Our main topics to be. Initiation rites before we talk about lets look at what some young men have to go through the numbers may not be as high but this suffer mental and physical pain across africa different cultures smog a transition from boyhood to manhood initiation rituals in south africa many young men lose their lives thats a result. Close to the fall river early in the morning in these initiation students practice traditional chants it is a highly secretive process we are lucky out of 20 students these 5 and their future are willing to talk they perform a cleansing ritual in the river every morning these schools are infamous for their allegedly brutal methods but this young initiate shows no signs of fear. You see some guys are scared but thats only because other people things so some have this fear but because this is our culture i fear nothing i feel like most of the boys here have to go through it. The traditional. And pretty ethnic groups believe a boy can only become a man if he goes through the rites of passage like. Stick fighting and hunting the rite of passage culminates with the circumcision of the students performed in an open field by a traditional healer while only a minority of the schools are accused of mistreating their students many push questionable ideas about masculinity. Because once you become displeasing kin to cry its like. Someone you have posed. In pain is like here we did of a little to be. Attitudes like this made this young mans experience all the more painful at the age of 18 or lani acosta was sent by his father to an Initiation School as soon as he arrived he and his cousin were subjected to daily beatings but while on his cousin was a proud young man and defied the humiliations so he was often taken aside and punished repeatedly with further beatings one evening the eldest took him away once again to teach him a lesson this time he never returned and never came back because he was a fight it was one person that quits then him self. For. The painting to a point where. They killed. And the new realize that too far in the ages came back and to that i think. The Initiation Schools on to registered all monitored much like female genital mutilation initiates can also die as a result of botched circumcisions traditionally known as will lose ones manhood forever. Asked about the whereabouts of his cousin one of the elders threatened him with the same fate kalani knew then that he had to flee for me i had to choose in terms of her to my mother and my. By being it is. Her to my mother and my being to so i. Thought which one is best. Well arnie opted for life thats nights he ran away and never returned but his decision brought disgrace on his family and hes too scared to go back to his Community Today years after the ordeal he still lives far from his village and has no contact with his parents. Ive been in a lot of fights and i. Know youve been in this one make you constantly have to prove yourself as a man and i dont think that will and. And to get confirmation from. Having an open discussion about the point of initiation rites is almost impossible because the young men are not supposed to talk about their experiences. Many who are traumatised carried with them for the rest of their lives. In top work a little more than 400 young men have lost their lives in the past 7 years now the challenges faced by these young men and small to play forward when we talk about young women foreign here to female genital mutilation already for most young women and girls its a violation of their physical and mental wellbeing. With more. Hello there and welcome to the spread a safe space where we get to discuss everything sex and relationships so there are 4 types of female genital cutting also known as female genital mutilation or f g m b type one is the partial or total removal of the clutter is tied to is a partial or total removal of the earth and then maybe a menorah type 3 is the marrow of the vital orifice then using the womb shut they leave a small hole the size of a pinky finger to urinate and for menstruation once she has intercourse for the 1st time its up to the man to open her up again which obviously causes a lot of pain and bleeding for includes all of the harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non medical purposes for example piercing burning or incisions so many women have and continue to experience both sexual and Reproductive Health issues as a result of this some of the effects could include complications during their menstrual. Hemorrhage and infections. So severe because death in an effort and f g m c there are communities worldwide that are working hard to eradicate the practice this involves having conversations about the dangers involved. All time self hostile come on in many african countries for the latest edition of street to be. In money problems due to the increase. In kenya region many young woman lost a leg specter when the goal of this painful procedure just reached a young woman washing when and confronted a mother who forced her to be caught. In the year 2011 kenya passed a law that basically said that female genital mutilation was illegal despite this is still being practiced across the country and even here way we are in a rural county and you want to investigate why and id like to begin with selena who is actually a member of this community and an activist i know for a fact that you had said to your mother the 2 didnt want to undergo this right and she forced you to. I think for me my mom of course she wanted me to grow up like a normal my say child girl child because my grandma was a cutter i used to go to watch many girls being circumcised so it was such a traumatic experience for me and i kept telling my mom that its something i never want to go through so she didnt think that my decision or my choice counted so she went ahead and decided for me the event planned as a surprise ceremony and upon coming home from visiting my uncle everything was said and i found a group of women and they dislike me in 1st me. So normally apostle weve just heard from your daughter that you forced her to get f g m why did you do that camilla and not the mother why are you make my marotta a 1000000 allied in the middle you might not be. So you mean to tell me that if there was no law against if g. M. You would still practice it. Among some of the real one but nonetheless. There move. Them aside then another. Family their mom i dont know. That theyd. Amongst and. So let me ask the men in this community we have some very good looking morals here dodie come up when im at work you must say one is ok oh im one im can buy i had a cattle. Farm when mr perry. Good to cook and i think that later. But idea were talking about a humble practice here one of the long term effects of f. J. And what have you had to contend with psychologically if jim is not something that ends with the day you have got something that follows you for a lifetime 2 hours after the cut you start she varying you start feeling fever your body temperatures rise so you can contract infections those are the short times after you are no much you are even the mrs coming out is easier challenge another thing is that when you are mad that day and you go through a process called if you believe its another reopening then when you are you want to give back and in our community we give but as long as we can so that means after every but you have to be kept for you to pass the child yes all right were also hearing from all these women who have undergone if g. M. That it does cause complications that is harmful so do you want another one of your daughters to go through that i am as i am. The mallow im about when im through hell i mean my boss and is here with you guys and. Then i mean good bye. Chief here you are somebody comes to the Police Station and says ive just been forced to go through and weve read some instances where the Police Officers ask them for photos of the thing happening this is not realistic what makes these guys not report the time they got there that being nothing more and. Theyre stigmatized with their yeah that is that is that is out hell be because. Most of the stations dont have. Press 10 protections and most of the. Battle maybe i had to go to the trooper to the Police Station so but isnt that why we have so many layers of administration so that if the police if you as a chief is not able to come to this community should you be able to send people to survey. I think people have to check no i mean if were saying that the people being circumcised or you know going through f g m a 9 or 10 how will they know to come to report what we do and that probably helped us a lot we collaborate with the church is the village elders and the community at large ok but to to to be fair chief we already know that thats not working its not really working entirely so lets talk about arrests have there been any people arrested in iraq. For many even that you saw days not agreeing with you but i want to come to salina 1st because is this ringing true to you or do you feel like you can trust the Police Officers to enforce the law 1st of all we dont have any Police Station in may really chief were being told you dont even have a Police Station here so where would you even begin in fact we have here shes saying shes saying in most or in most recently in fact that is no so how do you enforce a law when they enforce those are not that we do try ok so speaking of stakeholders kaz. What more can we do as women to work with the women who are still going through this how can we be more active stakeholders i feel like we really need to be able to understand the ways in which different communities are able to absorb information and then use that and take that and find ways to educate women and my more precise question is how do we begin to change the mindset of mama who is old and very set in her ways how do we begin to educate or to have conversations with her in a way that she can have a ha moment where shes like actually we need to stop that ok education is something that youre very keen on is this the way forward to stop after him do you think we have a center in most rural its more of a rescue center now because girls are falling into that institution is getting Child Marriage and if g. M. So creating said safe spaces in guessing you kitchen will be a huge. Thing that can solve this issue of g. M. Ok saudia what is your proposal moving forward how do we finally get rid of this we need to have county and Community Based approaches for my Community Maybe engaging the religious leaders in a walk for the mass i maybe alternative right rite of passage might what because these people have values attached so how do we do link if jim from the legion how do we dealing if g. M. From a culture what are the Political Leadership doing about it our female politicians to begin with youre talking about changes right from the top all the way to the bottom this is where we have to call it are up theyve been fantastic solutions which have been suggested i really hope the people who can implement them are listening and speaking to you chief thank you for watching. Raising awareness is the best way to cause lasting change and i because that is exactly what some young people. There created a Radio Program and on this program they discuss all manner of topics like rape abortion and. 18 year old greece theory has been the junior reporter for 6 years she lives in the capital of the ivory coast in her Society Women do not have the same rights as men and certain topics like female genital mutilation simply are not talked about but grace doesnt shy away from tough topics todays review report is about abortion. People dont talk about it the things you see thing to keep secret from their families which cues a lot of young groups need to be complicated to talk to people about abortion but now do my best to convince them its a topic we have to interrupt late. The subject is taboo in the ivory coast because many people consider it a mather all interference with gods will many abortions take place in secret without medical support and on the hygiene of conditions greece wants to open the conversation level why dont we notice that more and more young girls have an abortion i would like to know what to think about. This risky the girl could die become infertile have consequences for her social life it could hurt a physically womens empowerment remains a challenge in topic in the country i villains are not used to being asked of these questions especially not by a young woman breaking the code of silence this is the goal of the radio show a young person a message here everything will be discussed sexuality Domestic Violence rape or female genital mutilation the project was launched in 2014 since then greece and had colleagues produce he won a show every saturday stephanie i. Q. Is one of the senior. List who supports the junior reporters. Go to the full so you know it is the kids opened up they expressed their feelings they talked about things they would not have talked about before they got involved in the last. What used to be awkward has become normal for the 18 year old and that fills greeces with pride. Secure we need to congratulate young girls like gracie take initiative because thanks to them we can move forward really we need to encourage them. Encouraging young girls to speak up this is what greece did and her Program Stands for. A fair. Bit yes because. Then people say greece has decided to study journalism and shes determined to empower other young girls like here. Its a very difficult to get over shyness but i encourage my friends my grandparents my parents my brothers and sisters the people i know to talk about taboo subjects but if we dont talk about it no one will do it for us. Please once you continue speaking out for the voiceless not raising her voice is simply not an option anymore. Speak up raise your voice that is the message that i got from that last report and here is strong voice straight out a composite ugandan boxer patricia he is their brain in well kick boxing champion but the 2 time world title holders this she wont fall equate until shes defeated Sexual Harassment in uganda sport left you dont want to mess with. 13 titles to him named patricia is the reigning world boxing champion in the female lightweight division. A lot. Courage to stand up it takes a lot of courage to have to make it to the top i mean even when you make it to the top some people still doubt but if you listen to the voices of other people than listening to yourself you find out you block out your soul from what really you want to be. True ill take area she has faced negativity and discrimination in uganda kick boxing is considered immense on the sport so patricias rise to the top was an uphill struggle. People are not going to and thats what i want to change. Just to be one for you to want to. I choose to be a champion wife because when i was a young that had a lot of truth bedrooms dont come usually. So i reached a point whereby i said i have followed enough but get back turning me but what do i have to tell myself the 2 time World Champion isnt just a tough opponent in the ring she also supports female athletes who have suffered Sexual Harassment and violence apologue has a very clear message for the paper treat people are mentally sick because you have something to show to the wild but someone is actually limiting access to reach where you want to go one of the girls were crying about Sexual Harassment a lot of them but its never occurred to me because once i showed them what i wanted. No one even ever thought about coming that here patricia this and this of course for me my school days with the hell out of today patricia upload knows that she cant just let her fists speak for themselves in her home village in goa the 29 year old found it flat for mostly young female keep boxes she believes that hope for a bit of future starts with the young generation is specially if leaders also work towards creating a safer environment to further develop their talents we can do this we can achieve it we are greater than we are actually we are the beginning of every. This years she is focused on defending a world title she is convinced that he acumen some inspire more african girls to stay focused on their dreams. When was the last time you waste up your voice how did you speak up against inequality and your pressure of women let us know at 77 r d w dot com or through our community on facebook now from kampala we head straight to nairobi to meet the rapper by the good look in here who would of done daughter but significant thing about done dora is that its a slum built on a dump site not the kind of place you expect to be but i leave you to be the judge of that introducing the golo and done dora project my view. Of sr even now i dont even know. The name that. Most people think that music is the. Cream you know i was trying to change the perspective. Only men can do so theyre shut. That and my gallant a new people a lot of my training were to make i think they i mean they only went in i think and sucking. Plenty of lettuce in the dining room and most people know me as a lady and i like to sing and not only for sleeping because we need to live then it is a sham thing to notice from the book think that the night is a man who clings but then must think of that. It was done not to see to or to next be like just dumps it is talk my duty of that may robbins most of the always ends up here the nod to the north are many people see no drugs or crackers. We see ourselves beyond the guards our standard rate book city we are going to chance than ours. Its not. To be here just. Theres only. One and only. The latest. And billy. Martin one distribution. Is. Making. Issues affecting the community and fighting for their rights as. You know with. Gov bush 100. 77 percent or so about creating space for debate and given voice to the forceless so much this is home you are super welcome suddenly one of our strongest voices has been silenced for ever it breaks my heart to tell you that our 70 percent radio presenter. Has passed away after a long battle with. This stuff and enjoying the w. In 2012 she was loved by everyone on the team short joy for she was kind and could always count on c. P. To bring some positive energy to the team. You wear and you still have an african star so this is where you go for artist. African style good bye see 90 year and goodbye to you our viewers see you next time. Tell me. This is not just. So they watch again to. Find. Him not t