One of the most common human rights abuses is the grotesque sexual torture of girls for religion and tradition

New York Times - May 11, 2011

A Rite of Torture for Girls

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF  |  OP-ED COLUMNIST



HARGEISA, Somaliland

People usually torture those whom they fear or despise. But one of the most common forms of torture in the modern world, incomparably more widespread than waterboarding or electric shocks, is inflicted by mothers on daughters they love.

It’s female genital mutilation — sometimes called female circumcision — and it is prevalent across a broad swath of Africa and chunks of Asia as well. Mothers take their daughters at about age 10 to cutters like Maryan Hirsi Ibrahim, a middle-aged Somali woman who says she wields her razor blade on up to a dozen girls a day.

“This tradition is for keeping our girls chaste, for lowering the sex drive of our daughters,” Ms. Ibrahim told me. “This is our culture.”

Ms. Ibrahim prefers the most extreme form of genital mutilation, called infibulation or Pharaonic circumcision. And let’s not be dainty or euphemistic. This is a grotesque human rights abuse that doesn’t get much attention because it involves private parts and is awkward to talk about. So pardon the bluntness about what infibulation entails.

The girls’ genitals are carved out, including the clitoris and labia, often with no anesthetic. What’s left of the flesh is sewn together with three to six stitches — wild thorns in rural areas, or needle and thread in the cities. The cutter leaves a tiny opening to permit urination and menstruation. Then the girls’ legs are tied together, and she is kept immobile for 10 days until the flesh fuses together.

When the girl is married and ready for sex, she must be cut open by her husband or by a respected woman in the community.

All this is, of course, excruciating. It also leads to infections and urinary difficulties, and scar tissue can make childbirth more dangerous, increasing maternal mortality and injuries such as fistulas.

This is one of the most pervasive human rights abuses worldwide, with three million girls mutilated each year in Africa alone, according to United Nations estimates. A hospital here in Somaliland found that 96 percent of women it surveyed had undergone infibulation. The challenge is that this is a form of oppression that women themselves embrace and perpetuate.

“A young girl herself will want to be cut,” Ms. Ibrahim told me, vigorously defending the practice. “If a girl is not cut, it would be hard for her to live in the community. She would be stigmatized.”

Kalthoun Hassan, a young mother in an Ethiopian village near Somaliland, told me that she would insist on her daughters being cut and her sons marrying only girls who had been. She added: “It is God’s will for girls to be circumcised.”

For four decades, Westerners have campaigned against genital cutting, without much effect. Indeed, the Western term “female genital mutilation” has antagonized some African women because it assumes that they have been “mutilated.” Aid groups are now moving to add the more neutral term “female genital cutting” to their lexicon.

Is it cultural imperialism for Westerners to oppose genital mutilation? Yes, perhaps, but it’s also justified. Some cultural practices such as genital mutilation — or foot-binding or bride-burning — are too brutish to defer to.

But it is clear that the most effective efforts against genital mutilation are grass-roots initiatives by local women working for change from within a culture. In Senegal, Ghana, Egypt and other countries, such efforts have made headway.

Here among Somalis, reformers are trying a new tack: Instead of telling women to stop cutting their daughters altogether, they encourage them to turn to a milder form of genital mutilation (often involving just excision of part or all of the clitoris). They say that that would be a step forward and is much easier to achieve.

Although some Christians cut their daughters, it is more common among Muslims, who often assume that the tradition is Islamic. So a crucial step has been to get a growing number of Muslim leaders to denounce the practice as contrary to Islam, for their voices carry particular weight.

At one mosque in the remote town of Baligubadle, I met an imam named Abdelahi Adan, who bluntly denounces infibulation: “From a religious point of view, it is forbidden. It is against Islam.”

Maybe the tide is beginning to turn, ever so slowly, against infibulation, and at least we’re seeing some embarrassment about the practice. In Baligubadle, a traditional cutter named Mariam Ahmed told me that she had stopped cutting girls — apparently because she knows that foreigners disapprove. Then a nurse in the local health clinic told me that she had treated Ms. Ahmed’s own daughter recently for a horrific pelvic infection and urinary blockage after the girl was infibulated by her mother.

I confronted Ms. Ahmed. She grudgingly acknowledged cutting her daughter but quickly added that she had intended only a milder form of circumcision. She added quickly: “It was an accident.”

This article was found at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/opinion/12kristof.html

RELATED ARTICLES ON THIS BLOG:

CIRCUMCISION OF GIRLS

Canadian mom fighting legal battle to protect 3 daughters from ritual abuse of genital mutilation in Nigeria 


New Canadian immigration guide says multiculturalism no excuse for barbaric practices like honour crimes, forced marriages, genital mutilation 


10 year old Nigerian girl facing deportation from UK attempts suicide to avoid cultists and genital mutilation 


Thousands of British girls tortured by genital mutilation, no perpetrator yet prosecuted despite longstanding laws 


Thousands of girls mutilated in Britain 


Female genital mutilation common place in Kurdish Iraq, motivated mainly by a false religious imperative


A Cutting Tradition


Police plea on genital mutilation


American Academy of Pediatrics issue new policy that essentially promotes female genital mutilation


Follow-Up To: American Academy of Pediatrics issue new policy that essentially promotes female genital mutilatio


Egypt forbids female circumcision


Islamic scholar opposes ban on female circumcision


Witch hunt: Africa's hidden war on women


Famous Egyptian feminist tackles religious fundamentalism to protect women and girls, but gets no honour in her own country 


Author challenges feminists to take on major religions that subjugate and abuse women and children

CIRCUMCISION OF BOYS

Circumcising children without their consent violates their human rights and religious freedom


Jewish groups vow to fight voter initiative that would make male circumcision illegal in San Francisco


Is male circumcision a violation of children's rights or a procedure that prevents disease and saves lives?


Mutilating babies through circumcision is cruel, barbaric medical and religious child abuse


Vancouver man guilty of criminal negligence for botched circumcision of son gets one year in jail


Religiously deluded father guilty of negligence causing bodily harm for botched home-circumcision of 4-year-old son


Man accused of circumcising own children


Jury can't decide whether Mormon polygamist is guilty of child abuse for circumcising two sons at home with box cutter


Dad never charged in botched home circumcision of 3-month old in 2008 now charged with murdering 2nd son