Female Genital Mutilation: Yes, it exists!

Recently a page that I have been following on Facebook posted quite a few articles on Female Genital Mutilation and that’s pretty much how I got to know about this horrific practice which is still prevalent, in the 21^st century in various places on the globe! Call it tradition, culture or religion; society always finds a way to oppress its daughters and comes up with senseless arguments to support its actions.

Female genital mutilation or FGM is the partial or complete removal of the female external genitalia or any other kind of injury to female genitals for non-medical purposes. The circumcision is carried out by older women in the family or some female relative or barbers or members of secret society etc. These people may or may not have any medical training to perform such operations. Usually there’s no anesthesia, antiseptic or sterilization of the cutting devices involved. The cutting devices used may be special knives, scalpels, razors, blades, glass, sometimes even bare fingernails. Girls may be subjected to these practices at any time: when they are a few days old, during their childhood, puberty, before marriage or before childbirth etc. There are two main reasons that parents make their daughters go through this. Firstly, Religion: lots of Muslims believe that such practices are highly recommended in Islam despite the fact that no Islamic laws or Quran verses even mention female genital circumcision, let alone making it compulsory. Second reason is obviously women safety and controlling of female sexuality.

Here’s the fact sheet on FGM by WHO. So basically in some cases, the clitoris or the clitoral hood is removed so as to reduce the sex drive of girls as a method of prevention of premarital sex among girls. Often their vaginal opening is sealed completely except for a small orifice to enable urination and menstruation. This seal is again surgically removed before marriage and widened further before childbirth. The main objective of all these practices is to direct the female sexuality. These practices are usually done in secret and are often termed as an occasion where a girl embraces womanhood. These girls are forced to give up their femininity in order to embrace womanhood. Her body itself is considered cleansed only after she gets rid of parts of her God-gifted self. There’s also the custom of breast ironing where her breast tissue is compressed or pounded using hot iron so as to make them look less feminine and thus less attractive to prevent them from being sexually harassed or raped. What’s worse is that even people in the UK are starting to use this method to protect their girl child.

These practices affect the physical and mental well being of probably millions of girls across the world. Mostly, the physiological damage is irreversible and makes normal life extremely painful. A woman is neither considered pure nor safe in her original body and the uneducated society dictates their life. Thank you for reading. Here are a few places wherein you can make an impact:

http://www.cawogido.co.uk/
http://busts4justice.com/2011/09/20/association-of-aunties-tackling-breast-ironing-in-cameroon/
https://www.facebook.com/StopFgmMiddleEast?fref=nf