Project Description: In spring 2008, the Leitner Clinic partnered with Timap for Justice, a grassroots justice organization in Sierra Leone, to design a pilot project that focuses on the eradication of female genital mutilation (FGM) at the grassroots level. The Leitner team consisted of Fordham Law students Nasim Farjad (`08), Meghna Saxena (`08), and Helen Shin (`08) and was co-supervised by Prof. Chi Mgbako and Anna Cave, an associate at the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell. The dedication of Timap’s paralegals is remarkable and deeply moving. Timap’s justice work in communities throughout Sierra Leone should serve as an example for other organizations throughout the world where the formal justice system is not easily within the reach of ordinary people. –Helen Shin (’08)
Project Outcome: The Leitner Clinic produced an internal organizational strategy document for Timap that explored concrete ways that Timap can begin to tackle FGM at the grassroots and policy level in a manner that genuinely includes the voicesof rural and less powerful citizens. The document includes 1) a detailed roadmap for the creation of a pilot community based anti-FGM initiative; 2) an analysis of successful anti-FGM legislation in similarly situated countries; and 3) an analysis of FGM’s negative health and human rights implications. Timap will use the document to implement an anti-FGM community-based pilot initiative in one or two communities in Sierra Leone. In addition Penetrating the Silence in Sierra Leone: A Blueprint for the Eradication of Female Genital Mutilation, was published in the Harvard Human Rights Journal.
Description of Fieldwork: In Sierra Leone, FGM is a widespread cultural practice. Over 90% of Sierra Leonean women have undergone FGM. Because FGM in Sierra Leone is performed within female secret societies, known as the Bondo, FGM remains an intensely taboo subject and challenging terrain for human rights advocates. The Leitner Clinic spent months researching successful anti-FGM grassroots initiatives and anti-FGM legislation in Africa. In order to ensure that the anti-FGM pilot project proposal for Timap would reflect the reality on the ground in Sierra Leone, the Leitner team traveled to Sierra Leone in March 2008 in order to incorporate ideas, information, and recommendations from human rights activists and community members in Sierra Leone. Specifically, the Clinic team interviewed Timap’s paralegals, as well as some of Timap’s clients, in Magburaka, Yele, Kaniya, Bumpeh, Bo, and Freetown. They also interviewed human rights activists and medical practitioners who are working to eradicate FGM in Sierra Leone as well as girls who have fled their villages to escape the practice. In addition, the Clinic team met with young girls who have undergone FGM and were in the process of being initiated into the Bondo secret society.
