Marginalized for Refusing FGM: The Social Cost of Being “Msaghane”

In some communities, refusing FGM can be as isolating as undergoing it. Girls who avoid FGM are often labeled “Msaghane,” a term that marks them as outsiders, as if they are somehow incomplete or unworthy of belonging. The name is a scar in itself—a signal to others that these girls are different, that they have chosen a path away from what’s expected.

“My own friends stopped talking to me,” says Rehema, 15, who made the difficult choice not to undergo FGM. “They would whisper behind my back, and my family kept saying no one would marry me.” For girls like Rehema, the decision to avoid FGM means walking a lonely path, one fraught with rumors, rejection, and a constant sense of not belonging.

Parents, too, face backlash when their daughters resist the practice. “People told me I was spoiling her, that she would be a disgrace,” recalls Maryam, Rehema’s mother. “But I want my daughter to have her own choices, her own life.”

The social cost of being “Msaghane” often impacts every aspect of a girl’s life. Fatma, now 17, has learned to live with the whispers, but the isolation remains. “It’s like there’s a wall between me and everyone else,” she says. “I’m always the one left out. Sometimes I wonder if they’re right—if I really don’t belong.”

The term “Msaghane” might seem small, but to the girls who carry it, it’s a weight that lingers—a label that says they’re different, that they’re somehow less. These young women walk a hard road, facing prejudice and loneliness simply because they chose a different path.