Contributor

Jaha Dukureh

FGM survivor and founder, Safe Hands for Girls, L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth 2015 Honoree

Jaha Dukureh is the founder of Safe Hands for Girls​, which is a nonprofit organization set up in 2013 working to protect girls and young women who are at risk from female genital mutilation (FGM), while supporting survivors. Jaha is the lead campaigner against female genital mutilation in the U.S. Jaha successfully lobbied President Obama and the Department of Health and Human Services to take the essential first step of commissioning a report on the current statistics of women in the U.S. impacted by FGM and the girls at risk of being mutilated. She is a 25-year-old FGM survivor. Having experienced FGM as a child in her home country The Gambia, she has dedicated her life to ensuring that the girls of her daughter’s generation do not go through the same rite of passage. She has used a traveling roadshow and an international documentary to bring the message home that expatriates like herself are abandoning the practice.

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