Bogota, Colombia – Two women rush onto the floor of Colombia's Senate chamber. The radiating beadwork around their necks and the red and green of their clothing cut through the dark-suited crowd of legislators.
One of the women, Claudia Quiragama, steps behind the wooden podium in the centre of the chamber. She pulls the small, silver microphone close to her mouth. It is a moment to celebrate.
Colombia has just become the first Latin American country to approve nationwide legislation prohibiting female genital mutilation, or FGM.
Quiragama, an Indigenous Embera leader, is from a remote community where the practice is still carried out. She hails the moment as a turning point.
"I’m grateful to all of the legislators," Quiragama told the chamber on Wednesday. "This is what we need — for the needs we face in our territory to be addressed."
Wednesday marked the fourth and final debate for Colombia's Bill 440, known by the slogan "Ninas sin ablacion" or "Girls without mutilation".
After a two-year-long push, the bill was passed unanimously. It now awaits approval from Colombia's president, Gustavo Petro.
Colombia is the only Latin American country where the practice is currently recorded, mostly in Embera communities in the western departments of Choco and Risaralda.
Recognised by the World Health Organisation as a human rights violation, female genital mutilation is defined as the full or partial removal of genitalia for non-medical reasons, through methods like cutting or burning.
But the practice is still widespread. Some 230 million women and girls around the world are estimated to have undergone some form of genital mutilation.
Up until recently, the practice was thought to have disappeared in Latin America. But in 2007, two girls in Colombia died from the procedure after their injuries became infected.
Their deaths marked the first recorded instances of female genital mutilation in Colombia's recent history, and they catapulted the issue back into the spotlight.
In the two decades since, Indigenous leaders and politicians have fought to end the practice. But traditions of secrecy, they warn, still stand their way.
'An enormous undercount'
Quiragama knows firsthand how difficult it can be to track instances of female genital mutilation. Her community in Choco is one of the places where the practice is still happens.
“Previously, many girls died,” Quiragama told Al Jazeera. “But their mothers never said they died because of this. They said it was from illness.”
One Choco territory, Alto Andagueda, recorded two cases last month, she added. But Quiragama learned that one of the girls was not given any medical treatment after the procedure, because her family feared child welfare services might intervene to take the child away.
Such fears and taboos have left the practice shrouded in secrecy, relegated to some of the most remote parts of Colombia.
As a result, legislators believe the government's statistics drastically underestimate the scale of the problem.
Between January 2024 and March 2026, 98 instances of female genital mutilation were recorded in the country. Of those cases, 70 percent were under the age of one.
"We have, of course, an enormous undercount," said Representative Carolina Giraldo, one of the authors of the new bill.
She pointed to a lack of coordination between the government institutions responsible for tracking cases. "The country's recording system for this issue is quite precarious."
Embera women report that community stigma also contributes to under-reporting.
“I knew of many girls who had it done," said Sebastiana Pepe Batesa, an Embera midwife from Choco. "But they used to say it was a secret; it could not be told to anyone."
Pepe Batesa has never carried out female genital mutilation herself. She and Quiragama, one of her daughters, have become leading figures in the fight to end the practice.
Both women say they have witnessed the pain of female genital mutilation. Pepe Batesa explained that one of her children was subjected to the procedure as a baby, resulting in devastating physical consequences.
“Her body was very pale,” Pepe Batesa recalled. “Sometimes she would sleep for days, and afterwards she would be very cold.”
While her child survived, many women experience lasting pain for the rest of their lives after undergoing female genital mutilation. It can also contribute to conditions including cysts, sexual dysfunction, urinary incontinence and psychological trauma.
'Support, not persecution'
Now a staunch proponent of eradicating female genital mutilation, Pepe Batesa has spent over a decade advocating for change.
But that position, she said, was initially met with opposition from her own community. As a result of her activism, she received threats and insults.
"At the beginning, when I started working, it was a difficult struggle," Pepe Batesa said. "They said that this should not be, that this is a violation of cultural rights, that our culture cannot be abandoned."
But Pepe Batesa said that community attitudes have changed with increased dialogue around the issue. "After listening to everything, they came around."
Organising those community discussions could be difficult, though. Many Embera villages are remote. Some lie six hours or more from the nearest population centre and are only reachable by foot, mule or boat.
Colombia's ongoing armed conflict has also contributed to the isolation some communities face.
Juliana Domico, the senior leader of the National Confederation of the Peoples of the Great Embera Nation of Colombia, said that previous initiatives lacked the resources to overcome those barriers.
“If you don't even have money for a bottle of water, you can't travel to the community where you're going to give a workshop,” Domico said.
But she's hopeful that Wednesday's legislation will help address the problem.
Bill 440 gives the Colombian government 12 months to create a permanent, nationwide public policy for the eradication of female genital mutilation.
Its approach, however, will be non-punitive. The legislation is centred on raising public awareness about female genital mutilation, and it is slated to fund educational campaigns, provide healthcare training and improve case tracking.
Representative Jennifer Pedraza, one of the authors of the bill, argues that a punitive approach would have risked driving the practice further underground.
She also worries the spectre of punishment could deter families from seeking medical treatment when victims are suffering.
"We are talking about something very intimate," said Pedraza. "It requires support, not persecution."
'Making history'
Domico, dressed in an intricately stitched top and a skirt patterned with tropical leaves, was among the Indigenous leaders in the Senate on Wednesday to witness Bill 440's passage.
Watching from the balcony above the Senate floor, she held a sign advocating for her cause. She left the vote feeling optimistic.
"We can now begin to reach more remote territories that we couldn't reach before," she said. "This is a historical debt that the Colombian state owes our people."
Leaving the Senate chamber, she disappeared into a jubilant crowd. The sounds of celebration echoed through the marble hallway.
"We feel that we are making history," Representative Pedraza said, jostled by passersby. "What we have done hand in hand with the women of the Embera communities has been very important."
But Pedraza and her co-author Giraldo believe the true measure of the bill's success will lie in its implementation.
"There is still a great deal to do. But we are going to achieve it," said Giraldo.
"I believe that, in 10 years, Colombia will be able to say: The Embera women stepped up. They fought for change."
<small>Source: Al Jazeera</small>
