This is a story about Yai. She is from The Gambia.
When she was 9 years old, her father and aunt forcibly took her from the classroom to a place she had never been to before. Her father held her down while the aunt took a well-used and rather dull razor blade and proceeded to cut her clitoris. The pain was unimaginable and the bleeding continued for days. Sitting in a bucket of warm salt water did little to alleviate the misery.
Still in her teens, her father married her off to a 67 year old cousin. She became his fourth wife. The first wife was unkind at best, and downright cruel at worst. There was never enough to eat, and Yai was forced to cook, clean and take care of the other wives’ children. When she faltered or took a break, she was beaten. She would run away, but each time, her illiterate father would somehow find her, and bring her back to that terrible place.
At the market place, she met Lamin, a nice young man with gentle ways. She treated Yai with kindness and consideration. Together, they found moments of happiness in the midst of grinding poverty and began to wonder about another kind of life.
They decided to escape from their small village and went to the capital, Banjul. There, they lived in the bush for a year while working to save money for airfare. When they had enough, Lamin took Yai to neighboring Senegal for a flight to America. She arrived in New York’s JFK airport with the clothes on her back and about $100. She went to Detroit for a short time until she learned that another woman from her village was living in North Seattle. So she borrowed and begged for the bus fare.
I met Yai when I agreed to help her file for asylum. The process was long and with many hoops to jump through. It was the kind of thing that was technically so complicated that it would cause even the most courageous of applicants to consider giving up. The basis of our case was Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and it rested on the Federal cases Mohammed v. Gonzales, Abebe v. Gonzales, Abay v. Ashcroft and Benyamin v. Holder.
We didn’t give up, however. About a year after the application packet was submitted, we received notice of an asylum hearing! The hearing went well and a few months later, when I was on vacation abroad, I received an email from my law partner with “Open, Open, Open” in the subject line. Yai was granted asylum. She is doing well and no longer in fear. The doctors at Harborview Medical Center tells us that she can have a normal life, including children of her own. The last time I saw her, she said she is going to name her first daughter after me.
Thank you, Yai, I think I got more out of this experience than I gave to it.
