’s collective efforts.
I've always been very passionate about women's histories and stories, and amplifying women's voices. -Lanaire Aderemi
For record found here, Aderemi and a small production team traveled to Abeokuta to interview witnesses and participants in the movement, and visited historically relevant sites, including the Kuti Heritage Museum, Centenary Hall, and the National Archives in Abeokuta.
I think that if you don't have women’s appearances in the record, then not only is that erasure but it's very harmful, because I think, personally, that silence is violence and it reproduces violence. It’s saying that there was no woman that was contributing to, in this context for instance, change in Nigeria. So I think it's very important we ensure that women’s voices are documented so that future generations know that what they're doing is not new. -Lanaire Aderemi
For Aderemi, there are easy parallels between the communal spirit of these contemporary movements and that of the Egba Women’s Revolt and Abeokuta Women’s Union, where Ransome-Kuti emerged as the prominent face of the movement but, “She kept saying that our values are unity, democracy, cooperation, everybody's equal. That was constantly the rhetoric that was repeated within their meetings.” She also adds that an in-depth knowledge of a past event like the revolt is an ultra-important point of reference that can help future organizing efforts.
Andi Segal, left, with her prom date. (Maxwell Poth for the Los Angeles LGBT Center)
Last month, the Los Angeles LGBT Center held its 27th annual Senior Prom event, which invites members of the LGBTQ+ community over age 50 to celebrate being gay — something many of them were ashamed of as teens. The June 28 event closed out Pride Month — which can sometimes be difficult for seniors to participate in.
A lot of Pride celebrations aren’t necessarily the greatest for folks that are older to get to and engage in. To feel like they’re still able to celebrate being part of the community is really important. -Kiera Pollack, director of senior services at Los Angeles LGBT Center
This year, more than 300 seniors dressed up in prom outfits and gathered at the Los Angeles Zoo for an evening of dinner and dancing. The prom is free and includes transportation, as well as assistance to purchase an outfit for seniors who can’t afford to do so. Most of the attendants are between 60 and 80. Guests are welcome to bring a date if they wish, but Pollack said some people met new romantic partners at the prom.
Mel Weiss, 88, has attended several senior proms over the years. He grew up in an orthodox Jewish family and came out only about 20 years ago. Meeting other gay seniors, Weiss said, has helped him feel more comfortable in his own skin. Socializing at the senior prom is a yearly highlight for him. Andre Simpson, 67, said he didn’t expect to get a second shot at attending prom, but he’s glad he did. He said the evening was memorable and meaningful.
It’s an inoculation against the past hurts, the past pain. A lot of elders in the LGBTQ community have survived a lot, and still their spirits are happy. They’re still joyful inside. They have not been destroyed by life’s disappointments. -Andre Simpson
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Samiha Hossain (she/her) is an aspiring urban planner studying at Toronto Metropolitan University. Throughout the years, she has worked in nonprofits with survivors of sexual violence and youth. Samiha firmly believes in the power of connecting with people and listening to their stories to create solidarity and heal as a community. She loves learning about the diverse forms of feminist resistance around the world.