Exploring the horrors of female genital mutilation

“I first heard about female genital mutilation from my aunt. She was telling my mom how people in Africa have their daughters “circumcised.” That meant that all or part of their external genitals were removed.
Well, since my aunt tells us all kinds of strange stories, my family and I didn’t take it all that seriously. Then one day, my mom and I saw a Somalian model named Waris Dirie on 20/20, telling how she fled her homeland because her father was making her marry a man twice her age.
She also said her mother took her to be circumcised when she was five. The damage was so extreme that even today, she can’t have normal sexual relations. She nearly died from medical complications. But she said that she remembers that her sister and cousin were less fortunate. They died from complications after the procedure.
Today she tells her story to anyone that listens. The United Nations has named her a special ambassador for the elimination of female genital mutilation.

How can children be hurt like this?
I just couldn’t believe it. I was speechless. Isn’t this the 20th century? Can children be hurt like this? I immediately went to the library for information. I found a book by Alice Walker and Pratibha Parmar called “Warrior Marks” (Harvest Books, 1996) describing their struggle to create a documentary film on the topic.
The saddest part of the book is the women’s stories. Older women who had been circumcised said it was a natural process. Other women felt they had no choice but to do it to their daughters.
One daughter refused to be circumcised. People called the daughter a whore and blamed her mom. Her husband would no longer let the mom live with him and she was shunned from society. So she kicked her daughter out of the house.
The World Health Organization estimates that two million girls are mutilated each year. It is practiced throughout Africa and in some Arabic and Asian countries. As people emigrate, the custom has also spread throughout the world to other countries, including the United States.
California passed a law prohibiting the practice in 1995, referring to the custom as “extreme child abuse.” The California law punishes the parents as well as the person who performs the operation. Six additional states have banned it, and bans have been proposed in five other states.

Why are female genitals mutilated?
According to one web site report, supporters believe that female circumcision brings women many advantages. They believe circumcision instills cleanliness, prevents diseases, “brings calm and gives radiance to the face,” keeps couples together, prevents drug use, and keeps girls from falling into “what is forbidden,” according to the FGM Research Homepage.
The irony is that the opposite often occurs. The physical and mental pain drives girls to drug abuse. Normal sexual relations may be painful for both partners. According to Walker, some men marry outside of their race or circle because it can cause abrasions on their penis to have sex with a circumcised girl.
It is poverty, not low morals, that drives young circumcised girls to venture out to the cities to sell their bodies for money. Some men even have a perverse preference for these types of prostitutes, according to Walker’s book.
Most of the circumcisors are women, which in itself is sad. But to make it worse the women who do this are often old, with poor eyesight and shaky hands. Alice Walker interviewed a circumcisor who could barely sit down on her own. Her eyes were clouding over with cataracts and her hands were gnarled.

One circumcisor said it makes girls clean
When asked why she did this, the circumcisor explained that this was a custom that had been passed down for centuries and it was something that would continue for ever. She said that it was to make a young girl clean and holy. She said it prevented the girls from ending up like those American girls. (Excuse me, since when do American girls have the reputation of being the world’s whores? I know that we might not have the big family values thing going right now but we’re not all sluts.)
Some people have religious reasons for this practice. Muslims believed that Mohammed had a female circumcisor, according to the FGM Research Homepage. Some religious scholars have written that Mohammed advised circumcisors not to cut too deeply so the woman and her husband could still have pleasure. But there is no mention of this as a law in the Koran. The California law states, “This 4,000-year-old cultural practice is not a requirement of any major religion.”
Walker writes that this is a practice that has been going on since before organized religion. An African folk story tells how God created the earth and she was so beautiful that he wanted to mate with her, according to Walker’s story. But giant anthills prevented him. So he cut them down and had his way. The symbolism of this story is that the anthills are the female clitoris and must be cut down so the man can mate.
Walker mentioned that other stories tell how the clitoris will swell, keeping the man from entering the woman. Others tell how the “erect” clitoris will cut off the male penis like a pair of scissors. It shows the fear that men have towards women and their sexuality.
After reading stories like these, I got so disgusted that I would have to put down the book. I was on the verge of hating the entire male race. Then I would talk to my dad and he would tell me that real men who love women wouldn’t want them to hurt themselves like this.

One Nigerian denied that it happened
Well, my mom was still upset about this. Every time she got into a conversation with someone she would bring it up. One day she was talking to my grandmother’s nurse who is Nigerian. He said female circumcision was not an extreme and abusive practice.
My mother was enraged. Finally she asked me to come with my research and tell him what happens. I went in and started talking to him and that’s when I realized that I couldn’t be mad at the people anymore.
He said he never heard of women being disfigured to that extent. I showed him Alice Walker’s book and he said it was really sad—if this really happens. He called his mother to ask her if it was true, and she said it was, and that it happened to her, and that’s why she fought to keep it from happening to his sisters and his daughter.
Later he told us that when he went to Africa, he did some research and he found out that women want to have it done. He insisted that circumcision only removes the tip of the clitoris, and it doesn’t keep women from experiencing pleasure. He also said women are never forced to have the procedure. He said white people probably made up these exaggerated stories.
My mom had one last argument with him before she decided not to discuss politics with him anymore. Now I can see that a lot of people don’t know about this, and when they do hear about it, they won’t accept it.
That’s why I hope that when you’ve finish reading my article you will know that injustices still prevail in our world today. And you will hear the screams of those little girls and help to prevent them.

The FGM Research Homepage can be found at www.hollyfeld.org/fgm/index.html.”

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