In the Name of Your Daughter

In Tanzania, mutilated girls command twice the bridal price as uncut girls. Terrified of the stories of girls bleeding to death during the horrifying ‘cutting season’ during the school holidays in December, girls, some as young as eight, are faced with a complicated dilemma; whether to submit to being cut or to run away, not knowing if they’ll ever see their families again.

We follow the feisty and courageous Rosie Makore (12), who is one of the brave girls who have decided to run away from home, leaving everyone she loves behind to save herself from female genital mutilation (FGM) as well as the child marriage, which would have followed soon after.

To protects the girls, Rhobi Samwelly runs a Safe House and travels around the country fighting the thousands-year-old tradition. FGM is illegal in Tanzania, but old customs die hard. In cooperation with the Safe House, the police start cracking down on FGM, arresting parents and cutters while rescuing girls at risk. As the year’s cutting season winds down, in heart breaking reconciliation meetings, parents must decide if they’ll spare their girls and take them back.