What is Female Genital Mutilation?
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a deeply entrenched cultural tradition practiced by various ethnic groups in more than 28 countries on the African continent. It is also found among populations in countries on the Arabian Peninsula, in the Middle East, and in Southeast Asia. FGM includes all procedures involving total or partial removal of the external female genitalia or other injuries to the female genital organs, whether for cultural, religious or other non-therapeutic reasons.
In medical terms
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) classification, there are four main types of FGM:
Type I consists of excision of the prepuce, with partial or total excision of the clitoris (clitoridectomy). The traditional name for this kind of mutilation is sunna.
Type II – excision, consisting of the removal of the prepuce and all or part of the labia minora along with the clitoris.
Type III, infibulation or Pharaonic circumcision, the most brutal form, consisting of the removal of part or all of the clitoris and the removal of the labia minora and, particularly in the past but still in rural areas today, the stitching/narrowing of the vagina to form a tiny opening no larger than a grain of rice or a millet seed to allow discharge of urine or the menstrual flow.
Type IV includes a series of procedures, from slight pricking, piercing or incising of the clitoris to let out a few drops of blood to different types of manipulation that vary greatly from one ethnic group to another, including cauterization of the clitoris, cutting the vagina (gishiri), and introduction of corrosive substances into the vagina to narrow or dry it.
All of these procedures are performed for the most part without anaesthesia by traditional practitioners, and are often synonymous of high mortality rate, health complications and psychological trauma for the infant or adolescent on whom it is practiced.
FGM is a traditional practice of significant social value for the societies that practice it. Usually it is carried out on babies or girls of a said ethnic group when they reach a certain age that varies from the neonatal period to adolescence depending on the area.
The origin of Female Genital Mutilation
According to some experts, excision dates back to ancient Egypt but was also practiced on slaves in ancient Rome, and was viewed as an expression of the right of property on the slave’s body. Infibulation was also found in Rome, though originally performed only on males. A sort of pin, fibula, was applied to young men to keep them from having sexual relations. Female infibulation, on the other hand, seems to have been practiced in Egypt since the Pharaonic era, as suggested by the name “Pharaonic circumcision”.
Although different theories have been put forward, the real origin of female genital mutilation remains unknown for now. We do know for certain that the practice already existed in sub-Saharan and Central-Eastern Africa well before the spread of Christian or Islam religions and that, consequently, there are no links at all between the two.
Female Genital Mutilation a traditional practice, a rite of passage
FGM is deeply rooted in societies that practice it and is a key element in determining an individual’s role and legitimacy in such society. Although the credo behind the practice and its form vary from one ethnic group to another, all regard it as a fundamental and necessary step in the construction of gender identity and in the passage into adulthood.
By traditional practices we mean those customs of common use that were inherited from past generations and that will be transmitted to the next. Female genital mutilation, therefore, is a traditional practice and it is more specifically part of a rite of passage. Rites of passage are those ceremonial practices that guide, control and regulate changes in status of the individual, thus pacing the various phases of life and meeting the individual’s need for identity and recognition in his daily environment.
Furthermore, in some traditional societies, female genital mutilation is a fundamental component of the initiation rites performed to become a “woman.” One is not born a woman, in the sense that the biological indication is not, per se, a sufficient factor of identification. Some cultures consider that rites are needed to make de facto belonging to a certain sex an acquired status, thus freeing the individual from biological identity and giving a “social significance” to the fact of being a woman. From that perspective, it is the rite, more than chromosomes, that determines a woman’s identity.
The importance of Female Genital Mutilation within the social institution of marriage
The cultural reason why female genital mutilation is practiced and the behaviour of the people involved in it is directly linked to a complex system of matrimonial strategies, based on the brideprice.
Marriage in Africa is rarely the consequence of the decision of two individuals but rather that of complex negotiations between two families, whereby the two groups of relatives –generally males representing three generations, i.e. elderly man, adult, and young man- reach an agreement on the bridewealth the groom must pay to the bride’s family to marry her. The bridewealth is seen as the compensation a man must pay in exchange for a woman’s fertility and purity.
From that perspective FGM is looked at in those societies as a form of guarantee of the future bride’s chastity. Some believe FGM actually enhances fertility. The brideprice is therefore the compensation that the family of the groom pays not only for him to start a family but in exchange for the fact that the woman he will marry has been prevented through FGM any form of desire, pleasure and/or any sexual relation before the wedding night. FGM is seen as a means to control female sexuality, a guarantee to a form of pleasureless state of purity indispensable, in those societies, for a woman to access marriage and the social status that it represents.
Towards making Female Genital Mutilation a violation of women rights
The origin of FGM is made even more obscure by the silence that has surrounded the practice and that contributed to making it a taboo subject within the African society, as well as to keeping it out of reach of westerners’ curiosity for a very long time. Indeed, throughout colonisation, and then through subsequent development cooperation programmes, western countries have generally preferred to ignore the existence of the practice of FGM, justifying themselves with an otherwise uncommon respect for local traditions.
However, in the last twenty years, more and more international and African non-governmental organizations and various UN agencies were able to voice their concerns regarding the practice of FGM and through broad sensitization campaigns they slowly brought the issue to the attention of the international community and started calling upon States to take action to safeguard the rights of women and girls.
