SIERRA LEONE: A Women's Issue That Women Are Wary of Campaigning About

I hafta admit that this whole practice, the, origins and history and how it became so prevalent are a mystery to me.So many of Africa's indigenous cultures are/were matriarchal that it's surprising to me that FGM became so prevalent.And now I read about these*bondo* societies that all female that practice it. I'm confused and angry and a bit sickened.
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original-ips

b]SIERRA LEONE: A Women's Issue That Women Are Wary of Campaigning About

By Michael J. Carter

FREETOWN, Aug 8 (IPS) - Female genital mutilation (FGM) can make sex painful, complicate childbirth, lead to urinary tract infections, enable the transmission of HIV -- and induce a host of other ills. So, promising to fight this practice should be a winning strategy for someone hoping to be elected to parliament this Saturday in Sierra Leone -- where about 90 percent of girls and women undergo FGM, according to rights watchdog Amnesty International.

Should be. But, isn't. In an inescapable irony, the issue is off limits even to aspiring women legislators who might have an unhappy experience of FGM, and who could lead the fight against the practice at the highest levels.

The reason? FGM still enjoys support in large sections of the community, notably among members of secret "Bondo" societies, made up exclusively of women, which use the practice to initiate girls into womanhood -- alongside teaching them various domestic skills.

"I cannot say a word now (against FGM) because I need their support," Tinah Greene, a candidate for the Convention People's Party, told IPS.

While the 2002 polls were held under a system of proportional representation, seen as conducive to helping women enter parliament, this year's general elections are being fought in the tougher world of constituency politics -- and women need to ensure they have the Bondo societies' votes in hand.

"You won't get a candidate to go out and say 'We're against this (FGM)'," Rodney Lowe, a volunteer for Amnesty International in Sierra Leone's capital -- Freetown -- told IPS. "It can be political suicide."

One of the seven political parties which have put forward candidates for the presidency, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), has come out against FGM, also referred to as female circumcision. This party also has the distinction of being the only grouping with a woman standing for vice-president (no party has put forward a female presidential candidate).

However, certain NDA parliamentary candidates are less outspoken -- perhaps because of fears that criticism of FGM could be equated with resistance to the entire system of initiation that is central to many communities, and a source of income for some women.

"In the constituency…I find myself in, Bondo is held in high esteem; it is revered," NDA legislative aspirant Asiah Coker told IPS. "For me as an initiate I don't think it (FGM) is bad, because I function properly."

Notes All People's Congress (APC) candidate Salamatu Turay: "I personally believe in the African tradition. The African belief is that female circumcision is very important to the lives of Africans."
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complete article here

because most of the cases of culture value of female circumcision has to do with using it to make sex painful and therefore undesirable to women, a kind of chastity belt. I think its like the Afghan women whom even after the Taliban were overthrown (?) refused to remove their burkas. The culture imperative is so strongly ingrained that many refuse to drop it. This woman's society that practice it sounds like a version of the group Phyllis Schafley runs here in this country--women must keep traditional values.

or 18" corsets or other types of mutilation or indignities, it's because

1) They're afraid that NOT doing it will make them unmarriageable, and

2) Their culture has no socially acceptable role for unmarried women.

The first women who went without corsets in the nineteenth century were considered wild radicals. Going without a corset was far more scandalous than going without a bra was in the 1970s. These women were going against about three hundred years of tradition.

you would immediately shed your shirt and bra? If you did not would it be due to modesty (your own comfort level) or are you keeping up a repressive tradition?

It works the same with the burka or hijab/nijab.

As for ceasing female circumcision it will happen, but not over night, this "tradition" has been going on since the days of the pharaohs

... Institutions are much harder.