" In The Name Of Your Daughter"

Giselle Portenier recently completed what she says may be her most important film yet. In The Name Of Your Daughter is a documentary that gives a voice to some of the most courageous girls in the world: Tanzanian children who risk their lives to stand up for their human rights and avoid female genital mutilation and child marriage.

"Parents have no right to cut their daughters.
They only have the right to educate them and help them to fulfill their dreams.”
- Janet, 13.

"In The Name Of Your Daughter" is the heartbreaking and heartwarming fly-on-the-wall story of the most courageous girls in the world, children in Northern Tanzania who are risking their lives to defy their destiny and follow their dreams. These girls, some as young as eight, are running away from home, leaving everything and everyone they love behind to save themselves from female genital mutilation and avoid being sold off into a child marriage. And it’s the story of one of Africa’s most charismatic women, Rhobi Samwelly, a brave local hero who confronts her community and protects the girls in her Safe House.
We made the film with the support of almost 400 people from 30 countries who donated to our Indiegogo fundraising campaign, and with the backing of BBC Storyville, Ikon television from The Netherlands, SVT in Sweden, DR television in Denmark, and YLE television in Finland. Thank you!
We also thank all the brave and beautiful Tanzanian girls who allowed us into their lives and to tell their stories.
~ Giselle Portenier
Copyright Defying Destiny Films Inc 2016.

Synopsis

Heartbreaking and Heartwarming, In The Name Of Your Daughter is an intimate fly-on-the-wall story about some of the most courageous girls in the world, children like feisty 12-year old Rosie Makore who ran away from her home in Northern Tanzania to save herself from female genital mutilation (FGM) and the child marriage her parents had planned for her.
Terrified of stories of girls bleeding to death during the chillingly named ‘cutting season’during the school holidays in December, these young African girls, some as young as eight, must face the most difficult choice of their young lives: submit to being cut or risk their lives and run away, not knowing if they’ll ever see their families again.

Rhobi Samwelly, one of Africa’s most charismatic women, protects the girls – Christians, Pagans and Muslims – at a Safe House, and travels around the countryside fighting against this thousands-year-old tradition.
Hers is a tough and dangerous job. FGM is illegal in Tanzania, but old customs die hard. Men believe that girls’ clitorises must be cut off to reduce promiscuity, and mutilated girls command twice the bride price in cows as uncut girls. In partnership with the Safe House, Mugumu police officer Sijali Nyambuche and her team start cracking down on FGM. In night-time raids they rescue girls at risk and arrest parents and cutters.
As the year’s cutting season winds down, in dramatic and heart-breaking reconciliation meetings, parents have to decide if they’ll spare their daughters and take them back, and young girls like Rosie must decide if they’ll be safe if they return home. Set in the stunning landscape of East Africa’s Serengeti district, this is ultimately an inspiring and hopeful story of brave young girls standing up for their human rights and fighting for change in their community.

Click here for more information on the film.