From Mali to Philly: "Mrs. Goundo's Daughter" Spans Borders

by Dave Bennion

category: Immigration Law

Published August 24, 2009 @ 05:36AM PT

[Ed. After watching the insightful and impactful film Mrs. Goundo's Daughter last month and hearing the filmmakers speak about it, I blogged about it here and Dorothee Royal-Hedinger blogged about it the same week at the Women's Rights blog.  The filmmakers, Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater, have graciously agreed to share their thoughts about the film, why they made it, and what we can learn from Mrs. Goundo and her daughter.]

Why is MRS. GOUNDO’S DAUGHTER a must-see documentary?

MRS. GOUNDO’S DAUGHTER is the story of a West African mother’s fight for asylum in the U.S. to protect her two-year old daughter from the same severe act she suffered as a child: female genital cutting. Shot in Philadelphia and Mali, the film explores the African tradition of female genital cutting, which dates back thousands of years, as well as the intricacies and frustrations of the asylum process.

Who do we hope will see this movie?

Barbara Attie: We just received some really great news—a large asylum office will be showing Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter as a part of their ongoing training effort. This is exactly the kind of goal we had for the movie, but hadn’t really thought to target this particular group. While we were making it, some immigration lawyers who were advising us kept saying, “Lawyers have to see this—so few people understand the extent and severity of FGC.”

Janet Goldwater: So while that is an ideal niche audience, we really hope to also impact a broader audience, to educate people not just about FGC, but about the asylum process, and the kind of real consequences that are played out in these people’s lives.

Barbara Attie: So we’re doing the standard distribution efforts, human rights festivals, educational distribution to classrooms and libraries (go to www.wmm.com) and then, sometime in 2010, it will be offered for PBS broadcast. It’ll be our job at the time to try to draw as much attention as possible to the broadcasts.

Why did we make Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter, a documentary about the issues of female genital cutting and asylum?

Barbara Attie:

We have done a fair amount of work around women’s health and our film previous to Mrs. Goundos’ Daughter, Rosita, explores abortion as an international human rights issue. So we are already used to difficult issues that span borders.

In 2006 we were commissioned by a national nonprofit to make an educational program about the debate surrounding FGC (female genital cutting) within Islam. I took a crew to Mali for two weeks and came back with, among other things, very compelling footage of a female circumcision ceremony where 62 girls, ranging in age from a few months to nine or ten years, were excised. In ensuing conversations with friends and colleagues about the issue, we were genuinely surprised by how often people asked if the practice was still common, if it was in fact an Islamic practice, if it doesn’t just happen in remote, isolated villages.

What we came to realize—and we think it comes across in the film—is that the communities that practice FGC are cutting their daughters in the image of their mothers, their grandmothers and their great grandmothers. For them, excision fits into a series of customs and traditions that have been passed down over many generations.

In Mali, Mrs. Goundo’s native country, approximately 85 percent of girls and women are subjected to genital cutting. The practice is nearly universal among Mrs. Goundo’s ethnic group, the Soninké. In a country where 90% of the population is Muslim, it is not surprising that many believe that FGC is an Islamic practice and use religion to justify its continuation. We spoke to a number of imams who take a range of positions – from active support, to ambivalence, to staunch opposition. We do know that the origins of the practice are unclear and that it predates the rise of Christianity and Islam. As one anti-FGC educator told us, "It’s something we continue to do without even knowing why." What did become clear to us is that one of the chief justifications for the practice is to control female sexuality.

Janet Goldwater:

We knew from the World Heath Organization that 100 to 140 million women and girls living around the world have been subjected to FGC. Armed with our new knowledge of the prevalence—and sometimes dangerous consequences—of FGC, we tried to envision a story that would educate U.S. audiences about the issue. We knew we didn’t want the film to be pigeon holed as a movie about an “exotic” practice in Africa. We wanted an angle that would be U.S.-based for a U.S. audience. We wanted to give a voice to West African women living in our city of Philadelphia, whose perspective on FGC has evolved since coming to the U.S. And we knew we wanted to highlight the ways in which grassroots groups in West Africa are starting to see some success in their campaign to end the practice.

I had heard of women in the U.S. citing fear of being subjected to FGC as a basis for seeking asylum. We asked our translator, Moussa Traoré, if he knew of anyone. Moussa was president of the tightly-knit Malian Association in Philadelphia and knows everyone. He told us about Mrs. Goundo, who was seeking asylum to protect her young daughter, Djenabou. The timing was perfect: her asylum application was filed but she had not yet been to court. Ms. Goundo agreed to work with us.

The facts of Mrs. Goundo’s asylum application were complicated by the fact that she filed after the one-year limit, although her attorney argued change of circumstances due to the birth of the daughter. Mrs. Goundo claimed that she would be unable to protect her daughter from her well-intentioned parents, who believed that all girls should be genitally cut. When we traveled to Mali, I heard firsthand, repeatedly, that this is the case. Just as Mrs. Goundo’s lawyer had to convince the judge that this was an almost certain danger, as filmmakers we knew that audience sympathy would depend on our ability to convey that as well.

Sabrina Schmidt Gordon:

I joined the production team as a co-producer after the first trip to Mali, and then later took over the editing. There were two things that appealed to me. First, the film is a Malian story told through Malian voices, allowing them to represent themselves and their culture without mediation from any outside—Western—voices. In both Philadelphia and Africa, the discussion around FGC is conducted by those affected by the practice: the women, the health educators, the politicians. As a result, what emerges is a nuanced sense of the culture in which this practice flourishes, and the debate surrounding it. Secondly, I liked the personal story through which the film engages the audience. Mrs. Goundo is not the typical, outspoken, charismatic activist often featured in documentaries about social change. In fact, she is a quiet, reserved, traditional woman motivated by a desire to do what is right for her daughter. I think a lot of women like Mrs. Goundo will be able to see themselves in her and say, “maybe I can take a stand too.”

Our challenge now is to make sure Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter gets seen as widely as possible. U.S. audiences must witness the frustrations and wild inconsistencies of the asylum process if anything is to change. The ongoing debate about the centuries-old practice of FGC has come to our shores, so we owe it to ourselves to have the information to become educated participants in the discussion.

BARBARA ATTIE AND JANET GOLDWATER, co-producer/directors, have worked collaboratively since 1990 making widely acclaimed documentaries that have been broadcast nationally and internationally. In 2005, the two Philadelphia-based artists were awarded the prestigious Pew Fellowship in the Arts. Attie and Goldwater's previous collaboration, ROSITA (2005), is the story of a 9-year-old Nicaraguan girl who was raped and made pregnant, and her parents' struggle with the medical establishment, the government and the church to end her pregnancy.

SABRINA SCHMIDT GORDON, co-producer and editor, has been working in cultural and social issues documentary filmmaking for over a decade. She is the co-producer and editor of BEYOND BEATS AND RHYMES, an award-winning documentary about manhood and gender politics in mainstream Hip-Hop. Sabrina also works on new media projects with many organizations including the National Black Programming Consortium, the American Civil Liberties Union, TruthAids, and Witness, an international human rights organization that trains activists around the world to use video as a tool for social change.

To learn more about Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter and the issues surrounding FGC and asylum, go to www.attiegoldwater.com.