Genital Mutilation: African Women Risk Lives To Fight For Others

Genital Mutilation: African Women Risk Lives To Fight For Others
The Independent | Katrina Manson | February 27, 2009 01:49 PM



The female journalist was snatched by members of a secret society, forcibly stripped and made to parade naked through the streets. It might sound like an atrocity from the time when Sierra Leone was ripped apart by a bloody civil war, but in fact the public humiliation was exacted in the diamond-rich eastern town of Kenema just this month. The woman's alleged crime was reporting on female genital mutilation.

While the attack was condemned by media watchdogs as "disgraceful behaviour worthy of a bygone age", one woman who was not surprised was Rugiatu Turay. When she was 12 Ms Turay was stolen away by family members and underwent what some politely refer to as "circumcision". She calls it "torture". For the past six years, she has been waging a war against the practice, which many in Sierra Leone, including senior politicians, see as an initiation rite.

Her organisation, the Amazonian Initiative Movement, tries to protect young girls from the knife. "I picked the name because I am trying to talk about strong, powerful women," she says Ms Turay, who works with her 20-strong staff in and around the northern town of Lunsar. So far, she has persuaded about 400 practitioners of female genital mutiliation (FGM), who are often called soweis, to lay down their blades and stop their role in the traditional bondo ceremony. "Silence means consent. But if you say the truth people listen ... We go to the schools, mosques, everywhere."

As reward for her tenacious efforts, she has received death threats and been attacked by juju men, sometimes armed with magic, sometimes with machetes. She describes a time when more than a hundred people paraded a symbolic corpse outside her home to suggest her own death: "They came right in front of me sharpening their cutlasses."


more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/27/genital-mutilation-africa_n_170610.html

opportunity to read posts by this OP.

Extremely important topic.

Recommended.

and every other horrible treatment in whatever country.

there are more women in the world then men. we have the power to get the male foot off our necks.

we CAN do it.

In many African societies, FMG is carried out by women's secret society elders on women. It is a rite of passage to adulthood that women insist that their daughters have, not something that men have a lot to do with.

And as the post below says, it's a very complex problem culturally. Imagine telling the Jewish community that circumcision is barbaric and has to be ended immediately. It would be a non-starter.

I suspect this is going to be long term cultural shift from the more extreme practices to something more symbolic before it fades away many decades from today.

who works with and studies Somali refugee women who have experienced genital cutting. What I have learned from her is that it is problematic to make western assumptions about this practice. She has done focus groups with her participants (the focus groups are conducted by Somali women with Somali women). Here is a quote from a recent academic presentation of hers:

"Female genital circumcision is central to Somali women’s gender and cultural identity. It is viewed as a mark of honor, pride, cleanliness, and enhances marriageability. However, there is a strong shift in this practice favoring “Sunna” vs. “Pharonic” circumcision."

(Sunna is a less extreme version of cutting than Pharonic - Somali women tend to experience the most extreme form of cutting.)

Before you all start flaming away, I'm not saying I'm in favor of FGC (and that includes western women who are having their labia "fixed" - a growing practice in the US). All I'm saying is that we need to be very careful how we handle this. Some western pushes to stop FGC have actually resulted in greater and more extreme cutting. In many countries the cutting is done in a hospital under anesthesia. How is this http://www.cosmeticsurgery2.com/cs1-female.htm better?

Personally I'd like to see all "cutting" in the name of sexuality, control, or beauty stopped - that includes most plastic surgery in the US (I suspect most cut Somali women view breast implants as barbaric). But we have to change people's gender identity and perceptions of beauty before that will happen.

and the silly plastic surgery that "fixes" a nose or makes someones boobs bigger does not remove their means of sexual pleasure.

That is the difference .

from the waist down are capable of feeling sexual pleasure. Furthermore, the visible parts of clitoris are not the only parts that contain nerves and allow a woman to feel pleasure: "The parts of the clitoris hidden inside the body include erectile tissue, glands, muscles, blood vessels, and NERVES."

Somali women report experiencing sexual pleasure during intercourse even though they experience the most extreme form of cutting.

As far as Somali women are concerned, there is NOT a difference between the procedures.

:kick:

It made me (and many others) painfully aware of female circumcision , It is just one more way to subjugate women, and sadly , it is often by other women .