Talking Female Circumcision Out of Existence
By TINA ROSENBERG, NYT
Like every other girl of her era in her part of southern Ethiopia — and most girls in the country — Bogaletch Gebre was circumcised. In some regions girls are circumcised as infants, but in her zone it happened at puberty. It was around 1967, and she was about 12. A man held her from behind, blindfolded her and stuffed a rag in her mouth, and with his legs held her legs open so she could not move. A female circumciser took a razor blade and sliced off Gebre’s genitals.
Gebre nearly bled to death. She stayed at home for about two months, and after she healed, she was presented to her village, ready for marriage.
Unicef estimates (pdf) that between 70 million and 140 million girls and women globally are circumcised. The practice is widespread throughout Africa, and in some countries of Asia and the Middle East. In Ethiopia it is done by Muslims, Christians and Jews. (Gebre’s region of Kembata-Tembaro is a largely Protestant area of some 700,000 people in Ethiopia’s south.) No major religion endorses circumcision. Communities that practice it have in common that they are traditional societies where female sexuality is viewed mainly as a potential threat to family honor — in Kembata-Tembaro, the practice is called “cutting off the dirt.” To keep girls from promiscuity and ruin, the clitoris and often the labia are cut off to deaden sexual sensation.
Female circumcision, also known as female genital mutilation or genital cutting, is one of several traditional practices in Kembata-Tembaro that express men’s power over women. Domestic violence is tolerated, even expected. Another practice is bride abduction — men claim a wife by kidnapping and raping her; after the rape she must marry the rapist to avoid disgrace and preserve her family’s honor. There is also widow inheritance, in which a wife must marry her dead husband’s brother. “Women were not considered any better than the cows they milked,” said Gebre.
(More here.)
Like every other girl of her era in her part of southern Ethiopia — and most girls in the country — Bogaletch Gebre was circumcised. In some regions girls are circumcised as infants, but in her zone it happened at puberty. It was around 1967, and she was about 12. A man held her from behind, blindfolded her and stuffed a rag in her mouth, and with his legs held her legs open so she could not move. A female circumciser took a razor blade and sliced off Gebre’s genitals.
Gebre nearly bled to death. She stayed at home for about two months, and after she healed, she was presented to her village, ready for marriage.
Unicef estimates (pdf) that between 70 million and 140 million girls and women globally are circumcised. The practice is widespread throughout Africa, and in some countries of Asia and the Middle East. In Ethiopia it is done by Muslims, Christians and Jews. (Gebre’s region of Kembata-Tembaro is a largely Protestant area of some 700,000 people in Ethiopia’s south.) No major religion endorses circumcision. Communities that practice it have in common that they are traditional societies where female sexuality is viewed mainly as a potential threat to family honor — in Kembata-Tembaro, the practice is called “cutting off the dirt.” To keep girls from promiscuity and ruin, the clitoris and often the labia are cut off to deaden sexual sensation.
Female circumcision, also known as female genital mutilation or genital cutting, is one of several traditional practices in Kembata-Tembaro that express men’s power over women. Domestic violence is tolerated, even expected. Another practice is bride abduction — men claim a wife by kidnapping and raping her; after the rape she must marry the rapist to avoid disgrace and preserve her family’s honor. There is also widow inheritance, in which a wife must marry her dead husband’s brother. “Women were not considered any better than the cows they milked,” said Gebre.
(More here.)
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