Sixty Sierra Leonean women have gone through a bloodless Bondo initiation without genital cutting/mutilation at the Rosenbgeh village, Koya chiefdom, Port Loko district.

The initiates were between the ages of 19 and 33 years and were the third batch to be initiated into the ‘bloodless Bondo’ Society in the country.

Among the initiates were lactating mothers and students who have passed through the alternative rites of passage.

Director of (AIM-SL), Rugiatu Neneh Turay said Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) is a practice that has retrogressed women, especially in deprived communities in the country.

She said most of the victims with health complications are women that have gone through FGM initiations, adding that apart from the medical implications women undergo, politicians were also brain washing them by supporting them to take their daughters for FGM initiation.

Ms. Turay said: “Women have suffered economic and psychological trauma as result this inhuman to practice. To ensure that such heinous practice is abolished, we are working alongside the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, Ministry Health and Sanitation as well as working with Social Welfare Ministry to get women to go through the process without spilling blood.

“Sometimes midwives complained about the type of constraints women normally go through during child birth is because the thing that should have helped them to deliver safely has been removed. The Bondo without harm ceremony demonstrated the focus on protecting women and girls in Sierra Leone.”