News / Bristol24/7
10 Years of Bristol24/7: Fahma Mohamed
The first ever Bristol24/7 magazine in 2014 featured comedian Noel Fielding on the cover, while the second featured an 18-year-old from Barton Hill called Fahma Mohamed.
Fahma Mohamed was our second magazine cover star in November 2014, with this photo taken by Dave Betts who sadly died in 2023
Fahma came to Bristol with her family when she was just seven-years-old and later became a young trustee with Montpelier-based charity Integrate UK.
Alongside three other young trustees, in 2014 Fahma worked with Integrate on a campaign to encourage schools to teach about the risks of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
is needed now More than ever
The campaign ultimately led to a meeting with then education secretary Michael Gove and then UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon.
In 2016, Fahma received an honorary doctorate in law from the University of Bristol.
In 2020, it became a legal requirement for secondary schools across England to teach about FGM.
In 2014, Fahma won the Outstanding Young Campaigner award at the Women of the Year Awards – photo: Women of the Year Awards
FGM is described by the World Health Organisation as the “partial or total removal of external female genitalia”.
It is a practice most often carried out on young girls and can cause severe complications including urinary problems, excessive bleeding and death. Defenders of FGM often point to religious or cultural justifications.
It is estimated that just under 140,000 women and girls are living with “the consequences of FGM” in the UK.
The 2003 Female Genital Mutilation Act makes it an offence to carry out FGM in the UK or to take a child abroad for the practice to be carried out.
Fahma Mohamed is now 28 years old – photo: Delphine Ross
Ten years after the initial campaign, Fahma now works at Babbasa, a youth organisation based in St Paul’s, as a mentoring lead.
She says she does this work to “encourage the next generation, helping them find their own voice and giving them a platform to be able to speak about issues they feel passionate about, just as I did ten years ago”.
Reflecting on the 2014 campaign, Fahma said: “It feels like such a wild ride. A part of me sometimes feels like that was a whole different person just because it feels like it happened so long ago.
“I can’t believe that I managed to achieve so much.
“And also sometimes I’m baffled at how I had the confidence to be able to speak so loudly and so freely about such a sensitive topic…and kind of not care what other people think – like the people in my community or men that didn’t like the fact we were talking about women advocating for women and our own bodies.”
During the 2014 campaign, Fahma met then UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon – photo: UN Photo
Fahma added: “I’m proud that I used the little power and influence that I had to help other young girls out there who didn’t have that power, that control, that influence to make decisions for themselves and their own bodies.”
She continues to campaign against FGM and hopes to help replicate the success of the 2014 campaign in other countries.
Integrate UK, the youth charity who Fahma worked alongside in 2014, has also continued their work against FGM.
Lisa Zimmerman, Integrate UK’s CEO and a former teacher, said the charity’s work on FGM began in earnest in 2007, when four of her pupils at City Academy decided to write poetry to “challenge the taboo around FGM”.
Over the years, her students continued to do campaigning work against FGM – including creating a film about FGM called Silent Scream which won a BFI award – causing Lisa to establish Integrate UK in 2009 to help more young people fight for “racial and gender justice”.
Shortly after the initial campaign in 2014 with Fahma, which involved a change.org petition that generated over 230,000 signatures, Integrate UK released a tongue-in-cheek music video called #MyClitoris which went viral.
They also released a short film called Switched, to try and get more young men involved in their work to combat FGM.
In 2024, Integrate UK’s focus has been on knife crime and colourism.
The charity has produced films on both subjects and will premiere these films at Chatham House in London on October 21 before showcasing them again at their annual youth conference at Bristol Aquarium on November 8. For more information about both events, please contact info@integrateuk.org.
Tickets for our ten-year anniversary party are available now on the Spiegeltent website
This article is part of 10 Years of Bristol24/7, a series taking a look back at some of our magazine covers ahead of our anniversary party at the Spiegeltent on November 30. To get your tickets, visit christmasspiegeltent.co.uk/product/b10-celebrating-10-years-of-bristol-24-7-30th-nov.
Main photo: Fahma Mohamed
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