Genital Mutilation In Sudan :: essays research papers fc

The lights are dim and the voices quiet. Tension fills the room where Nafisa, a six-year-old Sudanese girl lies on a bed in the corner. Her aunt, 25-year-old Zeinab, watches protectively as her niece undergoes the procedure now known as female genital mutilation (FGM), formerly called female circumcision. In this procedure, performed without anaesthesia, a girl's external sexual organs are partially or totally cut away. Zeinab does not approve. For the past year she has been trying to persuade her mother and sister to spare Nafisa from the procedure. She lost the battle with her family, but she will stay at her niece's side. She watches Nafisa lying quietly, brave and confused, and remembers her own experience. Zeinab underwent the procedure twice. At six years old she had the more moderate form of FGM, called Sunni, in which the covering of the clitoris is removed. When she was 15 the older women of her family insisted she have the Pharaonic form, which involves removal of the entire clitoris and the labia and stitching together of the vulva, leaving just a small hole for elimination of urine and menstrual blood. Zeinab still remembers the pain, the face of the women performing the procedure, the sound of her flesh being cut. She also remembers bleeding and being sick for weeks. This extreme form of FGM has been performed on 82 per cent of Sudanese women, according to a recent survey. Today, 85 to 114 million girls and women in more than 30 countries have been subjected to FGM. Female genital mutilation has long been performed to ensure chaste or monogamous behaviour by suppressing female sexuality. It is commonly -- although erroneously -- attributed to religious edict. In fact, neither Islam nor Christianity officially sanctions it. FGM is dangerous. It is estimated that untrained traditional birth attendants perform two thirds of the procedures. They typically have limited knowledge of health and hygiene and often use inadequately cleaned traditional instruments. Side effects of FGM include trauma, bleeding and haemorrhage; pain, stress and shock; infections (which can be fatal); painful and difficult sexual relations; obstructed labour and difficult childbirth; and psychological trauma. The effects can last a lifetime. The practice was declared illegal in the Sudan in 1941, but that did little to stop it. About 90 per cent of northern Sudanese women have had it done. Why does FGM continue? In surveys, the most common reason