Jacqueline Aguilar
113 B English

Professor Bieber

12 February 2013

The Female Genital Mutilation

Many people do not know about female circumcision, but I strongly believe this is an important issue and people should be aware about due the pain and trauma women face throughout Somalia, Africa. The practice is also common in the western, eastern, and north-Africa. In Somalia, more than three million girls have been estimated to be at risk for Female Genital Mutilation annually. It is an ancient tradition deeply entrenched in the Somali community where 95 percent of all girls undergo the “female cut.”

A six-year-old girl undergoes female genital mutilation in Somalia – which 95% of girls aged 4 to 11 face there. Marc.Women of Somalia are living in hell. Friday17June2011.MaryanQasim.Somalia.26 February 2013.

There are four different types of Female Genital Mutilation. Clitoridectomy being one of them, is a partial or total removal of the clitoris. Procedures are mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and age 15, and occasionally on adult women. Furthermore, about 140 million girls and women worldwide are living with the consequences of Female Genital Mutilation. Many would ask why are they doing this dangerous and painful procedure? According to National Affairs, “A Muslim leader and outspoken opponent of female genital mutilation says female circumcision , is the partial removal of the clitoral hood and is not only an utterly distinct practice, but the ‘divinely ordained right of a woman’ under Islam” many men happen to believe that if a women does not initiate The Female Circumcision men would think she is being promiscuous . There has been many cases where women have been discriminated and treated inhumane just because they are not circumcised. Men will not want them anymore and assume that women are sleeping around. For a father, if his daughter was not circumcised, he would feel ashamed of her as well as all the people that surround her. Therefore, for a family it is highly important for their daughters to get circumcised. Another reason might be that it has to due with several cultural beliefs. If women do not get circumcised, no man will agree to marry her, therefore it is mandatory for parents to practice female circumcision on their girls because in the long run, they are going to have to support their daughter. According to Female Circumcision in Somalia and Women's Motives, “In 290 Somalian women participated in a study where they responded adequately to a questionnaire. 100% of these women were circumcised, despite their relatively high socioeconomic status as shown by their educational level. 88% had been circumcised with excision and infibulation. 6.5% were circumcised with clitoridectomy and the remaining 5.5% with Sunna.” Many women in Somalia have gone through this process in order to not get rejected by men or discriminated by their family.

Female circumcision has no health benefits, it only harms females in various ways. When women get circumcised, there is no professional health care available. They only use one blade on hundreds of young ladies. Being unsanitary can lead to many diseases that can become an epidemic throughout the countries where female circumcision is being practiced. By doing this procedure it only leads to bleeding, infections, and childbirth problems. According to the UN about 1,775 communities in Africa wanted to end the practice. According to the book Female Genital Mutilation/ Cutting in Somalia, “Unless effective interventions are found and communities convinced to abandon the practice, this archaic and harmful culture will continue to thrive. Despite efforts by national and international organizations, strategies used in combating FGM/FGC must be improved to eradicate it.” this explains how people are trying to do something about it yet it has become unsuccessful. According to who.com “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” this can lead to death and can change a women life forever. A brutal operation can leave a woman with haemorrhage, infections, abscesses and sometimes a loss of sensation during sex. Men do not realize how much women suffer and they don't know the consequences that come after the girls being circumcised.

Further more, female genital mutilation is a violation of rights of females states Carol Bellamy, executive director of the UN's Children's Agency (UNICEF) she also states that “It is a dangerous and irreversible procedure that negatively impacts the general health, child bearing capabilities and education opportunities of girls and women.” in other words, it has no benefit and women that are put through the procedure can have lots of consequences. For example, when they grow to adult hood there is a high possibility that when they have sexual intercourse it won't be pleasurable.

Going through labor is unbearable at it is, now girls that go through circumcision have to deal with double or triple the pain. Due to that, many women die while they are giving birth to their loved one. It just doesn't seem normal that in order to give a life there has to be one taken away. We need to do something about female circumcision because we can all prevent this from happening. No one would like their life to get ruined, especially if we can do something about it, the pain that they go through is wrong and if we can prevent it, then so be it.

Desert Flower is a 2009 German biographical film directed by Sherry Hormann

Although many girls suffer and go through lots of pain and trauma. Not every girl that gets circumcised is not successful. Many girls want a better life and don't want that for their children since they know how it feels. Most of them do not even want to wish that for their worst enemy. In the essay “The Tragedy of Female Circumcision” is talks about a women called Waris Dirie that went through the process of circumcision. She was born in Somalia, East Africa and shes was one of twelve children. She never knew about the Western world, but she knew there was something outside of Africa. “When I was about 5 years old, my father decided it was time for me to be circumcised. I remember it so clearly that if I think about it, I'll throw up.” in Dirie's view, we can see that she was really shocked my this circumcision. She also states that younger sisters and cousins have died from the procedure. As well as her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmothers Dirie had to do it. One day, when she was about thirteen years of age, her dad told her that he had found someone for her and that she was getting married. So he sold her for five camels to a 60-year-old man. “I left that night..where I knew I had an aunt. I ran through the desert for about ten days, pushing myself to keep going until I was ready to drop.” She managed to get to London, after that she started to hustle and now she is a model for various magazines.

By informing people, we can change the lives of many girls that are going through female circumcision. It has been said by many women, that they wanna stop this due to all the deaths and consequences that happen through the process. It's a horrid procedure that women face and men do not realize. It's a custom that needs to be vanished. It's like torture to some degree and that needs a halt. We can start making donations to organizations that are against female genital mutilation and they can do something about it. Another thing that might work is informing parents from third world countries that it is something that can cause the life of their own daughters.

Most parents do not realize the pain their loved ones go through, it's more like what society thinks if women are not circumcised, but we need to change the way these people think by showing them that there is no benefit from this but only negative consequences. They need to know the risks that women take, not only that but the psychological side of this as well. Women get scared for life and might not want to start a life of their own or even start a new family. Women should not be going through this pain and there has to be something done to stop all this gruesome things from happening all over the world.

Somalia’s new constitution bans female genital mutilation. Wednesday 22nd August 2012.

Works Cited

Hirschberg, Stuart. One World, Many Cultures: Eighth Edition. New Jersey: 2012. Print

Lindmark, G. “Female Circumcision in Somalia and Women's Motives” ncbi.nlm.nih.

1991, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden. Web. 16 Feburary 2013.

WHO, Department of Women Health. 1999."Female Genital Mutilation: Programs to Date: What

Works and What Doesn’t". Mohamud, Ali and Yinger. Geneva.

Makhtar, Diop.Female Genital Mutilation/ Cutting in Somalia. Somalia: Fama Ba , 2004. Print.

"Female Genital Mutilation." WHO. World Health Organization, n.d. Web. 15 Feb. 2013.