🖋José Carlos Cueto BBC Mundo

❗Warning: This report includes descriptions of the methods related to female genital mutilation.

🔻In what women’s rights activists call a turning point, Colombia has become the first country in Latin America to declare female genital mutilation illegal. As José Carlos Cueto reports, although the bill was approved in Colombia’s Congress unanimously, it is the result of years of efforts to eradicate this dangerous and often secret practice.

Carla Kienonz says her daughter was only six months old when her grandmother’s mother cut her.

Kienonz says: “I confronted my grandmother, but she said this was natural and that I shouldn’t tell anyone.”

Because the nearest medical center was far away, Kienonz’s mother, who was a midwife, tried to ease the baby’s pain by using medicinal plants. She also spoke to Kienonz’s grandmother about it, but the elderly woman was not willing to listen.

“She said men mock women who have clitorises.”

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📷Getty Images/ BBC/ José Carlos Cueto / BBC Mundo