In 1994, a frightened 17 year old girl boarded a plane to flee an impending forced marriage to a much older man with three other wives. In a small room waiting for the groom, in Togo, West Africa, Fauziya Kassindja was also warned that a woman would soon arrive to excise her clitoris and other parts of her genitalia in preparation for her impending nuptials. From time immemorial, women in her community needed to be "clean" for their husbands and to gain acceptance into society. In honor of her father who had protected her until his sudden death, Fauziya refused that day to undergo the harmful practice of female genital mutilation, or FGM, and escaped.
