Nevertheless, when Waris turned five she became a woman herself, undergoing the same procedure as 140 millions girls worldwide do to enter adulthood: the mutilation of her genitalia. The details of this operation are never explained to girls. All they know is that something special will happen to them. This makes girls actually look forward to the ceremony that will turn them into women like girls in western countries look forward to putting on make-up or wearing a bra. So, you can imagine Waris’ shock when she found out that there were no feasts or presents awaiting her. Instead, there was the worst thing a girl can ever experience.
Female Genital Mutilation or FGM is the partial or total removal of the female external genitalia. This includes the clitoris, labia and the urethral and vaginal openings.
According to the United Nations, mutilation is practiced in at least 29 African countries. In some like Somalia, 98% of the women are mutilated. Even in modern countries like Egypt, prevalence reaches 97%. It is also found among ethnic groups in Asian countries like India, Malaysia and Indonesia and has become a major issue in western countries like the England, France, Canada and the United States. In New York City alone, almost 2000 girls are mutilated every year.
The operation is usually undertaken by traditional practitioners. Unsterilized items such as knives, broken glass, sharp stones and even teeth are used. No anesthetic is given, even though it’s the most sensitive part of one’s body that is going to be mutilated. Afterwards, the trauma doesn’t receive any treatment. The absence of sterilization and medical facilities as well as the mutilation itself lead to countless immediate and long-term complications.
Every single girl who undergoes FGM experiences intense pain and most pass out during the operation. Intense bleeding might even lead to death within hours or to chronic anemia. Needless to say, the fact that a girl will be then left alone for a few weeks to recover, with her wounds still unhealed, exposes her to all kinds of infections, like gangrene. And even if her family realizes that their daughter has been seriously injured, nothing can be done. One of Waris’ sisters, Halemo, was left to die in the desert. As Waris says, “In our society you either live or die. There is nothing in between.”
When the two weeks of abandonment end, girls happily return home, not knowing that their nightmare has only just begun. To begin with, half of all mutilated women report abnormal, long and extremely painful menstruation. One in six women will at some point experience urinary infections, cysts and keloid scars as well. Also, a quarter of female infertility cases has been linked with FGM. Mutilated women are very likely to develop psychosomatic illnesses, too, such as severe depression.
FGM also impedes women’s sexuality. The nerve endings are destroyed and the skin loses its elasticity, delaying arousal, impairing orgasms and leading to painful intercourse. A seventh of mutilated women report having impossible penetration. Out of 1500 women interviewed in Sudan, half of them said they find no pleasure in sex whatsoever.
Bearing in mind that more than 7500 girls are mutilated every day, it’s estimated that by the end of the year over half a million girls will be mutilated. So what can be done?
In recent years, the issue of FGM has been placed on the agenda of various organizations such as the UN, the World Health Organization, and several non-government organizations. Each one of these carries its own campaign against FGM, but their strategies focus on either legislation or medicalization--in other words the use of less severe forms of FGM by medical professionals.
Legislation making FGM a criminal offence has been introduced in some countries like Kenya and Sudan. Although the law exists, it is questionable whether it can be applied in practice. Early attempts to try Sudanese practitioners caused such public protest that enforcement was abandoned.
Other countries like Egypt have sought to medicalize FGM, rather than banning it. Families have been encouraged to let doctors mutilate their daughters, assuming that the sterilized environment will prevent health complications. Although some of the immediate problems might be prevented, none of the long-term ones can be avoided. Moreover, the involvement of doctors in FGM erases the message that FGM denies women the right to the highest health standards and that it is an assault on women’s physical integrity.
Amnesty International admits that all campaigns to date have achieved little more than breaking the silence around the issue. Eighty-two percent of Sudanese mothers participating in a survey in 1981 wanted their daughters to be mutilated. A decade later, that number dropped only to seventy-eight percent, despite global efforts to stop the practice. So what other options are there?
The issue of FGM is more a symptom than a problem. Its causes are the beliefs and societal structure of the groups practising it. Therefore, before trying to stop people from practising FGM, we must understand why it happens in the first place.
In countries like Somalia, where continuous wars and starvation are part of everyday life, a woman can only survive by getting married. And no girl can get married without being mutilated, so the husband knows that she is a virgin, faithful to the society’s traditions. Therefore, parents consider it their duty to mutilate their daughters, because otherwise, they have no future. Similarly, parents in western countries send their children to college. In order to eliminate FGM, there must be change in the position of women in society. And the key to accomplishing that is education.
If education becomes widely available for girls, it means that many will gradually find other options outside their home. When opportunities outside marriage become available, it means it won’t be their only chance to survive. When this happens, the main reason for supporting FGM is devalued, and so most of its importance is lost. If girls and boys are educated sufficiently, when they become adults they will understand the ramifications of the practice. Because girls are mutilated very young, they do not know that the problems they experience later on are linked with FGM. A recent study has shown that while eighty percent of women with primary education support the practice, only fifty five percent of those with secondary education do, and the number decreases even more among women with tertiary schooling.
For education to become widely available, we need to convince governments to see it as an investment for women's future, both morally and financially. And the right people to do this are religious leaders and organizations within Africa, such as the Organization of the African Unity. These are the people to encourage and support educational development rather than international commissions, like the UN, or it will be regarded as a western invasion of the African culture. Only if it is their own people will Africans agree to work to improve their current systems.
People need to see it as a maturing modification of their culture. Change must come from within society because people have understood the dangers of the practice, and not because of external pressures.
Waris is one of the very few girls who has had a second chance in life, unlike her sister Halemo, whose dreams and hopes were circumcised along with their genitalia. They never had and will never have the opportunity to enjoy productive and fulfilling lives.
Women are the backbone of Africa. Imagine how much they could accomplish if they were not butchered as children, left maimed for the rest of their lives.
In Waris’ words: “Because we are all victims of our upbringing, cultural practices have continued unchanged for thousands of years. But the time has come to leave the old ways of suffering behind.”
Today, another 2000 girls are going to die from genital mutilation. Indeed, the time has come to leave the old ways of suffering behind.
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