Bezunesh: We need to convince the religious leaders by the word of God to end FGM

Bezunesh and Tesfye has been teaching christian religious leaders in rural Ethiopia to understand the problems of Female Genital Mutilation. This time it was not easy to convince the listeners to stop, because the practice is so strongly connected to the christian belief. Luckily Bezunesh and Tesfaye are both educated theologists so they knew how to use their Bible against FGM. This is their report:

Reasons against FGM according to the word of God

We choose this topic because after a few weeks the season our community will start the season of FGM. Our community has the belief that FGM is the word of God. So, we want to give strongly teaching through the real word of God trough the Bible. 

This time we teach in Telota KCH for two days. Our training was focused on group of church leaders, youth leaders, choir leaders and women leaders. 

These listeners didn't accept the teaching against FGM without questioning.

When we started our training by talking the truth of how Bible says about FGM some learners started started to question our teaching:

"How can we stop our culture? Because when we stop the circumcision of female maybe they could not get their marriage. So, what is your suggestion as our teacher?"

"Is FGM a sin against God?" 

"We ourselves are born from the circumcised women of our mothers, so if FGM is a sin, does it create problem for us and the coming generation?"

"How will ending FGM affect the lives of our girls?" 

And so on.

For these kind of critical questions we give a strong explanation for each of questions based on what we selected texts from the Old Testament and New Testament. We give the response for their questions, that according to the word of God FGM is sin because God not give any kind of commandment to practice of FGM on the lives of women. He knows which part of body is important for our life in sexuality and giving the birth. Even according our governmental law the practising FGM is sing of disobedience. So when we exercise this harmful traditional practice, all times we are accountable in front of God and government.

After our training some learners are accept our teaching and they decide to stop in their girls life practice of FGM and the others still now they want additional teaching to get more understanding about our teaching. As they ask us, we promise to continue our teaching with them in next time.

We wish all the best to all of the readers. God bless you. Have a good time.