FGM more gross than you thought
Mar 29, 2007
I thank Catherine Mwesigwa for her opinion article in <i.The New Vision</i> of March 23, titled “Female genital mutilation puts women’s lives at risk.†She clearly put across what women go through when they experience female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision.
By Irene Mulyagonja
I thank Catherine Mwesigwa for her opinion article in The New Vision of March 23, titled “Female genital mutilation puts women’s lives at risk.†She clearly put across what women go through when they experience female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision.
However, she did not distinguish between de-clitomisation or clitorectomy (removal of the clitoral prepuce or the whole of the clitoris and sometimes the labia minora) which is practiced in Uganda among the Sabiny and some communities in Kenya, and infibulation (the removal of the labia minora and the clitoris followed by suturing or burning to leave a small opening for urine and menstrual flow) which is mostly practiced in Somalia, parts of West Africa and the Arab world.
Probably the Sabiny have no knowledge of the effects of infibulation because it is hardly practiced here. They will therefore not identify with the formation of fistulae which is a result of prolonged and obstructed labour and which Somali women and girls and some Arab women are more familiar with.
The Sabiny would be more familiar with effects like the failure to pass urine after the surgery (due to trauma) and the loss of blood when the surgeon cuts through the clitoral artery, and infections resulting from the use of dirty instruments to remove the clitoris (which such communities find repulsive and must remove from their women).
Not only is FGM shrouded in mystery but very few people can tell the different parts of a woman’s external genitalia.
Facts about women’s external genitalia are shrouded in mystery. There is also the attitude that women’s genitals are dirty and should not be viewed, even for educational purposes. I will bet that many women cannot tell the names of the different parts of their external genitalia. We therefore mince words when we talk about FGM and do not explicitly show what we are talking about to our readers.
We leave them no better than we found them, and some retain the negative attitudes they started with in defending this negative practice because of lack of clear information about its gravity.
I have had a chance to interact with Sabiny women who are fighting the practice of FGM at the grassroots.
Even in their communities where you would think FGM is clearly understood, it is amazing that many do not know what is actually done to the women’s and girls’ genitals. It has been reported that as the efforts to stop the ‘circumcision’ of girls began to show positive results in Kapchorwa, older women who had not been ‘circumcised’ began to seek opportunities “to face the knife.†This is probably why advocates of FGM still value it and think it is part of “women’s rights†that should be protected.
Anti-FGM activists from Kapchorwa and other areas where it is practiced have stated that whenever they talk about FGM in their communities, “pictures of the female genitalia are their guest.â€
I share the same view and believe that publication of the graphic details of effects of FGM would go a long way in helping our sisters in places where FGM is practiced in the struggle to end this cruel and inhuman treatment. It would also help in preventing FGM advocates from defending what they know very little about.
The writer is a Kampala advocate
I thank Catherine Mwesigwa for her opinion article in The New Vision of March 23, titled “Female genital mutilation puts women’s lives at risk.†She clearly put across what women go through when they experience female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision.
However, she did not distinguish between de-clitomisation or clitorectomy (removal of the clitoral prepuce or the whole of the clitoris and sometimes the labia minora) which is practiced in Uganda among the Sabiny and some communities in Kenya, and infibulation (the removal of the labia minora and the clitoris followed by suturing or burning to leave a small opening for urine and menstrual flow) which is mostly practiced in Somalia, parts of West Africa and the Arab world.
Probably the Sabiny have no knowledge of the effects of infibulation because it is hardly practiced here. They will therefore not identify with the formation of fistulae which is a result of prolonged and obstructed labour and which Somali women and girls and some Arab women are more familiar with.
The Sabiny would be more familiar with effects like the failure to pass urine after the surgery (due to trauma) and the loss of blood when the surgeon cuts through the clitoral artery, and infections resulting from the use of dirty instruments to remove the clitoris (which such communities find repulsive and must remove from their women).
Not only is FGM shrouded in mystery but very few people can tell the different parts of a woman’s external genitalia.
Facts about women’s external genitalia are shrouded in mystery. There is also the attitude that women’s genitals are dirty and should not be viewed, even for educational purposes. I will bet that many women cannot tell the names of the different parts of their external genitalia. We therefore mince words when we talk about FGM and do not explicitly show what we are talking about to our readers.
We leave them no better than we found them, and some retain the negative attitudes they started with in defending this negative practice because of lack of clear information about its gravity.
I have had a chance to interact with Sabiny women who are fighting the practice of FGM at the grassroots.
Even in their communities where you would think FGM is clearly understood, it is amazing that many do not know what is actually done to the women’s and girls’ genitals. It has been reported that as the efforts to stop the ‘circumcision’ of girls began to show positive results in Kapchorwa, older women who had not been ‘circumcised’ began to seek opportunities “to face the knife.†This is probably why advocates of FGM still value it and think it is part of “women’s rights†that should be protected.
Anti-FGM activists from Kapchorwa and other areas where it is practiced have stated that whenever they talk about FGM in their communities, “pictures of the female genitalia are their guest.â€
I share the same view and believe that publication of the graphic details of effects of FGM would go a long way in helping our sisters in places where FGM is practiced in the struggle to end this cruel and inhuman treatment. It would also help in preventing FGM advocates from defending what they know very little about.
The writer is a Kampala advocate