On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation , a special screening of the film “La scuola nella foresta” by Emanuela Zuccalà will take place on Thursday, February 4th at 7:00 p.m. The meeting will be streamed live on the Zona and OpenDDB Facebook pages.

For 200 million women worldwide, the passage from childhood to adulthood is marked by the blood of genital mutilation. It is an ancestral tradition that subjugates women through suffering, and which persists in 30 countries around the world, 27 of which are on the African continent.

In Liberia, female genital mutilation is legal. It is practiced as initiation into a secret women-only society called Sande, which is present in 11 of the country’s 15 counties.
Sande is considered the guardian of the traditions and culture of its ancestors. In its “bush schools,” whose entrance rite is the cutting of the clitoris, girls spend a few months to a few years learning respect for their elders, the duties of future wives and mothers, and dances and songs. They remain completely illiterate.
The “bush schools,” inaccessible to non-members of the sect, receive regular licenses from the Ministry of the Interior.
So far, Sande’s enormous political influence has kept Parliament from passing a law criminalizing female genital mutilation.

While decades of women’s struggles in many African countries have succeeded in reducing genital mutilation and making it punishable by law, in Liberia the journey has only just begun.
Giving voice to three Liberian women’s rights activists who risked their lives for their courage in opposing Sande, this film joins their painful and passionate denunciation.

PROGRAM

7:00 p.m. | Screening of the film (22’) in the OpenDDB (Distribuzioni dal Basso) virtual cinema

7:30 p.m. | Livestreamed meeting on the Zona and Open DDB Facebook pages with Emanuela Zuccalà (director), Valeria Scrilatti (director of photography), and Giulia Schiavoni (No Peace Without Justice). Moderated by Stefania Ragusa (Africanist journalist)

Recommended price €5 (which includes the possibility of watching the film for 24 hours)

For information: info@zona.org

A project in collaboration with No Peace Without Justice