It is a ritual that is supposed to keep women “pure,” but an increased understanding of the severe health risks of extreme forms of female genital mutilation (FGM) appears to be slowly rolling back its prevalence in Somalia’s northwest.
In the self-declared Somali republic of Somaliland, most women older than 25 have undergone the most extreme form of FGM, known as “pharaonic.” This entails removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, cutting out flesh from the vulva and sewing up the outer labia, leaving only a tiny orifice for the passage of urine and menstrual flow.
The procedure is normally done with a razor blade when the girl is between five and 11 years old, without any painkillers. They remain sewn up until marriage, at which point they are either opened up during sex — causing pain and distress to both partners — or cut open with scissors.
Photo: AFP
“I cut girls for 15 years. My grandmother and mother taught me how and it was a source of income for me, but I stopped doing any cutting four years ago,” Amran Mahmood said. “I decided to stop because of the problems. The worst time was when I was cutting a girl and she started bleeding. I injected the muscle to stop the bleeding and I cleaned the area, but she kept on bleeding.”
As well as social status, being a so-called “cutter” brings in good money. Cutting one girl takes 30 minutes and brings in between US$30 and US$50, a large sum of money in Somaliland.
Amran’s daughter was cut, but she swears her granddaughters will not undergo the full procedure.
After attending awareness programs set up by Tostan, an anti-FGM non-governmental organization funded by UNICEF, Amran has become an anti-cutting advocate.
The medical consequences of the stitching — urine retention, blockage of menstrual flow, pain, bleeding, infection and childbirth complications — have brought the practice into disrepute.
In the urban setting of Hargeysa, Somalia, the generation who are adolescents today have largely abandoned it in favor of less extreme forms, which still involve the removal of the clitoris.
Their mothers, mindful of the pain they themselves endured, support the change.
“Things are changing. There are now men willing to marry uncut girls,” said village headman Mohamed Said Mohamed, who like most Somalians, is a Muslim. “I am totally against cutting. It is not accepted by our religion.”
FGM is concentrated in about 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East, according to the WHO which says cutting has no health benefits and brands the practice a violation of human rights. It says that more than 125 million girls and women today have undergone the procedure, whose roots are a mix of cultural, social and supposedly religious factors. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to eliminate FGM in December 2012.
At Sheikh Nuur primary school, the girls sit on one side of the classroom in long beige skirts topped by a black hijab, with the boys on the other in beige trousers and white shirts.
“People are beginning to see how dangerous the extreme form is,” 14-year-old Sagal Abdulrahman said.
“The first type involved stitches and is the painful one, because there are many times when the woman gives birth and has pain, and ... when she has her period, it causes pain. The second type is not that painful,” classmate Asma Ibrahim Jibril said.
“I’m very happy because my parents chose the less severe one and I was very OK with that, and I won’t face the painful things that would come in the future,” she added.
Yet for UNICEF protection officer Charity Koronya, all forms of FGM must be stopped.
“To me total abandonment is the key because even if it is just a small cut it is still a violation,” she said, adding that she comes from a Kenyan tribe that practices the clitoridectomy form of FGM.
She escaped the practice because her father, who traveled outside their home district for work, refused it.
The issue of whether of whether Islamic law requires FGM is the subject of much discussion, with several clerics admitting they themselves are confused.
“Completely stopping FGM is not going to work in our country, but we are in favor of stopping the extreme type,” local religious leader Abu Hureyra said at a roundtable.
“There are doctors who say cutting is good for a woman’s health,” said Mohamed Jama, an elder from Somaliland’s Ministry of Religious Affairs.
“If you cut a woman you are killing her,” younger leader Rahman Yusuf countered.
Other clerics seemed puzzled, saying they consulted experts in Islamic law in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but only received contradictory responses.
For Koronya, that the practice is now being discussed in public was a victory.
“Initially, it was difficult to discuss FGM in public. Today, religious leaders, women’s leaders talk about it and even talk about the link between FGM and sexuality,” she said. “Having public discussions about FGM is a big step forward.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese