Women’s circumcision: who and why crippers girls?.
When you read materials about female circumcision, you mentally note to yourself the incorrectness of this term. Cutting by a male type involves a harmless hygienic procedure for health, sometimes having medical indications, which is most often carried out in sterile hospital conditions. But for the rite of female circumcision there is no and cannot be any medical prerequisites and it has huge consequences for women’s health, up to death. Women’s circumcision – what is it and why women in the 21st century cripple the genitals?
Europeans face this phenomenon relatively rare. Most of those who have passed through the ceremony are girls from 5 to 14 years old living in Africa countries, near and Middle East. There are single circumcision cases in the first two weeks after birth. To the question “why”, practitioners of communities assure that this is impossible to marry a girl without this, the procedure is necessary to maintain innocence, purity and other dense preparations for future marriage. This is the control of female sexuality and violation of human rights. The amputation of the clitoris, small and large labia and the associated lifelong torment carried out in artisanal conditions cannot be justified by anything. Unfortunately, at least 200 million women were subjected to this terrible ritual according to UNICEF. There are much more real numbers, because women prefer not to talk about it.
The traditions of female circumcision in Islam
Due to the fact that the geographically crippling procedure is common in the Muslim countries of Asia and Africa, many, without delving into the essence, believe that this is a kind of Islamic custom. But in the Qur’an the rite is not mentioned and such a tradition does not exist, and the hadiths about it are considered scientists invented. There are Islamic fatwas (a solution to any issue made in Islam by a religious person).
Moreover, Islam involves sexual pleasure in marriage, which after a barbaric operation becomes impossible. But it is precisely due to the fact that there is no information in the sacred books, which means that there is no direct prohibition of such a ritual either, and this is used by poorly educated followers of pseudo-religious extremism. It is impossible to call Muslims those who cripple their daughters.
In which countries are circumcision in women practices
The ceremony appeared long before the existence of Islam and Christianity. According to Herodotus, he was practiced by the Phoenicians, Hittites, Ethiopes. There are cases of papyrus in ancient Egypt, and by the XV century the cult spread to the Inca empire. The conquerors who arrived on the American continent were amazed at such a barbarism of the Indians. However, already in the XIX-XX centuries, young Americans and Europeans were “treated” with clitoris (complete or partial clitoris removal) from such a non-existent disease as hysteria, or from masturbation and nymphomania not encouraged by the Church. The last case was registered in the United States in 1927. It became clear that in this way nothing could be cured.
Nowadays, in more than 30 countries, this procedure is officially or underground underground. In the first place, Africa countries are in the first place: Somalia (98%of women were circumcised according to the Unisef for 2013), Gwinea (96%), Djibuti (93%), Egypt (91%), Mali (89%), Eritrea (89%), Sierra Leone (88%), Sudan (88%). Natives from these countries take a terrible tradition to new prosperous places – Great Britain, Sweden, Finland, where it is not customary to climb into the affairs.
The tradition is found in the Philippines, in Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan. Oman, Iraq, Emirates and Bahrain are also on this list. In the countries of Latin America, cases in Brazil, Peru and Mexico have been recorded.
Women’s circumcision in the world
There is no law in the Russian Federation that would provide for criminal liability for this ceremony.
In 2012, State Duma deputy Maria Maksakova introduced a bill according to which the punishment would be up to 10 years in prison. The law is still under consideration.
In 2016, the lawyer and human rights activist of the Legal Initiative Foundation Julia Antonova, together with the researcher of the Caucasus Saida Sirazhudinova, issued the first part of the report on the penetration of the custom of female circumcision in Dagestan and neighboring regions. According to him, in the highlands of the southwestern regions of Dagestan (the villages of the Botlikh and Tsuntinsky districts), this practice touched from 90% to 100% of the girls among the Avar and Andocesian peoples. There are areas with a lower indicator and with a zero percentage of operations.
The report caused a violent negative reaction from the Caucasian community. Ismail Berdiev, chairman of the Coordinating Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus, came in support of crippling operations, saying that “it was necessary to reduce the sexuality of women”.
After the publication of the second part of the report, the employees of the Dagestan prosecutor’s office conducted an audit, but said that according to its results, information about the operations carried out was not confirmed.
In 2018, the theme of female circumcision first surfaced in a wide public space after this service was seen in the price list of one of the Moscow clinics. It was recommended for girls from 5 to 12 years old with an explanation that there is no medical indication for the procedure and it is carried out for religious or ritual motives. The case was discussed on Channel One in the Health program.
In June 2019, in the private clinic of Magas, a nine -year -old girl was carried out without the knowledge of her mother. Under the pretext of vaccination, she led her to the operation of the stepmother. After the child, the temperature rose and it was hospitalized. A criminal case was instituted at the gynecologist Izan Nalgiev, which is being considered in court so far.
More than 1,200 girls are becoming victims of the rite annually in the world. Apparently, this amount is not enough for state reforms.
Varieties of surgery
The World Health Organization distinguishes four types of crippling operations on the female genital organs. Three cutting methods in women in the diagram are shown below.
Type I, clitoris -ectomy, involves complete or partial clitoris amputation. In extremely rare cases, it can only be an incision or removal of a hood, but then the effect is directly opposite – increased sensitivity of the clitoris. It is believed that this type was made to concubines, and this is the least traumatic, but almost not found option.
II type includes amputation of the clitoris and labia. Only small labia can remove, and they can both small and large.
Type III – infibulation or “pharaoh circumcision”, when small labias are removed, and large are sewn together (most often agave spikes). Either a narrowed entrance is left to the vagina (for more satisfaction of the husband), or a small hole for urine and menstrual discharge.
The IV type includes all other intentional genital injuries – cuts, cauterization, bloodletting.
How circumcision is in women
Typically, a mother or other older relative leads a girl to the procedure. Sometimes everything is furnished as a holiday where other girls come, everyone brings delicious food. Girls are taken away to a bathroom or another room, they are carried out, and left in complete ignorance why it all ended so.
In the states of Africa, everything happens in, to put it mildly, antisanitarian conditions. The artisanal operation is carried out by a sharpened sink, blade, scissors, glass fragment – depending on the poverty of the region. No anesthesia is assumed, in many tribes it is believed that for initiation it is necessary to go through pain without breeding neither a tear. Since most often several girls cripple at once, the tool is used one for all. The “surgeon” is a local midwife, midwife or hairdresser. Sometimes mothers themselves cut their daughters. African migrants living in more prosperous countries do not refuse social benefits and bribe doctors in private clinics, so that the operation takes place in sterile conditions, but this does not make it less monstrous. Sometimes several families in which girls of a suitable age grow, throw themselves on a ticket and invite a midwife from Africa, so it is cheaper.
After the third type of circumcision, Faraoneov, the girls of the week are spent in the position of lying with tied legs so that the fabric is tightened. There are no antibiotics in the tribes, instead of them – herbs, menthol, donkey urine, boiled with goat droppings. It is amazing that one of the girls survives after the execution.
Sex after female circumcision
Despite the fact that the whole idea of practice comes down to successful marriage, no one thinks about a happy female in marriage. Sex becomes torture from the very first wedding night. If the girl did not die from infection to the wedding, then sexual contacts for her become either very painful or simply unbearable. Women cannot be excited, imagining subsequent pain. The desire for sex may be present, even the removal of the clitoris cannot affect this, but the orgasm to the victims is not available.
In the case of infibulation, the sutured hole of the vagina is sometimes insufficient to penetrate the penis, but most often they do not turn to doctors. To do this, the husband conducts deinfibulation – cuts the scar with an ordinary knife or, even worse, tears his hands. But in communities where pharaoh circumcision is practiced, dry and tight penetration, for which efforts need to be made, is considered the desired. And because of the local preference of “dry” sex, women introduce the products available to them for reducing lubrication-leaves, bark of trees, toothpaste, menthol grip from cough Vick’s.
The way female circumcision looks like III like the inhabitants of those places, the sewn vulva mistakenly seems to them hygienic.
Due to the fact that the topic is taboo, crippled women do not know that it is supposed to have pleasure from sex until they hear it from uncircumcised friends or relatives.
Health consequences
If the girl did not die from pain, blood loss, blood poisoning during or immediately after the procedure, then other complications await her.
From a non -sterile tool, you can become infected with tetanus, hepatitis and HIV.
Small and large labia perform a protective function. Removing them, the gates for infectious, inflammatory diseases – cystitis, vulvovaginitis, urethritis open. The violation of the hormonal background leads to problems with the menstrual cycle, weight, provokes endocrinological diagnoses.
With a hole left after the pharaoh cutting, menstruation lasts for weeks, and urination takes more than ten minutes.
During childbirth, the abrasion of the edge of the labia are inelastic and do not stretch as it should, which causes additional suffering and increases the risk of death for a woman and baby. Not to mention the fact that before giving birth, the scar must be opened again, and then sew up.
The pain tested during the operation is reflected in the psyche and remains with them forever. The shock experienced can eventually go into depression, and then to suicide.
Cinema cutting topic
The most famous film of the same name on the topic was shot from the autobiographical book of the model and human rights activist Varis C. Varis went through the ritual in her community in Somalia when she was only 5 years old. Her two sisters have already died of the consequences of the operation. When she was 13 herself, the old man got up for her, and the girl decided to escape. She walked along the desert of more than 600 kilometers and reached Mogadisho, the capital of Somali. From there, a distant relative who worked at the British Embassy took her to London as a servant, and there her modeling career began. Thanks to the history of Varis, the general public has learned about this problem.
“A day that I will never forget”, “Forgotten Girls”, “The Cut”, “Africa Rising” and many other documentary tapes raise the problem in different countries.
Fight against female circumcision
In 2003, the UN date was established on February 6 as an International Day against Women’s Cutting as a form of psychological and sexual violence.
The UN resolution on the ban on crippling operations was adopted in 2012.
Legislative prohibitions in countries where the ritual is widely practiced, do not work. Of the 29 such African states, punishments were introduced into 26.
The procedure is prohibited in 59 countries (Great Britain, Canada, Denmark, Spain, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand and others).
In some developed countries (Italy, the USA), they tried to at least bring the ceremony from the underground to private clinics in order to reduce the risks of girls’ lives, but the public stopped the public.
Of the women living in the world, 200 million, that is, approximately every twentieth, underwent this brutal torture. And justice in relation to women will not triumph in itself. While there is female circumcision, this means that you need to make efforts, talk about it, inform the environment. It is necessary that as many people can learn about it as possible. Public resonance can lead to big changes.
Video about what the operation is and how it is: