[Nasional-e] Female genital mutilation: Heroes in the fight against a rite that maims women

[Ambon]

Female genital mutilation: Heroes in the fight against a rite that maims
women
 Mona Eltahawy IHT  Tuesday, February 11, 2003


NEW YORK Heroes are hard to come by at the best of times. When I found
myself sitting across a table from not one but four of them, I knew I was
privileged. The married couple from Ethiopia and the two young sisters from
Kenya had bucked the burden of centuries of tradition to say "No" to the
practice of female genital mutilation.
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When she got married last year in Kembatta, Ethiopia, Genet Girma wore a
placard that said "I am not circumcised, learn from me." Adisie Abosie, her
groom, wore a placard saying, "I am very happy to be marrying an
uncircumcised woman." Genet had broken with a rite of passage for girls and
young women in that part of Ethiopia which subjects them to what is known as
step-two female genital mutilation: the clitoris and the inner and outer
labia are removed.
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I know women who at the age of 6 or 7 almost bled to death from the genital
mutilation. Government statistics in Egypt, my country, estimate that 95
percent of women have been mutilated. In the face of such sobering figures,
I know that it is only an accident of birth that spared me.
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How did Genet and Adisie escape? At their schools, the Kembatta Women's
Group helped them make the connection between genital mutilation and the
difficult childbirths they had seen their mothers suffer.
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Genet ran away from home to escape mutilation. Her family and Adisie's
disowned the couple but they persevered and held their wedding in public to
spread their message. Some 2,000 people attended the ceremony, which was
covered extensively by Ethiopia's media. Since their public stand, 10 other
couples have followed suit by rejecting mutilation.
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My other two heroes are Edna and Beatrice Kandie, sisters from Kenya. Not
only can they happily claim to have saved themselves, four younger sisters
and many other girls from genital mutilation but they can also boast of
changing the law in their country.
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After learning from a pastor at their church that the Bible prescribed
circumcision for boys only, the sisters told their father they would not
undergo the ritual. "Our father was very hostile at first and we had to run
away from home," said Beatrice, 15. "Most of our friends and the whole
community abandoned us because they didn't like what we were doing but
they've accepted us now. Since our case, nobody in our village has been
circumcised. I'm happy."
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After they ran away from home, she and Edna contacted the human rights
activist and lawyer Ken Wafula, who helped secure a court protection order
that forbade their father from forcing them to undergo mutilation. That
precedent led to legislation in Kenya that criminalizes genital mutilation.
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Genet, Adisie, Edna and Beatrice, who were brought to the United States by
the women's rights organization Equality Now, are at the vanguard of a small
movement in sub-Saharan Africa that is slowly chipping away at this rarely
questioned custom.
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The practice is not exclusive to one religion or social class. It is older
than Christianity and Islam. Egyptian mummies are said to display
characteristics of mutilation. And as recent as the 1950s, partial or total
removal of the clitoris was prescribed in western Europe and the United
States in response to hysteria, epilepsy, mental disorders, masturbation,
nymphomania, melancholia and lesbianism.
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Today, girls and women are subjected to genital mutilation in at least 28
countries, mostly in Africa. Some immigrants have taken the practice with
them to Western countries. It is carried out for several reasons, including
control of women's sexuality and initiation into womanhood. Doctors say
genital mutilation causes lasting psychological trauma, extreme pain,
chronic infections, bleeding, abscesses, tumors, urinary tract infections
and infertility.
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The international community must speak out on behalf of girls and women and
demand that governments criminalize genital mutilation, launch educational
programs to combat the practice and offer communities alternative rites of
passage.
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Those who hesitate to criticize genital mutilation out of reverence for
other cultures should listen to Bogaletch Gebre, director of the Kembatta
Women's Self-Help Center, who was mutilated at the age of 6: "When culture
affects one's human integrity, when it violates it - be it in terms of
gender or in terms of ethnic group - that culture should be condemned,
because whenever one of us is hurt or violated, all of us are violated."
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Mona Eltahawy is a staff writer with Women's Enews, a nonprofit independent
news service.