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Graffiti is special because when you do art in your room,

in your home, it's just for you, and sometimes you make a show,

exhibitions so more people see it.

But when you do in the street,

you are communicating with everybody.

The first time I started listening

to hip-hop music, I definitely just liked it.

The message was quite very strong about how people were suffering.

And automatically, I just said to myself,

"This is exactly the kind of music that can fit what I'm living."

The reason I love fashion is because of empowering women.

They make the shirt, and they're proud,

and it's also something that you can teach a lot of people.

I mean, it's a skill that anyone can learn,

I think, if they put their mind to it.

I believe in women so much,

and I know that they have so much strength and courage.

And I love to maximize their potential

because I know that they have the potential.

In sex trafficking and violence,

bodies are very, very important factor.

Most of the time when the violence happen,

somebody else is controlling the body.

When I'm doing the dance and movement,

I am the controller of the body.

I am liberating myself, and that physical experience,

that this is my body, bring an empowerment.

Women-- angry about economic, social,

and political inequality between the sexes--

took their fight to the streets.

First of all, our bottom line is

we assume that women are equal human beings.

We're not still arguing about it.

Human rights are women's rights,

and women's rights are human rights

once and for all.

Study after study shows that investing in women's leadership and development

is one of the smartest investments societies can make.

Treating women as second-class citizens

is a bad tradition. It holds you back.

Even though we have made so much progress,

there are stereotypes and prejudices

about women that are just refusing to go away.

But what about the women's revolution?

I think we're stalled.

You think about how far we've come,

and it seems like, "Okay, the problem's gotten worse."

A shocking and disturbing video appears on social media

of more than 30 men allegedly gang-raping

a 16-year-old girl in Rio de Janeiro.

200 teenage girls were abducted by heavily-armed men.

23-year-old woman in New Delhi

was brutally gang-raped on a bus.

Malala Yousafzai, a 14-year-old advocate for girl's education,

was targeted and shot on her school bus.

So if the problem's gotten worse,

clearly these strategies

that we've been employing have not been working.

So we need to think outside the box,

we need to try those sort of innovative, creative solutions.

Art is one medium through which you can address issues.

We all appreciate a good song, a beautiful painting.

So the music of art is universal.

During the concert, we get everybody out.

And then from there, you just give them information.

And we gonna use our music to put

very strong messages inside to give it to them.

They will dance, and they will learn.

Okay, not bad. We go.

When I started to make hip-hop, I was not an activist.

And it's only when I moved from Dakar to Germany,

I think I started to do some kind of activism to say I can use my voice

for those one who doesn't have the possibility to do so.

We say good morning, Sista Fa. Very nice to see you.

Sister Fa is not a nun.

She is, in fact, an award-winning

Senegalese urban, soul, and hip-hop star, and activist.

Fatou Diatta, known by her stage name, Sister Fa.

She is breaking taboos by returning to her home country

to talk about this issue. She joins me now.

Thank you so much for being with us,

and thank you for the really great work

that you're doing around...

I can say yes, but it's just like the one behind this one here.

Yeah, this is your family that you grew up with?

Yes.

Definitely

I was the first girl who was doing hip-hop as a singer.

Then I was just fighting, because in Senegal,

it was not easy for a woman to be in the hip-hop movement.

We had no place, because I think the producer,

those people were, like, more into how they can make money.

With a lady, if she get married and have children, it's over.

And I did not even wait for someone to produce my first CD.

I did it by my own.

Yes.

In Brazil, people love graffiti.

Grafitti is everywhere-- in the TV, newspaper,

magazine. It's art. It's nice.

They don't, like, call the cops to arrest you

because you're doing graffiti. They like it.

They're probably gonna offer you water or coffee,

ask if you need some paint

to finish your wall. It's incredible.

And I think what's happened to me is...

I didn't want to accept the position, to be a girlfriend of the boy.

The graffiti scene is like... really for men.

It's hard to be a girl inside of the graffiti world,

but she's doing really well.

It doesn't matter what you wanna say,

if you go to the street and write something,

people are gonna read it,

like a little kid, old guy, a poor, a rich people--

everybody's gonna see.

You know it's like, uh, democratic art.

We have to look a lot at what James Scott,

an anthropologist, calls "the weapons of the weak."

All right, these are weapons that people,

who have no formal political power, can employ.

And in Brazil, of course, the weapons of the weak have always been the weapons

of the popular classes, the lower classes,

and they've been things like samba, music, humor.

And graffiti fits right in there.

I love dancing like I love art.

Any kind of dance, poetry, music,

but I'm passionate with the dance from my childhood.

I never attracted with the stage performances.

I love dance for self dancing, and choreography,

and how I can use dance differently.

I saw a poster in 1996 with a poem.

It was an anti-trafficking poster,

with a girl's face, and I thought, "Yes, this is my path."

So, she learned about that and immediately went to Sanlap,

who was the organization that she first started working with,

and they were really rescuing girls from brothels,

helping them become survivors.

And immediately in working with them and volunteering there,

she began to recognize that the way in which they were treating these girls

was very much in their heads, but not in their bodies.

And she asked the head of the organization

if she could try something sort of experimental,

and that was just to have these women move.

So then I thought, "Okay, it's not working."

The entire infrastructure of a shelter home,

the communication of the girls,

the perspective, everything.

I thought that I need to really start to think the new way.

And then they started to tell their story,

their life, they started to talk.

She had always been an Indian classical dancer,

and she saw that the discipline

and the whole use of their bodies

was quite empowering for these young women,

and it became therapeutic in nature.

And then I found that,

"Oh, there is dance movement therapy."

It has a 40-years history,

and I was kind of, "Wow. I am on the right track."

Okay, so I was thinking today that you two could be my team, and--

- Yeah. - Yeah, I have a skirt design

- that I was gonna show you a sketch... - Yeah.

...and then see if you can make a pattern to fit her.

- Yeah, yeah. - Do you wanna start the story of how we met?

I wanna hear from your perspective.

Yeah.

Okay, when we first met with Anna,

it was in the Metala church where I used to go to church...

And I told him that I wanted to employ women to make things that I sold in the US.

And he said, "Well, why don't you come over here and start something?

Because I started a training program years ago, but it died because there was no market."

I felt like I could be the connection to the market

and design things that I knew would sell in the United States.

It will just have a simple waistband just like this.

And then it will be flared a little bit.

- So the zip should be at the side? - Yes.

Could you start working on the pattern today?

- Yeah. - Okay, thank you so much, Judith.

The first time I went to Kenya was when I was 16. I was in high school.

I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas,

but my parents are very passionate about caring for orphans.

So we moved there and lived in an orphanage,

and I went to high school over there.

And then at 19, I went to Rwanda

and I saw Hope Village,

and it's a child-run orphanage.

I was 19 and there were other girls who were my age

and I wanted them to be able to go to university.

I went back to college and made wire crosses from my dorm room and sold them,

and in a few months I made enough money to send those two girls to school.

So that was the trip that sparked my interest in using my creativity to create change.

How's it coming? Looks great.

Thank you.

- Looks very nice. - Yeah.

The motivation for Judith & James

has been to employ these women and help them.

I feel for these women, because I know they can provide for their families,

but many of them don't ever have the opportunity.

And I just don't think that's fair.

I started with Judith, and we made a laptop bag that turned out terribly.

And they had no idea what a laptop was or what size it was supposed to be,

but I assumed that they knew what a laptop was.

So there have been these points where I realize how far away I've been,

and how different our cultures are.

It's so pretty.

And then we made a skirt, and the skirt was beautiful,

and I took a few things from Judith

and a few things that I had made in my sewing class.

And I did a photo shoot here in Kenya with my little sister and some of her friends.

We posted the pictures on Facebook, people loved it

and said it looked like an Anthropology, which is always a good thing.

So the feedback from the US market through a Facebook album

is what really made me think, "Okay, this could work."

Female genital mutilation is a reality

for more than a million women today.

And despite efforts to stop the practice,

it's still prevalent in many countries.

The practice stretches from Africa to South East Asia

and to America where it was outlawed almost 20 years ago.

As the UN marks the International Day

of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation,

one woman's fight to eradicate the practice

at her home in Senegal and around the world.

Female genital cutting goes back 2,200 years.

It is a practice that we believe was started

in Egypt by the pharaohs. It was a practice that was used

to control chastity and fidelity of women.

Female genital cutting is fairly common in Senegal,

mostly in the population where they do it by tradition.

Since 2006 my decision was to work more with the kids.

I think it's time now to get the young people involved,

because they are the future.

If they get the right message,

the right information, at school where they are learning,

I do believe that in the very near future we can have the solution.

It became a social norm.

There were expectations for women to undergo this practice

if they were going to be respected in the community,

if they were to be considered worthy of good marriage.

The women became very involved in this too.

They wanted their daughters to have good husbands.

I'm sure you've had an argument that says, "Oh, it's people's customs.

You cannot intervene," and I always say to people,

we have to fight against tradition and culture

that is harmful to women.

So, we are going to Lakhikantapur.

We will be visiting HASUS shelter home,

anti-trafficking organization.

And we run dance movement therapy program over there.

So trafficking in itself, when we're looking at it,

it's just the fact that someone is being exploited

and someone else is benefiting from that,

and it could be varied.

I mean it could be for labor, it could be for domestic work.

But in sex trafficking, minor girls are being taken from their homes,

young women are being forced to come out

and be put into brothels, which are really absolute hell holes to be in.

And then they are being forced to attend to these customers

who come sometimes 10, 15, 20 in a day.

I got kidnapped from Delhi when I was four years old.

I was taken from here to there and people used me like currency.

I was just like a ten rupee note passed from hand to hand,

going from one place to another.

That's how I was passed from one house to another.

At times when I woke up, I found myself in dark rooms.

I lived with my traffickers from the age of 5 until I was 13 years old.

Then the police caught me and brought me to the shelter home.

Most of the children who are trafficked

into the brothels and red light area,

first, they cut off from their body, the disconnection.

They start to hate their body.

Work with the body is so important

because when the exploitation, the violence, and the abuse--

anything that's happened, it's a tremendous physical trauma.

We really do not have that much tool

available to work on the physical trauma.

Mercy? Yeah, Mercy, can you show us what you're making?

We're at the workshop, and these women are in training.

And so teacher Jessica is instructing them.

And there is an engine that they are going through

according to these exams that they take every six months.

So they're just upping their level of skills.

I have two companies. One is an LLC

and one is a 501c3 non-profit.

So, basically it's like I have twins.

So, the non-profit is a training program for women in the slums.

It's basically a sewing school.

And we're hoping to add more skills and more trainings other than just sewing.

And then the for-profit, Judith & James employs women

who have been trained and who are skilled to make product--

clothing and bags and jewelry.

The pattern that-- did you make the pattern?

Have you made the pattern yet?

They're working on clothing for themselves and their families.

It's just for training. So to show the teacher,

just sort of like homework, class projects,

and then they can do whatever they want to with these pieces.

But they're not for Judith & James

The community we started with is called Gituamba slum, and it's a wasteland.

And these women don't have many opportunities for work in this area.

One of them, for example, was selling chicken feet.

One of them was selling tomatoes.

One of them was washing people's clothes.

They just try to find small jobs. So, if they're at training,

they don't have an opportunity to go find a small job.

So we started giving them groceries every month,

so that their food is taken care of.

And we did training half a day, so that the other segment of their day,

they could do small work, and pay their rent.

Yeah. It's very smart.

So nice.

Tailoring can be quiet confidence-building.

First of all, it's just really nice

when you see that something that you've created

from zero has become something beautiful and someone can wear it.

You can create community with that.

You can have a tailoring place,

be a place that people learn other trades,

learn how to make things pretty,

how to be able to package them,

how to market them.

They can learn the whole finance

through something that they have produced by themselves.

So there are many ways in which tailoring can become an empowering thing for women.

And this is why the women are very nice,

but at the same time they are crying, they are serious.

She's in a kind of prison, it's as I feel.

Does this work have anything to do with domestic violence?

- I know that this is very-- - No. No.

My work, this is what people don't understand.

My work, I don't paint about domestic violence.

For a long time, I know Panmela had told us

that she didn't want to talk about how

she'd been a victim of domestic violence.

This star, and there's more stars here,

is about the women always dreaming different things in their life.

But it's interesting 'cause over the last couple of years

she said, "Now I wanna talk about it."

And I think that's her own healing process and being able to say,

"I can teach people, you know, through my own experiences."

We moved into a house that he had and when I moved,

everything changed because he felt that he had the power

and he started being aggressive.

For me, it was hard to go to my family

and say that that choice I made was wrong and I want to come back.

And I think, as happened with me, lots of women are in

situations of domestic violence, because they are afraid.

They don't have money to take care of themselves, take care of the kids.

There are lots of situation.

We are here to meet Mehraj,

so we are going now to Mehraj's house.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

People think body here, mind is here, but it's not.

It's one-self, and dance has the power--

physical, emotional, cognitive, social.

In this dance and movement,

this holistical self can come out.

I think all women should go for work.

Money is very important.

But using my intellect, my creativity,

my passion, my capability is very, very important.

When you are working, you are becoming much more free.

You are interacting lots of people.

You are contributing.

So the first training program,

we had 14 women, and it went for 18 months.

And we had Pastor John and his wife overseeing the program,

because it was in their house. Pastor John was a Kenyan,

but he moved into the slums voluntarily to reach out

to people and to start a church and to help people.

And I had known him since I was 16.

He was a good family friend.

And I initiated it, and then went back to university

for the next two years to finish my degree.

We put Pastor John in charge, and the women continued training

under the pastor and his wife while I was gone.

Anna found out that some of the money

that was being put into the training program

or into the product development was not being used properly.

I did notice a few things, like I would give him money

for four sewing tables, and there would be three sewing tables,

and he would have a new desk in his office.

But I tried not be too concerned,

because I knew he's keeping the lights on.

He's running this. I'm not gonna be able to be here on ground,

so I really do need him to just keep it going while I'm gone,

and we trusted him.

What was happening was we were paying rent every month,

and of course the pastor would say, "Hey, the rent's going up, going up, going up."

He was employing the sewing teacher, who we were paying,

to make products that the pastor's wife, Jackie, was selling in the community.

So she was starting her own business under our roof,

and the women in training weren't learning anything,

because the teacher was so distracted.

I mean, the whole day she was in the back

just stitching things, stitching things for Jackie's business.

So we were paying the overhead,

giving money for the women to have food,

paying the teacher.

But nothing was going the way it was supposed to

and the pastor was just starting his own business under the roof.

In October when I came back we talked to Judith,

and I said, "Hey, how much food are the women in training getting."

Because we were giving $500 a month for them to have everything they need.

And she said they're getting one bag of rice each, and that was it.

And so the rest of the money was going elsewhere,

to a flat screen TV in the pastor's house.

It was definitely stressful, and it was emotional.

"I can't believe these women are starving and you're buying a flat screen."

But John would deny it, and his wife would also deny it,

or they would try to explain that's just how it is here.

I think that not being here to see what was really happening on ground,

I do believe that was what drove me to wanna be here,

to make sure that things were happening the way they were supposed to,

to be able to build into these women.

So I do think that's a lot of what drove me to live in Kenya.

In Belosi?

No, I've moved to another-- I'm in a small house.

- Yeah? - Yeah.

Lukas came to make some study of the Senegalese in music,

and I was in Lukas' program

as the first single lady making hip-hop in Senegal.

Then I was making a little tour in the Casamance

and he asked if he can follow us.

In that weekend we decided to get married.

It was crazy, but...

I think it was a concrete example for me that in life,

the person who we get married--

You don't need to live with a person ten years

to be sure that it's the right person for me.

- And then you moved to Germany. - Yeah.

Do you think it's hard for her when you're away?

I don't think so, because she knows exactly what I'm doing.

But when I'm back of course, she's just like stuck on me

like she don't trust anymore. Even if I want to go to the toilet,

she want to follow me, because she thinks,

probably, I'm again going.

But I think she's fine.

...but this is my bed!

In certain communities, where Sister Fa

has gone to talk about female genital cutting,

to sing about it, to work with the children...

She has had some pushback.

I was in Guinea, it was in 2013--

I was in Guinea for a seminar with artists from Guinea.

I came back into Senegal, and then we went to Fouta.

My God, when we sent somebody who was not of the ethnic group up in the Fouta...

he was-- they threw stones and-- oh my gosh.

Molly Melching told me that

"You're going out to one of the most dangerous part

where we have resistance in Fouta."

But, do you think-- Aung San Suu Kyi, when she was trying to stand for her right

and the right of her population, do you think she did not know that it was risky?

Or Gandhi? To know that what we're doing dangerous

but should we just cross our hand and say,

"It's dangerous, we should not do"?

For me, it was clear.

This is the right place where we have to go

to talk about child right and woman rights.

But the communities was, with the mood, and there was a lot of things going on.

Population was really happy in the community, then the police said,

"Maybe it's not important to follow the tour. Everything is going well."

And it was at the third locality, at Irae Lao,

that the Khalif sent people...

...to attack us in the classroom...

...because he did not want the project to go on.

Yeah, they attacked me. I'm still carrying my scar

on my hand, because I was bleeding.

They told me the Khalif said that he don't want your project

because we want the girls to be cut here...

and to be like good girl.

I know he had seven, four girls.

Umm Kulthum, Ruqayyah, Fatimah, and Zainab,

and no one was cut.

The wife of the prophet was not cut.

For me this is one of the strongest argument

to let women believe that if you're not cut,

doesn't mean that you are dirty, you cannot pray.

Are you a Muslim?

And people used to say that all the bad things that we have in the world,

it's about women.

And I use a lot of the symbol of the apple that is about the sin of Eve.

I think the hair, it's a symbol of the feminine,

as the eyes.

It's about a woman that's so free--

so free, we cannot imagine this woman.

When he forgot the cellphone at home, I called my mother

and she came to pick up me.

We went to the police station,

but at that time we don't have a law against domestic violence.

And nothing happened. He never went to the court. Nothing happened.

We didn't have any specific law

that protect women in a violent situation.

It was very difficult, because most of the perpetrators

of violence were not judged, were not condemned.

In 2006, when the Maria da Penha Law was approved...

I saw that it was a really important law.

Because what happened with me

will not happen with other women,

because now women will have the tools to defend themselves.

And this is why I decided to, as a citizen,

contribute with my country, promoting that law and helping other women.

And the tool that I had to do it was graffiti.

'Cause he beat me and I was six months just at home.

I never go out alone, because we were afraid

of the boy do something with me.

And to be with that group painting in the streets

was a way to get free again,

to have my life, to be happy, to do something cool.

And I started doing the graffiti.

A mark of a true leader is someone who certainly develops and innovates.

They don't use those typical models to create change.

But I think for them, who are also pioneers,

and doing things in different ways

that some people think are crazy,

because they've never been done before,

and people don't think they're gonna work.

You have to have a thick skin, and you have to believe in your idea

and it's ability to make change,

because there's gonna be a lot of people along the way who don't.

It is difficult for me to see how Sister Fa's tour

or caravan-- they call it here "caravane"-- can make change happen.

Ending female genital cutting is a long process.

In most communities, it has taken up to three or four years

to make that decision to abandon.

We need to give that time to people.

You just don't change overnight.

You can't change such a deeply entrenched practice overnight

or in one day or in two weeks.

Many organizations focus on youth

and the idea being,

"Perhaps this is quite a Western idea

that youth will be empowered and that they can then teach their parents,

change the social norms."

In non-Western societies, elders teach younger people.

Younger people are not supposed to teach elders.

Maybe some people in the West wouldn't like that,

but that's the way the society is structured.

This is not always an easy thing that she's doing,

even if she's Senegalese.

She may not be of the same ethnic group as the others

and therefore all they see is someone coming in from the outside.

For change to come about, it has to be through dialogue

with the people influence the decision makers

and that they come to their own conclusion.

And it's not because a rap singer

or because children were given some new information about their rights

on one day or another that change is going to come about.

Have you ever had anyone criticize your work?

Un, deux, un, deux, trios. We go!

Sister Fa is animated with this incredible desire

to want to reach everyone.

It's beautiful, I think, that she really cares so deeply about this.

And has really contributed to making that dialogue happen

on an international level.

She's involved in all the international meetings

held around female genital cutting.

She is a voice that speaks out about it and makes people aware.

I don't think that there's a silver bullet.

I think opportunities will present themselves where in some cases,

an outsider from a community can be believable and can be embraced.

We just have to be street smart

and look at where there's an opportunity to bring about change

and what would work best in a particular situation.

This year we started a jewelry training program

within the non-profit, which was new,

and we were experimenting to see how it would do.

So the women went through and they gained a lot of skills,

and then three of them were offered the opportunity to start their own co-op.

Judith, when's the last time you saw these women?

I'm excited to see it, 'cause I haven't seen them since graduation.

- It's so nice here. - Thank you.

So this is your workshop now?

No, you should keep it like this forever. It's so beautiful.

They're making jewelry for a buyer in the US.

And then hopefully Judith & James can give them some things

and we can connect them to other little markets and small companies.

But they're happy, they're hopeful,

and they're loving the self-employment they're experiencing right now.

Viable economic opportunities

are an important route to a better life.

It might be possible to have a very localized market in the neighborhood.

But if you're a poor woman in a poor neighborhood,

by definition the market is gonna be quite limited.

And so having access to export markets

makes the possibilities much, much larger.

What are your hopes for the future of this business?

I do think, as an outsider, you can make a difference

if you are the link to the resources.

I come back to the US for resource,

because the boutiques here, the department stores,

the fundraisers for the non-profit.

I can always print on a silk or on a linen or anything.

So I come for the resource to connect it to the need in Kenya.

- Hi! - Hi!

We are at Tulip's Boutique,

and we're here to speak with Emily, the owner,

and check on the clothes and see how things are going and what she needs.

How have these been doing? Like the darker prints, are you ready for the emerald?

Judith & James and the foundation,

the story behind it-- people wanna give to that.

They love the product first,

but they're also gonna love the story behind it.

- Yeah. - What are you working on for fall?

We're doing some new products, embroidering, beading,

- and some new techniques. - Great, awesome.

I want to employ as many women as I can.

I just have to wait till I can afford it,

because a commitment to pay their salaries every month is not a joke.

And I would never want to commit to them and then not be able to follow through.

So when I'm there I'm fully focused on them,

and when I'm here I'm fully focused

on the people around me who can help this business.

People ask her all the time,

"Anna, why are you going all the way across the world?

You could help the poor in our own backyard."

She saw the need of millions of women and widows

without a voice in a place where they don't have

the resources that people in America have.

And you see as you go and you work and you live among these women,

they want to make it, they want to survive.

It's what propels Anna to be a part of making a difference.

The first time I went to see Sohini's work,

I think I'll never forget that trip.

It was my first time to Calcutta.

As we went along we started picking up girls along the way at each stop,

dance teachers and dance instructors.

And we then arrived at the shelter where she was teaching that day.

And when we got there, there was a conversation, and then she turned around

and she said, "It's gonna be a very difficult day here," and I said, "Well, why?"

And she said, because last night one of the girls who was

part of our class actually died of HIV/AIDS.

And the other girls who know that they are HIV positive

are very afraid of when their last day will be.

Initially, I was thinking maybe I am the responsible,

maybe the entire process doesn't work properly.

But it's part of the entire process.

The process has the success, the process has the risk, and it has a challenge.

Not only me but in the practitioners also, today, it create an impact.

It's not something we hide, but we share it.

Do you guys usually come here after a long day?

Yeah, we come here, it's a special shop which women run.

And I think Jhulan and Sangeeta said about the session.

Mostly Jhulan and Sangeeta come for the session

and I supervise the entire thing, and I come in between.

If you just come close to most of the activists,

we try to find solutions for the world,

and we don't have solutions for our own life.

Maybe if they just don't talk about it,

but if they tell you their life,

they have, most of the time, miserable private lives.

My personal life has definitely suffered.

And I have just realized it this year,

when I started taking weekends.

This months-- actually May was one

of the most horrible months because I was in Maputo,

then Malta, London, Paris, then I'm going after tomorrow to Africa for two weeks.

I think it's difficult, because I'm always moving.

I'm not settled yet in one place or another.

I could spend my time missing something that's in America when I'm in Kenya.

But I just decided not to, and I have things

that I look forward to going to in each place.

Do you ever get sick of all the travel,

all the packing and unpacking?

Of course, the whole May,

I can say I did not land more ten days on Earth.

It was all the time in the air.

The only thing sometimes that I'm thinking is, "What am I doing with my life?

I'm not going out. I'm doing nothing.

I'm all the time at home writing project,

working, traveling, business. I'm working like a machine."

I don't know, I don't mean that I'm not concerned about what I'm doing,

but some people will put their personal things in front and the work in the back.

Actually, this is not what I can balance.

Why have you been separated for two years?

Yeah, first of all, there was too many things going on with my work.

I was not around all the time.

Then yeah, things like this happen.

When young people see their interest doesn't lie in the same direction.

Because marriage is not only to be together to smile.

There is lots of things going on about your work, how you're handling life.

We did not have, maybe, not enough experience to know

that we should not mix our work together

with our personal life, and maybe this is one of the mistake.

But yes, it's thing that happen.

Then divorce and separation happen.

Yes, this must go.

I was raised to marry.

The most important thing in the life of a woman...

was to get married and have the babies.

I decided at the age of 18 I will not get married.

So that is something I argued with my family and other things,

and I decided on that.

So to lead a free, independent life.

And I enjoy that.

Well, I tried. I mean, I was dating someone before I went to Kenya,

and then met someone in Kenya that I had to leave.

So, it just never really works, right now.

But I'm okay with that, because I understand that, as the founder,

you have to do everything at first. And as a start up company,

you have to just put in all your soul, your time,

and your energy to get it off the ground.

And of course, as a mom,

sometime I feel like I need my daughter close to me.

I think she's pushing me more and more.

The fact to save one is already very good, and I've saved Mariama.

She won't be cut.

For me sure... to live in a family,

to take care of your family is one of the most important things in life.

But I think also that to save life might be also something very important.

Every year, two millions of girl will be victim of female genital cutting.

For me, I'm not waiting. I've never wait anyway in my life.

Yeah.

For me, it's very easy just to paint canvas,

paint the wall and be a famous artist.

When I came home and put my head on the pillow to sleep...

I imagined all the women that suffering.

How can you be a famous, rich artist

and ignore everything that's happening outside?

So I decided to use graffiti and the respect that I have

in doing grafitti to talk about something important.

Now if I come to a community or to a school saying that I want

to talk about domestic violence, people will not come, people don't care.

When you come and say that you will have a graffiti workshop,

everybody wants to come.

Violence against women is considered by many men,

and also by some women, as "natural."

Once a woman said to me, "My mom suffered violence,

my grandmom suffered violence, my aunt suffered violence,

so violence is part of being married."

7 out of 10 women in the world

experience violence in their lifetime.

It's battering, psychological torture,

it is being raped.

But I also wanted to refer to structural violence that does not allow

women to actually be part of the public sector in employment.

My first impression of Judith was that she was very sad and struggling.

I just remember being in this small dirty room in his house,

she wouldn't lift her eyes off the floor,

and her shoes had holes in them.

And she just didn't have any light in her eyes or any courage

or happiness. It seemed like she was just so discouraged.

I know that she's had a very difficult past

and has had desperation in her past.

But she's a success story in herself.

So for her to be able to educate the eight children she's taken care of--

she only birthed three, and the other ones are from her brothers

or sisters who have died of AIDS.

But for her to be able to educate them and to feed them, of course,

pay the rent is really a big deal.

I want her to have excess, not just the bare minimum.

I want her to be able to do what she wants in life.

She's definitely one of my best friends.

What does she like?

When I lived there for six months

as a 20-year-old, I was with my family for six months.

And then they all left, and I stayed by myself for six months.

And Judith and the other women, they were like my shelter and my refuge.

They were my family.

Emotionally they do treat me

kind of like a daughter. There is that element, but with Judith,

I normally think of her more of as like a partner or a sister.

Yeah, I love them a lot.

When I arrived there, there was lots of little girls.

I think was minimum 50 little girls, minimum.

And the day after in the morning, they were taking us

one after one behind when they was cutting us.

You just hear the scream and you was terrified

and you know you are going through that thing

behind without knowing what's going on.

I still remember the blood on my feet,

I still remember the face of a woman,

very strong woman, who was like in front of me

talking to me like this, and my mum behind.

I still remember that the very powerful woman was taking my hands

and someone else was also holding my legs that I should not move.

But I don't remember how old I was.

Probably between four, five, and six years old.

We did not know nothing about what will happen to us.

For me, I was having a sentiment like I have done something wrong,

that I was fixing a punishment

without remembering anything wrong I have done.

I did not realize that I am not a complete woman,

When I start at school learning

how the genital part of the woman should look like,

then I realize that something is missing in my body.

No one told me, I discovered by my own.

Then I started asking myself a lot of questions,

and started discovering there is something going wrong.

Art plays all the time a big role.

If we take the example of singing,

we know that the voice is one

of the most important instrument for a musician.

Inside our text, we can put a some very strong message

that people can listen to without getting hurt.

Yeah, this is my father and mother.

And I think this is their marriage photograph.

I grew up very independently

because my mother was sick from my early childhood.

And then she detected cancer.

Then for three was very like suffering, and then she died.

At that time, it created a big impact.

My entire life changed.

Whatever care and support my mother does,

like cooking and the home things,

I had to take all the responsibility for my mother.

It was a very, very struggling period.

Everybody has struggle in different phases

and struggle is part of the life.

I think my, that three years of adolescent period,

gave me that insight to be prepared for the life.

I am deeply connected with them.

If you look around the world at all the issues that women face,

The one thing that unites us, is there is not a single culture, community,

religion that can say violence against women, domestic violence,

culturally harmful practices, trafficking, does not exist.

It exists everywhere.

It is that thing that all of us face.

And really, the heart of it,

is the way in which we value women in our cultures.

And if culture and values is the barrier, couldn't we also

look at how to use culture

to combat some of the negative influences of culture?

100 graffiti artists are coming and

they are going to paint mixing the theme of the World Cup

and the campaign against domestic violence.

We're in New York Fashion Week.

Yeah, we're about to show the Judith & James Fall/Winter 2014 collection.

Like I'm still so new to this,

so I'm learning as much as I can.

But it's a good opportunity for Judith & James to get press

and media and to spread the brand and the story.

Music start where the language stop.

For me, during the concert it's what we call the mass communication.

Every year, two millions of girl will be victim of female genital cutting.

I think that I will feel very proud if one day in Senegal

they say it doesn't exist anymore.

Graffiti, it's a lifestyle.

It's a culture.

And if we insert the program against domestic violence,

the talk about gender inside this culture,

we are changing the way that people think.

I mean, I'm not trying to save the world.

So many people say they are.

I think it's a great idea, but it's not possible to get to everyone.

But I'm just happy to get to as many as I can.

And even if it's one and I die, that's fine.

I just want to get as many as I can on their feet.

I feel all women are creative in this world.

But sometimes, because of our society's structure--

because of the patriarchal structures, because of the gender structure,

they stop themselves to take action.

But if that comes when women come with that action,

I think that will bring great changes in the society.

So I always encourage young people, young women, do.

Do something! If you have idea, be bold with that.

But I have trust, belief, with all women.

Women are creative.