Time 100: FGM campaigner Jaha Dukureh makes prestigious list

US campaigner made Obama take action on female genital mutilation,
and got practice banned in the Gambia

Claire Daly
Thursday 21 April 2016 12.00 BST

Anti-FGM campaigner Jaha Dukureh has been named one of the world’s most influential leaders by Time magazine alongside John Kerry, Angela Merkel, Aung San Suu Kyi, Bernie Sanders and Christine Lagarde.

Dukureh, the lead campaigner in the Guardian’s global media campaign to end female genital mutilation, was honoured in particular for her work in the US and the Gambia but is now campaigning to end the practice worldwide in a generation, using her experiences as a survivor to build public support.

She first came to prominence with the success of her change.org petition, which received more than 220,000 signatures, asking the Obama administration to conduct a new prevalence study into the current scope of FGM in the United States.

Now based in Atlanta, Dukureh has become the leading campaigner against FGM in the Gambia. She is of a new generation of young women in the country who are working through the media to make sure that the mutilation they have suffered is not repeated on their daughters.

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