Victims of genital mutilation during their childhood in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, Marie and Marie-Claire Koulibaly have spent over ten years battling to reclaim their femininity. This long journey, for each of them, involved clitoral reconstruction.
“The first time we had sex, he thought my sex was beautiful.” For Marie-Claire Koulibaly, this is an unexpected victory. Having undergone excision, the Ivorian woman had just had her clitoris reconstructed when she met Jean-Marc, the first person to share her sexuality since the operation. She feared that he might feel disgust or fear, but Jean-Marc didn’t notice anything. She shares her journey, this past love story, and the happiness after so much suffering with a group of five women, all from African backgrounds, all excised. They are part of a support group organized by the Women Safe clinic in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the first to conduct clitoral reconstruction surgeries. Marie-Claire’s energy is contagious. However, not all of the women share her confidence. Marie, a 34-year-old nurse participating for the first time, hasn’t had a serious relationship since her operation and struggles to open up in intimacy. Talking helps: “I feel understood,” she says.
“There was only blood and pain.”
Marie and Marie-Claire were both nine years old when they were excised. In France, over 125,000 women are affected by excision. Worldwide, according to UNICEF, there were 230 million in 2025. But the numbers are likely to be understated. Marie-Claire Koulibaly was born in a small town in northern Côte d’Ivoire and grew up with her maternal grandmother, to whom her parents—who opposed excision—had entrusted her protection. She was alone during the holidays at her paternal family’s house when her other grandmother, aided by her aunts, made her believe they were going to a party. She was then taken to a house with other young girls aged three to nine. One by one, they entered a room and came out crying and screaming. When her turn arrived, the child was paralyzed. “Four women held me down, one of them took out a knife, and then there was only blood and pain.” To calm her down, they applied wet leaves to the wound as a makeshift bandage. When her mother found out, she cried but refused to talk about it, and the topic was never addressed. The years passed, and Marie-Claire clung to religion, threw herself into her studies, and eventually moved to Dakar, Senegal, where she found a job. She believes she was lucky in her misfortune: “They only cut the clitoris, but not the labia,” she explains.
Marie’s experience was different. Born in France, she was mutilated at the age of nine during her family’s return to Senegal. “Aunts and neighbors held me down so I could be cut,” she says. Just like Marie-Claire Koulibaly, the will of her parents didn’t matter. Yet, Marie’s excision could have been deadly. “Excision can be fatal,” says Dr. Claire Dumollard, a gynecologist at Women Safe. “Young girls can bleed excessively and develop infections that lead to sepsis.”
A Daily Struggle
Marie wouldn’t return to France until four years later. Between catching up on her schooling and caring for her younger siblings, she didn’t experience a typical teenage life. To forget her excision, she worked tirelessly, studying for her nursing exams at night. She passed, but the burnout left her needing to take a year off. Marie didn’t talk about it, but she suffered daily from the consequences of excision, including repeated urinary infections and excruciating menstrual cramps. She would often experience phantom pains, similar to those experienced by amputees, reminding her of the mutilated clitoris she couldn’t remember. And there were those intimate exams with patients where she realized her body was different. It took time for Marie to understand that she had been excised.
At 23, with no self-confidence, Marie moved in with her first boyfriend, “the only one who could get me out of this life,” she thought. Four years together and still difficult intimacy: “I often had pain during intercourse,” she sums up. Marie developed many strategies to avoid sex and keep her boyfriend— “who hadn’t known many women”—from noticing her excision. She banned female foreplay and masturbation from her sexuality. As if hiding a corpse, she kept silent. “I was ashamed,” she says.
“But where is your clitoris?”
Marie-Claire Koulibaly was nearly the same age as Marie when she realized how abnormal her body was. In the arms of an Italian man, she had just fallen in love with, as they began making love, he stopped, shocked, and asked: “But where is your clitoris?” She “looked everywhere,” on herself and around their naked bodies. “Where did it go?” insisted the horrified Italian. It was only then that Marie-Claire realized the clitoris, the organ dedicated to pleasure, had been cut from her as a child. Her trauma resurfaced, and her difference began to obsess her: “I couldn’t stop looking for pictures of vulvas to see what a regular sex looked like,” she remembers. Convinced she was “monstrous,” she accepted to marry the first man who asked, seeing it as “her only chance not to end up alone.” From this marriage, which didn’t last, came little Kevin: “her sunshine.”
Reclaiming Physical Integrity
After her breakup, Marie-Claire began a long therapeutic and spiritual journey. Her Christian faith helps her a great deal. After a few months, she felt better, but still struggled with insecurity. She didn’t talk to anyone about her trauma. “I was afraid people would think I wasn’t a woman.” To compensate, she cultivated a very feminine appearance, dressing in colorful clothes that emphasized her shapely figure. In 2016, she launched her jewelry brand, which required her to travel regularly to Senegal. There, in a women’s magazine, she came across an article by an African singer who recounted how a French doctor had repaired her after excision. She realized that her psychological recovery must also include physical reconstruction. “I had an epiphany, and I wanted to be operated on to regain my integrity.”
“I took seven years to decide to have surgery.”
It took Marie seven years to make the mind. She consulted a gynecologist who didn’t mention excision but simply remarked: “Look at this, it’s nonsense.” She then sought out another, a “very gentle” woman who explained that “techniques were developing to repair it.” In her private life, Marie began to feel better and let go. She met a new lover, whom she humorously called “the trigger.” He showed her that she, too, could feel pleasure. It wasn’t long before he realized she had been excised, so she took the lead: “If you’re looking for the clitoris, it’s not there!” He reacted well, but Marie still felt ashamed. She left him, unable to face her trauma. But a colleague at work, who had also been excised and was planning her own reconstruction, encouraged Marie to break the cycle. Two weeks later, she had her appointment with Dr. Foldès at Women Safe.
Both were anxious about the surgery, fearing it would hurt as much as the excision. But after general anesthesia and a 20-minute procedure, everything went well. Marie-Claire Koulibaly hoped after the surgery “to experience more sexual pleasure,” she confides with humor, a few years went by and she now has the joy of feeling a lot of pleasure in her intimacy. Even though at the beginning of her journey, “all I wanted was a regular sex”, she remembers.
A Second Birth
“The healing is pretty fast,” says Marie-Claire. “After a month and a half, the scar is already fading, and the skin is returning to a normal color.” But the post-operative care is demanding. Several times a day, they must apply special cream and massage their new clitoris. “Let’s just say, sometimes we’re not in the mood to masturbate!” During this phase, “it is very important to have a space of your own to perform the care in complete privacy,” explains Frédérique Martz, the director of Women Safe. Marie, who was living with her sister at the time, struggled with the proximity. “I applied the cream like a moisturizer, quickly after my shower.” She hasn’t yet regained full clitoral sensitivity. “The surgery isn’t magical,” explains Frédérique Martz. “It’s possible to recover up to 80% of clitoral sensitivity, but it largely depends on post-operative care and exercises. It’s a contract between Dr. Foldès and the patient.”
For Marie-Claire Koulibaly, the surgery changed everything. “It was like a second birth,” she says. Now living near Bordeaux, she met Jean-Marc three months after the surgery. When he learned that she had been excised, he, who already admired her for being “so strong and optimistic” as a single mother, admired her even more. The couple entered a civil union two years later. In addition to her femininity, she has embraced her sensuality. To surprise Jean-Marc, she even bought a Kama Sutra card game. This intimacy, once so difficult, she now wants to turn into a source of pleasure. Without taboo, she shows us elegant lace lingerie she bought for romantic trips. A beautiful revenge on her childhood.
The End of Physical Suffering
The couple has broken up since but remains friends. While Marie-Claire Koulibaly has learned to love her body, Marie has learned to talk about it. First to her best friend, who has known her forever. The surgery has greatly improved her life: no more phantom pains, no more menstrual cramps preventing her from working, and no more sensations of “tearing” during intimate encounters. But she still struggles to integrate this new organ. “I’m not 100% satisfied, because despite the repair, I don’t have the labia of a completely typical woman,” she qualifies. Marie hopes to meet someone and have a serious relationship to help her rediscover her body. After years of caring for others, she finally allows herself to think about herself. “I love home decoration shops and perfumes,” she says. Marie now more easily treats herself to small luxuries, like an expensive cocktail or a new perfume. She even has a fragrance for each daily battle. Marie dreams of serenity: “I know I’ll have to see a therapist at some point to address the issue and fully let it go,” she admits.
Since her “repair,” Marie-Claire Koulibaly has started her own NGO, Les Orchidées Rouges, to help other victims and raise awareness against excision in France and Côte d’Ivoire. A few years ago, she won the Global Women Award for her commitment. Since 2019, she has created multiple health and social centers to take care of victims, in both her countries. Marie’s fight, on the other hand, is more personal, playing out within her own family. When she learned that her 13-year-old younger sister was about to return to Senegal, so she “panicked,” felt an “tremendous anger,” and searched for every means to prevent her sister from undergoing the same trauma. Time was running out; the teenager was set to leave soon. Marie filed a report from her general practitioner at the medico-legal office of the nearest hospital: if the child were to be harmed, her parents would be prosecuted in France. She informed them bravely. Marie won her fight: the cycle has been broken, and with it, impunity. Her little sister was never excised.
Victoire Chevreul.