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International Women's Day: FGM: A "rite of passage"; a human rights abuse

Written by Stephanie Sadler
Thursday, 05 March 2009 00:00

In Somalia, one term for female genital mutilation (FGM) is halalays, derived from the Arabic word halal. It means “sanctioned” and implies purity. In this East African country on the Indian Ocean, FGM occurs at one of the highest rates – in up to 98% of the female population. Waris Dirie was one of those girls.

“Every time I talk about female genital mutilation, I think of what happened to me,” Dirie wrote in her third book, Desert Children. “I am 5-years-old again and I am sitting on a rock back home in Somalia. I can see again the harsh, ugly face of the old woman and the fierce looks she gives me with her dead-seeming eyes. I can see the old carpet bag, see her taking out the rusty razor blade in her long fingers, can see the dried blood on the blade. My mother blindfolds me. Then I feel my own flesh being cut, my genitals being sliced away. There are no words which can give measure of the pain.”

A model for change

Dirie was born in the region of Gallacaio, a desert area of Somalia, to a nomadic family who lived in a hut of woven grass. To avoid, at the age of 12, marrying a man old enough to be her grandfather in exchange for five camels, she escaped to London with the help of an uncle and found work at McDonalds.

This provided the setting for the opening lines of her rags-to-riches story. Discovered while at work by photographer Terence Donovan, Dirie modelled in advertisements for Chanel’s “Allure” fragrance, Express Jeans, Levi’s, L’Oreal, Oil of Olay and Revlon. She has strutted down catwalks in the major fashion capitals of the world and has graced the covers of Elle, Glamour, Italian, British and American Vogue. Revlon listed her as one of the most beautiful women in the world.

And then she became a United Nations Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation. Dirie, also a best-selling author, now lives in Austria and runs the Waris Dirie Foundation for the eradiation of FGM.

FGM in the UK

Every year, there are 2 million more girls who experience that same pain Dirie did, adding to approximately 100-140 million worldwide who have already been cut. While the majority of these incidents occur in African countries, often illegally, it is also known to happen in other parts of the world, including the UK. “It appears that England is the destination of choice for African families from all over Europe when they decide to have their daughters circumcised,” Dirie wrote.

The practice was made illegal in the UK by the 1985 Female Circumcision Act and expanded upon in 2003 to close up a loophole that allowed families to take their daughters home to Africa “on holiday” to have FGM performed there. The maximum prison sentence was increased from six months to 14 years. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still occur.

FORWARD, an NGO working to protect the health and rights of African women, estimates that as many as 6,500 girls are at risk of FGM within the UK every year. “While legal provision is one of the strategies that demonstrates government commitment to stopping the practise, it is important that the implementation of the law is equally important in its enforcement,” said FORWARD’s Executive Director Naana Otoo-Oyortey. “In the UK, the coordination of this has been ineffective and the loopholes in the law make it difficult to be effective.”

Due to a close-knit community and a conspiracy of silence, it is nearly impossible for an outsider to dig out cases of FGM taking place in the UK.

Types of FGM

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recognised four types of FGM.

Types I and II involve the removal of a certain portion of the genitals and are the most common, while Type IV indicates other damage like pricking, piercing, stretching, cauterisation or burning of the clitoris, scraping of the vaginal orifice and introduction of corrosive substances into the vagina.

The most extensive is Type III which Dirie experienced. This is done in 15% of all cases and is known as infibulation. This is the excision of part or all of the external genitalia and narrowing of the vaginal opening. According to the WHO: “It involves the use of thorns, silk or catgut to stitch the two sides of the vulva. A bridge of scar tissue then forms over the vagina, which leaves only a small opening (from the size of a matchstick head) for the passage of urine and menstrual blood.”

Very rarely is the procedure done under anaesthetic. Likely, it happens in the bush or an informal building, performed by an elderly woman who uses a razorblade or anything sharp like a piece of glass.

Risks

Obviously, this comes with many health risks. FGM has been likened to torture, so severe pain and shock are inevitable. It can also lead to infection, urine retention, injury to adjacent tissues and fatal haemorrhaging.

In the long term, complications in pregnancy and child birth are common as is psychological damage and sexual dysfunction among a long list of other medical problems.

“If you’re not so lucky, you could contract HIV,” cautioned Kenyan nurse Hannan Kahero in an interview with Unity Media. “I think it should be viewed like torture. It is a very serious practice.” Kahero works to educate African women on the health risks of FGM.

Reconstructive surgery

The practise of FGM may seem far from home, but there are about 75,000 women and girls living in the UK who have been cut already or who are at risk. Some specialist clinics offer these women support and the possibility of reconstructive surgery. “The evidence we have from data from the FGM specialist clinics tends to show an increase in people seeking services,” Otoo-Oyortey said. “Data from five clinics in London showed that, in 2007 alone, 2,500 women accessed specialist FGM services.”

One woman at the forefront is FGM specialist midwife Dr. Comfort Momoh who runs the African Well Woman’s Clinic in St. Thomas’ Hospital, London. In Desert Children, Dirie describes a meeting with Momoh in her home during which she sketched a vagina with a line down the middle and a tiny hole on a scrap piece of paper to illustrate infibulation, explaining: “There’s only the tiniest of openings for the urine and menstrual blood to find their way out, drop by drop. This is where the vagina is sewn up and this is the bit I open up.”

She explained that, because there is so much scar tissue, the new cut will not bleed much and will not cause a lot of pain due to damaged nerve endings. The procedure takes only 10-20 minutes, but not many women are aware of this possibility. Momoh points out, though, that it often causes flashbacks, so women always go into sessions afterward to talk through emotional difficulties.

Why does FGM continue?

Upon understanding the health implications of FGM, the question many people ask is why? Why does this still happen? Why is it that women – mothers and grandmothers – are often the ones to subject their daughters to the same horrific experience they went through as girls?

Custom and tradition dictate that women are cut for a number of reasons. It is done for the preservation of virginity, prevention of promiscuity and to increase sexual pleasure for a male after marriage. It is also a requirement for marriage in most cases and is believed to enhance fertility. Of course, when a woman is married, she will experience a great deal of pain during intercourse, especially if she was infibulated and, likely, not much pleasure, as the clitoris was specifically for that purpose. FGM also happens for family honour and a sense of belonging. It is falsely believed to ensure hygiene and cleanliness.

FGM ceremonies are very important for young girls in these communities. They are often seen as a rite of passage into womanhood and the girls receive gifts and increased respect.

A common assumption blames religion, as the majority of those who practice FGM are Muslim. However, nowhere in the Koran is FGM mentioned and the practise is also seen among other religious groups; for example, Ethiopian Jews.

Culture vs. human rights

Regardless of all of these cultural reasons women use to justify the cutting, Dirie does not see FGM as a cultural issue. “Genital mutilation is not ‘culture’; it is an abuse of human rights,” she wrote. “We are not talking about traditional dances, ethnic food specialities or tribal customs. We are talking about torture of women. It is criminal violence against small girls.”

Al Jazeera spoke to Dr. Nahid Toubia, founder and president of Research Action and Information Network for the Bodily Integrity of Women. She pointed out that the practise is also fundamental to the economies of these communities as it secures a decent bride price. “It has such an important function socially, economically and in the dynamic of how society operates,” Toubia said. “What they lose by stopping it is much more than the potential of harmful effects.”

In the same episode of Al Jazeera’s Everywoman, a village elder was interviewed. “We had been told that a girl who doesn’t do it is not pure, not clean, not a mature adult,” her words were translated. “In order for a girl to be respected in the community, she must be cut.”

Despite these deep-rooted beliefs and customs, the international community has indeed recognised FGM as a human rights abuse under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on the Rights of the Child, African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The future of FGM

“In order for people to move on from this mentality of a cultural requirement, we need a sustained programme of multi-pronged strategies based on positive social change and partnership between governments, the statutory sector, civil society and communities including women, men and young people,” Otoo-Oyortey said.

UNICEF, last year, called for increased efforts to end FGM.

Also, the UN launched a multimillion dollar programme to reduce FGM by 40% over the next seven years. Toubia is sceptical, but pleased that it will keep the issue at the forefront of people’s minds. “While there is a good intension, there is no clarity as to how exactly they will implement methods to reduce it to 40% and, of course, the amount of money is nowhere near sufficient to produce that kind of effect,” she said. “However, the positive side of this is that it keeps the issue alive, it injects some resources in it – both human and financial – and it also signals seriousness at the level of the United Nations and the international community.”

Attitudes are slowly changing due to new laws and education programmes. “The main thing is to establish trust,” Kahero believes. “It’s important not to step over the meaning that is so precious to them because they truly believe that this is the best thing to do.”

Toubia agrees that it is a very sensitive topic and that women must be given the control and the education they need to make changes in their communities. “This is women’s empowerment,” Toubia said. “Women do it to their children as a way of gaining partial power in a situation where they are very disempowered. For us to ask women to stop, to take the higher risk of not doing it to their daughter, it is actually by finding a way to empower women first through information. They have to be able to negotiate a better position in society and negotiate with their societies on how we can stop this.”

Links

www.waris-dirie-foundation.com
www.forwarduk.org.uk/
www.who.int/topics/female_genital_mutilation/en/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIyAwOBvtg8