Why female circumcision must stop

Before she knew it, she had been held down by her own mother and her uncle while an old woman proceeded to work with what she remembered were “two blunt, rusty knives” on her private part. Idris recalled: “The old woman began to cut inch-by-inch something there which, though painful, I took for granted because then […]

Before she knew it, she had been held down by her own mother and her uncle while an old woman proceeded to work with what she remembered were “two blunt, rusty knives” on her private part.
 Idris recalled: “The old woman began to cut inch-by-inch something there which, though painful, I took for granted because then I did not really understand the health implications of what was being done.”
As she was emerging into adolescence, her mother had begun drumming it into her consciousness, what she emphasised was “a matter of culture”, a certain rite that must be performed on her to celebrate her into womanhood.
The rite, she told her would announce her as coming of age.
Besides, her mother was always harping, a young woman should not have a clitoris because it is stinky,  smelly, it gets in the way of things and it would make her so sexually sensitive she would want to jump at every man she saw. “If that thing is not done on you, you won’t be able to stay a virgin until you get married,” she warned her.
But as Idris grew older and began to read articles on women’s affairs, especially on the clitoris, in newspapers and magazines, a radical feeling started creeping into her.
“I felt like the Western culture was treating me like some complete freak of nature and almost putting the blame on a woman like me for what happened,” she said later, following unsavoury developments about her fertility – or actually lack of it – she took to chastising her mother over her sad condition. “I have forgiven her now. But I will be contributing hard to the efforts to stop this practice in my generation. Today, I am barren because I have been suffering from infections ever since,” Idris explained.
So can Idris and her fellow activists working against female genital mutilation (FGM), as circumcision in girls is technically called, succeed in eradicating the practice? In 2010, Mrs. Linda J. E. Osarenren, Senior Programme Officer of the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (IAC), during her visit to Nigeria, took a critical look at the dangers and irrelevance of female circumcision.
She declared: “For those who might know little or nothing about FGM, I want to note that it refers to the cutting of parts or all of the external genitals, clitoris, labia, etc. What makes it even contentious is that there is no foreskin to cut like in male circumcision. In that of the female, there is almost no foreskin to cut, what they are cutting is a blood-rich nerve path healthy organ that has a function in reproduction.”
She said some do not just cut the clitoris, but go on to cut the inner and outer lips, compromising the elasticity of that part of the woman’s body. “When it is healed (hoping it heals properly without infection) there is a scar, and during delivery, scars are inelastic, they don’t expand. The irony of it is that God has made that part of the woman body elastic, especially to aid delivery.
“Instead of expanding now, the area tears as a result of FGM. So, there is the labour pain as well as the pain of tearing. This goes with bleeding that may or may not stop easily. After FGM, some children even bleed to death! Some contact infection immediately or later on, and sometimes, this infection ascends to the Fallopian Tube, leading to infertility.” She said.
Osanreren explained that sometimes, for those whose clitorises were cut, when the sore heals, something bigger than the clitoris appears like a fibroid keloid. The effect is that with all these complications – physical, psychological, mental and psychosexual – a woman’s ability to have sexual satisfaction is compromised. “There are people who say there is no medical complication, but there is a problem psychologically and mentally which they may not know. This is why FGM is a violation of the reproductive health and rights of a woman,” she stated.
The bottom line is that the FGM has nothing to do with whether a girl will be promiscuous or not because we have seen cases of girls who were circumcised, but yet were jumping from one man to the other.
 How do we then explain this? My hope is that with education, within a short time, FGM will die.

Mohammed of the Department of Mass Communication,  University of Maiduguri contributed this piece.