14-year-old Musteriah Muhadin from the eastern Ethiopian Erer Valley is a strong girl. When she was due to be circumcised according to the tradition, she put up a vehement fight and threatened her parents: “If you do that to me, I’ll go and tell Karl!” Generations previously, girls of her age would undoubtedly have wished nothing more ardently than to protest against the cruel mutilation of their genitals and the life-long, agonising consequences. But the family and social support was lacking for such a courageous step. In large scale educational campaigns Menschen für Menschen today urges families to question injurious traditions, and gives them courage to resist.

The cruel traditions of circumcision and compulsory marriage as a child mean a deep, painful incision into the life of the girls and women in Ethiopia. Although it is officially prohibited, both rituals are deeply rooted in Ethiopian society – particularly in rural regions. Girls and women suffer a life long from the psychological and physical consequences.

Karlheinz Böhm vehemently opposes these torturous traditions. In 1991 he was obliged to see how Safia died an agonising death from the effects of circumcision. Although her parents had promised him not to subject the girl, who suffered from epilepsy, to the cruel ritual, he found her a few days later dying in the hospital. Devastated to the core, Karlheinz Böhm called an unprecedented educational campaign to life under the name “Safia”. During his many years of work he has established a bond of trust with the population and laid the basis for a dialogue. Today village chiefs, Christian and Muslim dignitaries in the Menschen für Menschen project regions publicly renounce circumcision and early marriage.

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