In less than one month, the Justice for Girls Convening & Festival will take place in Kenya, bringing together activists, survivors, policymakers and governments, funders, and movement leaders committed to ending female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and child marriage to this generation. It is a space for bold ideas, shared strategies, and collective action, grounded in lived experience and global collaboration, at a critical moment for the gender justice community.
Below, Advocate and Survivor Expert Leader Dena Igusti reflects on what she hopes this convening will accomplish, why this gathering matters now, and what it means to them to be an Advocate and a Survivor Expert Leader.
About Dena Igust: Dena Igusti has worked with Sahiyo as a survivor-advocate, speaker, panelist, and current advisory board member.
Beyond Trauma
For eight years, Dena has shared her story as a survivor of FGM/C. Along the way, she came to recognize both the power and the limitations of survivor advocacy, particularly when survivors are expected to repeatedly revisit their trauma without meaningful support or lasting change.
“I’ve been involved in the survivor advocacy space and been sharing my story as a survivor for eight years. Early on in my advocacy journey there was a limited amount of resources available and outlets for survivors to tell their stories. Many times when I did share my experience it felt very extractive, because I had to rely on trauma and sensationalization in order to be heard by the public. Oftentimes when I shared my story with different media outlets, there would be no follow up or next steps to address the issue after I had just shared something deeply personal.
Joining the Justice for Girls movement, she says, offered the opportunity to help build a movement centered not only on survivor voices, but on survivor leadership.
I chose to join the Justice for Girls movement because I wanted to belong to a movement that centered on survivor leadership, focuses on sustainability for these movements, and provides real support and healing for survivors.”
Building an Intersectional Movement
As organizers work to develop a movement-led global plan for the next five years, Dena hopes the strategy reflects the interconnected nature of gender-based violence. Rather than treating FGM/C and child marriage as isolated issues, she believes the movement must embrace a broader, intersectional vision for justice.
“I hope that this plan will move away from siloing FGM/C and Child Marriage as eperate issues from other forms of gender violence. These issues need to be included in the boarder humans rights contexts, including racism, postcolonialism, and sexual assault. We need a more intersectional approach, with room for solidarity across movements, and a step back from a western and funder focused framework. Survivors and their needs to be at the forefront of any plans that we create.”
Survivors as Leaders, Not Symbols
For Dena, a survivor-led movement is about fundamentally shifting who shapes the agenda. She believes survivors should no longer be expected to simply share their stories, but instead be recognized as experts.
“It is vital that this convening is a survivor-led space because for too long, the goals and requirements of such gatherings by funders or large NGOs rather than those on the ground doing the work. Oftentimes survivors have to perform a kind of gratitude to these larger NGOs and funders for allowing them access to spaces to share their stories, when in reality it shows survivors who are thanked for putting themselves out there in a deeply vulnerable and personal way. This partially affects Asian survivors becasue FGM/C is not seen as a global issue that happens in many different religions, cultures, and communities.
By framing survivors as experts and leaders, this convening challenges the narrative that being a survivor is all we are; we are advocates, we are healthcare workers, we are students, we are three dimensional.”
Defending Bodily Autonomy
Dena believes the movement must respond to the changing ways anti-rights narratives are spreading. As harmful ideas are increasingly repackaged for new audiences, she argues that advocates must continue building solidarity across movements and reaffirm the fundamental principle of bodily autonomy for all.
“What we’re seeing right now is really a rise in “body optimization” rhetoric in these anti-rights movements that are used especially to target young people. What I mean by this is that conservatives are disguising traditional gender roles and ideas as a type of wellness or cosmetic improvement, as a way to indoctrinate young people into these ideas.
As these narratives continue to spread we, as survivors, must frame our advocacy within a larger global framework of bodily autonomy, which connects FGM/C advocacy to other issues like child marriage, healthcare access, and gender rights. Making our movement more intersectional and collaborative will bring us strength and progress against those who seek to take advantage of our rights, and this convening will provide us with an opportunity to begin that work.”
A Place Where Survivors Don’t Have to Explain Themselves
For Dena, healing is not separate from advocacy—it is what makes advocacy sustainable. She hopes the Justice for Girls Convening & Festival creates a space where survivors can be fully seen, supported, and connected with one another.
“Creating spaces for healing is just as critical as advocacy, because public-facing activism is often exploitative and requires survivors to repeatedly share graphic details of their trauma. This convening provides a space where survivors do not have to explain themselves, allowing for decompression and the formation of connections beyond trauma. To have a space where you are completely understood and cared for just by walking into the room is so important.
Advocacy through art and creativity is also a critical part of our work. It’s a form of activism that captures emotional truths beyond what biased quantitative statistics can provide. Storytelling, art work, and creativity allows people to access and share their experiences on their own terms.”
Funding Survivor-Led Innovation
Dena believes long-term investment does more than sustain organizations—it gives survivor-led groups the freedom to create programs that reflect their communities’ needs and priorities.
“Long-term investment would allow our organization to thrive in our work. It would allow us to create specialized initiatives tailored to their own communities rather than adhering to rigid funder expectations.
I recently attended a retreat hosted by Sahiyo, Equality Now, and The U.S. End FGM/C Network, which brought together queer, non-binary, and intersex survivors of FGM/C. During this retreat we were all able to connect, share our stories, and brainstorm ideas for further cross-movement collaboration and solutions. This retreat is an example of how done with survivors’ interests and needs in mind, funding can help us create spaces and programs we never thought possible.
Financial autonomy is essential to our movement, so that we can move away from the nonprofit-savior complex and the survivors themselves can be seen as experts and form solutions in their own image.”
Fighting for the Same Values
Throughout her work, Dena has come to see that the movement to end FGM/C is part of a much broader fight for human rights. She hopes participants leave the convening recognizing the shared values that connect survivor-led movements across communities.
“A lesson I would want to share with other participants is that survivors are fighting for the same values, healthcare, autonomy, and the right to be trusted regarding their own lived experiences as other folks. And that we deserve the power to make decisions about our bodies, our stories, our lives just like anyone else in any other movement.”
Beyond the Convening
For Dena, the work doesn’t end when the convening concludes. She hopes the relationships and trust built throughout the planning process continue long after participants leave Kenya.
“Ensuring that the conversations we have in Kenya continue in a positive way requires tangible next steps and trust from all of our participants.
Through the collaborative planning committee we have already begun to build that trust. We’ve had to coordinate, organize, and communicate across multiple continents and time zones in order to make this convening happen. Through the planning process we have built relationships that will only be strengthened by being together in Kenya.
I also think it’s important to note that funders, including the Wallace Global Fund, must continue to trust regional leaders to determine how resources are used, in order to create other events like this convening, which is survivor focused and survivor led.”
Honoring the Past, Building the Future
Looking beyond Kenya, Dena hopes the convening leaves a lasting legacy for the broader human rights movement—one that recognizes the generations of survivors and advocates whose work laid the foundation for this moment while continuing to invest in survivor-led leadership for years to come.
“I hope that this convening establishes a living, ongoing archive that honors the decades of work preceding this event, acknowledging the mentors and survivors whose expertise has often been historically undermined. The goal is to demonstrate that sustainable, survivor-led movements have existed for a long time and that this event is a culmination point to further grow that sustainability.”
