Tostan founder Molly Melching was a featured speaker at The Daily Beast’s Women in the World summit.

Melching’s organization Tostan is a global leader in the movement to stop genital cutting, an initiative we’ve featured here on AOC, not only because we support the end of FGC, but also because Tostan has succeeded in transferring power and decision-making about FGC to a local village level in Senegal.

As a white woman and transplant to Africa, Ms Melching was somewhat reluctant to become a leader in such a sensitive cultural practice. The women disagreed, saying “This isn’t about you; it’s about us. We are Tostan.”

When Melching began educating village women in 1997 a local Muslim leader named Demba Diawara came to tell Melching that Tostan’s program was leading to trouble.

“This isn’t the way to end female genital cutting,” he said. “Change has to come from within.” So Melching asked the Islamic leader how he would approach the problem. “I would put on my shoes and walk to all the surrounding communities,” he said. Since women from one village marry the men of another, it’s crucial that both communities accept the end of the practice, so that women don’t find themselves isolated, ostracized, and unable to find suitable husbands, he explained. Ending female genital cutting was never going to happen until all the villages decided to abandon the practice together. via The Daily Beast

Hitting the road, Tostan has become so effective in empowering villages to end the practice of female genital cutting that today 4,229 communities out of 5,000 in Senegal have abandoned the practice.

Molly Melching didn’t travel alone to the Women in the World summit. As you will hear, she brought a village leader and colleague Marietou Diarra, who shared a heart-breaking story about female genital cutting and her personal efforts now on behalf of her culture — and women — to change the practice.

Yes, the tears were running down my cheeks, but the important fact is what has happened since this sad story. Like so many women in Africa, Marietou Diarra took action.

A Mother’s Worst Nightmare

The efforts to end Female Genital Cutting are so widespread in Senegal that last month the government announced a comprehensive strategy for achieving its goal of nationwide abandonment by 2015.