Underground in America: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a film about a topic that most people in America avoid discussing, and it is FGM. Written and presented by Olivia Smith and Teri Whitcraft, the story is about a girl they refer to as Sarah, who recounts her experience with female genital mutilation as a child. Sarah was only 7 years old when her parents took her to their native India, under the pretense of visiting their family members.
Although she is now over 30 years old, Sarah still remembers the pain and terror associated with her gruesome experience with female genital mutilation. Sarah was born in Iowa and grew up in California with her parents who both originally come from India. What happened to Sarah is what is now called “Vacation Cutting”. Her parents removed a citizen of the United States from its soil and transported her to another country for the purpose of performing female genital mutilation on her.
Underground in America: Female Genital Mutilation was nominated for the Online Film and Video award in the 20th annual Webby Awards last week. The Webby Awards are determined by the number of votes the nominated films receive until the cut-off date and time. At the time of this write-up, this film had garnered 1,019,655 votes and the film was in second place. You have three more days to cast your vote for this film. We are asking you to support the film and visit the Webby Awards site and vote. To cast your vote, visit: https://pv.webbyawards.com/2016/online-film-video/general-film/drama-individual-short-or-episode/underground-in-america-female-genital-mutilation?utm_campaign=lazy-voter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=members
We thank Sarah for sharing her story with us as an inspiration, and we congratulate Olivia Smith and Teri Whitcraft for the film.