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Millions of Women at Risk from Barbaric Ritual

by Marcus Harrison
AROUND the world some 90 million women and girls are victims of painful and dangerous circumcision — now referred to by human rights workers as female genital mutilation (FGM).
Most female circumcision occurs in 20 African countries, but it Is also carried out in Asia, areas of the Middle East. Europe, America and Australia.
In the worst kind of mutilation. the girl is gagged and held by older women to prevent outcry or struggle. Her editor!* and Inner and outer labia arc cut off. usually with scissors, and the wound scraped with broken glass or a razor blade.
Village midwives, operating under insanitary conditions and without anaesthetics, pierce the raw wound with acacia thorns and fasten It with horsehair — or It might be sewn with a carpet needle and thread. A small hole Is left for urination and menstruation.
In some areas the girl Is tied for 40 days to prevent movement, and the wound takes two months to heal. Complications are many and complex. They Include severe-pain, shock, infection, incon tinence. sterility. urine retention, sexual and natal problems, and danger of HIV infection from unsterilised instruments. Death is always a possibility.
The mutilations are done for religious and social reason* Including chastity, bride price, male pleasure and because God began It."
But the mutilations began in Africa about 25 BC. before Islam, with which they are often associated, and they are not commanded by the Koran. They are not done at all in Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Islam. Women who are mutilated include Muslims. Christian* both Catholic and Protestant, and Ethiopian Jews.
In parts of Somalia, a young wife is beaten with a whip by her husband before Intercourse and her vulva is cut open with a dagger. The bloodstained dagger is then displayed to the wedding guests as a proof of virility.
Dr Hadi Zain, a surgeon In Khartoum, operated on a 15-
ycar-old wife with a severe post-cotta! Injury. Her husband could not penetrate her on their wedding night and he ‘opened here with a knife. She received two pints of blood during treatment.
Women who have been mutilated and then sewn up are cut open before giving birth. They Then ask to be resewn, otherwise their husbands would reject them.
A mother of six has been cut and resewn each time. Birth is often by caesarean section, since the scar tissue on the damaged vulva is dangerous to they baby.
Female genital mutilation was banned by law in Sudan in 1946, but an estimated 90 per cent of Sudanese girls are still mutilated. In Eritrea, the Revolutionary People’s Front has banned FGM. and many girls leave home and Join the army to avoid the knife.
The situation in Africa Is monitored from Addis Ababa and Geneva by the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children. In Britain by Anll-Slavcry International, the Foundation for Women’s Health Research and Development, and by the London Black Women's Health Action Project.
Experts believe the practices will continue In Africa into the next century, but the dangers of mutilation are now publicised in the African media and some women arc starting to question the tradition.
Progress has been made In Mall. Ethiopia. Gambia, Sudan. Kenya and Burkina Faso, but Slrra Leone 1* unco operative. Government* do not sec FGM as a vital health problem when compared to hunger or the need for clean water.
The mutilations were done In Australian hospital* until 1985. paid for by Medicare insurance, and they were also carried out tn British hospitals under the National Health Service until 1985.
However. Efua Dorkenoo. Director of the Foundation for
Women s Health, says that the British ban has not made much difference The operations are still carried out in private clinics for "cosmetic reasons" for upwards of S250.
Ethnic groups in Britain pool their resources and bring a midwife from Africa to circumcise their children in their own homes. British children are often sent to grandmothers abroad to be mutilated during school holidays. Some 3,000 British children were mutilated in 1989. and 10,000 others are at risk.
The problem is more complex tn Britain than tn Africa because of potential racial tensions. If the ethnic groups doing the mutilations arc Identified by race, the hatred focussed on them can easily turn to racism, exploited by agitators.
Il Is also unhelpful to view the practices in terms of child abuse, since there arc cultural and community pressures, and the mothers involved believe that the mutilaUons are for the child's own good.
Unlcef believes that the practices should be eliminated through the education of parents and opinion leaders and not through legislation and punishment.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibits any action that can prejudice a child's health, but many of the countries which are signatories to the convention have not enforced It. and Britain has not ratified it.
There arc unanswered questions about the underlying reasons for FGM — the underlying mythology. Its exact origin In time and place and why It has persisted for so many centuries over such a wide area of the globe, and affected so many women.
Il may be that the underlying reason, half-forgotten now, Is the taming and Imprisonment of the female sexual principle, ns in the Arabian folk tale of the genie tn a bottle the genie Is let out by It* master to do useful work but Il is still a potent and potentially uncontrollable force.
The artistic parallel* include the disappearance of pubic hair In sculpture and Renaissance painting.
— Gemini
Marcus Harrison (a an Australian novelist and photo-Journalist, and a member oj Anti Slavery International.