Cutting out women’s pleasure: The brutal story of Female Genital Mutilation
“It was a dark and dingy room, where an elderly woman asked me to take off my panties, made me sit on a low wooden stool with my legs parted and then did something…I screamed out in pain,” recalls Alefia Mustansir, 40, of her childhood experience. http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/01/pakistan-india-women-expose-secret-genital-cutting-rite/
We have heard of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and sometimes heard it being called ‘female circumcision’. We may have heard that it happens mostly in Africa and the Middle East and that Asia is ‘FGM free’. Both facts hide the gruesome truth of a terrible violation of the bodies of young girls and right here in Asia and also among Asian immigrants in other countries !
A UN fact sheet (UNICEF. Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: a statistical overview and exploration of the dynamics of change, 2013. ) tells us that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has no health benefits and harms girls and women in many ways.
It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue (cutting off the clitoris, labia, sealing the vaginal opening etc), and hence interferes with the natural function of girls’ and women’s bodies. The practice causes severe pain and has several immediate and long-term health consequences, including difficulties in childbirth. FGM is mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and age 15.
Immediate complications can include severe pain, shock, haemorrhage (bleeding), tetanus or sepsis (bacterial infection), urine retention, open sores in the genital region and injury to nearby genital tissue. Penetration during intercourse is painful as a result and women are denied the ability to feel pleasure. The narrowed opening makes it very difficult during menstruation and sometime even passing urine can take 10 minutes as it drips through a small opening.
To call it ‘female circumcision’ would be valid only if male circumcision sometimes involved cutting off the tip of the penis !
While this is usually carried out by traditional circumcisers, it is dreadful to note that more than 18% of all FGM is performed by health care providers, and the trend towards medicalization is increasing.
FGM is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. The practice also violates a person’s rights to health, security and physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death. Though no religious scripts prescribe the practice, practitioners often believe the practice has religious support.
Dr Shershah Syed, a former president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, who devotes his practice to serving deprived women, has come across cases in urban Pakistan where women have undergone the procedure.
“In Pakistan, with growing awareness [of the effects of FGM/C], they are now doing it merely symbolically, with only a bit of skin being removed. But even so, I find it to be in clear violation of human rights. There is absolutely no scientific evidence supporting any medical benefit of the procedure. In fact, it can lead to health complications,” said Dr Syed. http://www.irinnews.org/report/94534/pakistan-low-awareness-of-hidden-fgm-c-practices
International response
In December 2012, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on the elimination of female genital mutilation.
In the meanwhile, Dr Marci Bowers in California is working to ensure that women can have the clitoris restored enough to be able to feel sexual pleasure. http://theconversation.com/the-pleasure-doctor-fighting-to-restore-clitorises-after-female-genital-mutilation-25880
We believe in the right of women and girls to decide what to do with their bodies. Saying no FGM and saying yes to safe abortion.
Join the world community to fight this evil practise! Follow us on Twitter @asapasia Use the Global Hashtag #ENDFGM
