Female Genital Mutilation - an Inhumane Practice

My intended audience is my allies who agree that Female Genital Mutilation is an inhumane practice and it should be eradicated.

FGM: An Inhumane Practice

“The child, completely naked, is made to sit on a low stool. Several women take hold of her and open her legs wide. After separating her outer and inner labia, the operator, usually a woman experienced in this procedure, sits down facing the child. With her kitchen knife, the operator first pierces, and slices open the hood of the clitoris. Then she begins to cut it out. While another woman wipes off the blood with a rag, the operator digs with her sharp fingernail a hole the length of the clitoris to detach and pull out the organ. The little girl, held down by the woman helpers, screams in extreme unbearable pain; but no one pays her the slightest attention,” writes Fran P. Hosken of Female Genital Mutilation: Strategies For Eradication. Paul van Zyl from Female Circumcision: Cultural Right or Human Wrong describes the three different types of female circumcision, also known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), as a clitoridectomy, infibulation circumcision, and a clitoridotomy. He states that a clitoridectomy is the removal of the clitoris and adjacent labia. Infibulation circumcision is the removal of the clitoris and the labia majora and minora, followed by the securing of the scraped sides of vulva across the vagina. A clitoridotomy consists of the removal of the tip of the clitoris, sometimes performed by cutting a hole in a piece of cloth and placing it over the area to be cut, limiting the size of the area. I think this procedure is very barbaric and unnecessary and should be eradicated on the basis of its health risk and ethical issues.

“Female genital mutilation is practice that has been prevalent in Africa for centuries and due to increasing mobility of African and Middle Eastern immigrants to Europe, and the United States, and Australia, these mutilations are being exported all over the world” reports Fran Hosken. This practice has left women physically and psychologically scarred. She goes on to emphasize “all the operations are performed on the ground, under septic conditions, with the same knife or tool used on all the girls of a group operation, which is still the custom among many ethnic groups in rural areas.” Fran Hosken declares that operators most commonly perform circumcisions in unhygienic conditions with unstable instruments with no medical or anatomical knowledge. Paul van Zyl reports that female genital mutilation has resulted in such severe injuries such as shock, tetanus, severe hemorrhage, septicemia, fractured bones, severe scarring, and infertility. Women also experience severe complications during childbirth, they suffer from dyspareunia (continual severe pain during intercourse) and hematocolpos (retention of menstrual blood). Due to these side effects alone this procedure should be eliminated. What woman should have to go through a “surgery” in which the complications are dyspareunia, fractured bones, severe scarring, and even death all for the pleasure of their husbands and for respect in the community? Having to endure childbirth should be enough. These women face hardships every day including starvation, sexism, and oppression they shouldn’t have to go through genital mutilation as well.

This procedure is unnecessary and there are more cons to the situation than pros. Fran Hosken illustrates the procedure as “the use of thorns to hold the bleeding sides of the vulva together, or a paste of gum Arabic, sugar, and egg is used. The entrance to the vagina is thus obliterated which is the purpose of the operation. The legs of the girl are tied together immediately after the operation, and she immobilized for several weeks, until the wound of the vulva has closed, except for a small opening that is created by inserting a splinter of wood or bamboo.” Female Genital Mutilation has been practiced on girls as young as six-months-old. Fran Hosken also reports that at least 84 million women and girls are mutilated today in the Continental Africa, the Persian Gulf, and the southern part of the Arab Peninsula. The mortality rate due to female genital mutilation is extremely high; but no accurate records are kept comments Fran Hosken. Women and young girls are forced to undergo this experience for numerous reasons. One of the major reasons is for acceptance because a woman is considered dirty and polluted unless she is mutilated. These myths are constructed to validate and continue the female genital mutilations, from which men derive power and control over women as a group reveals Fran Hosken. “Research shows that genital mutilations are increasingly performed in the modern sector in Africa, including hospitals, often on small babies, stripped of all