Gambian women, educating people not to continue practicing
the torture of female genital mutilation

The UN's health agencies have worked for years on FGM as a health hazard to women and girls. Research evidence shows grave permanent damage to the health of girls and women. Acute complications involve hemorrhage infections, bleeding of adjacent organs, violent pain. Life long complications include scarring, chronic infection, urologic and obstetric diseases, serious complications during childbirth, pain at intercourse and chronic depression. The international community has recognized FGM as a human rights violation and a form of violence against women.

African women have been working for many years in grassroots communities and with their governments to educate women and men about the harm caused to girls and women by FGM. A number of governments have outlawed FGM, but the practice continues. In many of these societies, women's subordinate status renders them economically and socially dependent on their husbands and fathers, making it very difficult to avoid undergoing the operation. Efforts to eradicate the practice must also include ending pervasive discrimination against girls and women in these societies.

FGM prevalence among women aged 15-49

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Global Efforts to Stop FGM Are Increasing Programs In more than 20 African countries, the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices (IAC) with the collaboration of local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has launched an extensive educational campaign aimed at eliminating FGM. Women in Egypt and Sudan recommended education as the best means to end this practice. 66 Various African NGOs are involved in research and eradication campaigns. These include The Comite National de Lutte contre la Pratique de l'Excision in Burkina Faso, the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives, the Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Organization in Kenya, the National Research Network in Senegal, the National Union of Eritrean Youth, and the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Kenya. Technical assistance, advocacy, and funding are being provided by various national and international development agencies such as PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health), RAINBE (Research, Action, and Information Network for Bodily Integrity of Women), Equality Now, the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), Population Council, Wallace Global Fund, and Women's International Network.

Education about the harmful effects of FGM and its illegality is provided to African immigrants in Australia, Canada, France, Holland, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. United Nations agencies (UNICEF, UNFPA, and WHO) issued a joint position paper and are increasing their efforts to eradicate FGM. WHO recently launched a 15-year strategy to accelerate these efforts. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), recently reviewed its FGM programming and increased its support for FGM eradication programs by working with technical agencies such as PATH, RAINBE, International Center for Research on Women, CEDPA, The Focus Project, and the Population Council.

You Tube Female Genital Mutilation

Learning to resist and fight against cruel traditions:
Gambian women joining a workshop in the villages

The existence of her child was all the evidence the judge needed.

"We uphold your
conviction of
death by stoning
as prescribed
by the Sharia"
(Iislamic law).

Amina Lawal WIKIPEDIA

Combating genital mutilation in Sudan

By S a r a   M a n s a v a g e           UNICEF Feature No. 00109.SUD

The lights are dim and the voices quiet. Tension fills the room where Nafisa, a six-year-old Sudanese girl lies on a bed in the corner. Her aunt, 25-year-old Zeinab, watches protectively as her niece undergoes the procedure now known as female genital mutilation (FGM), formerly called female circumcision. In this procedure, performed without anaesthesia, a girl's external sexual organs are partially or totally cut away.

Zeinab does not approve. For the past year she has been trying to persuade her mother and sister to spare Nafisa from the procedure. She lost the battle with her family, but she will stay at her niece's side. She watches Nafisa lying quietly, brave and confused, and remembers her own experience.

Zeinab underwent the procedure twice. At six years old she had the more moderate form of FGM, called Sunni, in which the covering of the clitoris is removed. When she was 15 the older women of her family insisted she have the Pharaonic form, which involves removal of the entire clitoris and the labia and stitching together of the vulva, leaving just a small hole for elimination of urine and menstrual blood.

Zeinab still remembers the pain, the face of the women performing the procedure, the sound of her flesh being cut. She also remembers bleeding and being sick for weeks.

This extreme form of FGM has been performed on 82 per cent of Sudanese women, according to a recent survey. Today, 85 to 114 million girls and women in more than 30 countries have been subjected to FGM. Female genital mutilation has long been performed to ensure chaste or monogamous behaviour by suppressing female sexuality.

It is commonly - although erroneously - attributed to religious edict. In fact, neither Islam nor Christianity officially sanctions it. 

FGM is dangerous. It is estimated that untrained traditional birth attendants perform two thirds of the procedures. They typically have limited knowledge of health and hygiene and often use inadequately cleaned traditional instruments. Side effects of FGM include trauma, bleeding and haemorrhage; pain, stress and shock; infections (which can be fatal); painful and difficult sexual relations; obstructed labour and difficult childbirth; and psychological trauma. The effects can last a lifetime.

The practice was declared illegal in the Sudan in 1941, but that did little to stop it. About 90 per cent of northern Sudanese women have had it done. Why does FGM continue? In surveys, the most common reason given is fear of social criticism. Although women in the 16- to 30-year-old age group are receptive to the notion of eradicating FGM, older women are resistant. Many fear that an uncircumcised daughter will be a social outcast whom no man will marry. But efforts to stop the procedure are beginning. Dr. Amna Abdel Rahman, coordinator of the Sudan National Committee on Harmful Traditional Practices (SNCTP), has been working to eliminate it.

"It has nothing to do with religion, and it damages women's health and socio-economic life," she says, calling on women to fight to stop FGM. She has gained government support, and eradication of FGM is now part of the National Plan of Action for the Survival, Protection and Development of Sudanese Children. An initial three-year education effort focuses on Central State, where the Pharaonic from is widespread. With funds from the Government of the Netherlands, Swedish Radda Barnen and UNICEF, the SNCTP is targeting community leaders, health workers and women's and youth organizations in a comprehensive awareness-raising effort. Dr. Rahman hopes to eradicate FGM by the year 2000.

It is too late for Zeinab and Nafisa. But teaching them the importance of eradicating FGM may spare their daughters from this harmful tradition.

- S a r a   M a n s a v a g e    is a freelance writer formerly based in Khartoum.

African women speaking out

For example   W a r i s   D i r i  e, who wrote 'Desert Flower'

'Desert Flower is the compelling autobiography of supermodel Waris Dirie, born into a traditional Somali family of nomads who believed in such archaic customs as female genital mutilation and arranged marriages between prepubescent girls and elderly men, for a dowry of a few goats and camels. The young Waris survived exploitation, attempted rape, and casual violence as she tenaciously fought her way as far as London, where she took a job as a maid for a distant uncle. There, as she struggled to learn to read and write, her striking beauty caught the eye of a photographer, and soon she had launched a modeling career that would take her all the way to New York City and international celebrity. Today, as a special ambassador appointed by the United Nations, she travels the world speaking out against female genital mutilation, promoting the cause of women's rights, and educating people about the war-torn, drought-parched region of Africa she fled - but still loves deeply.'

Source: The Publisher
Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad
W a r i s   D i r i e   w i t h   C a t h l e e n   M i l l e r
ISBN: 0688158234

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