In the Cut: Rites or Rights?
July 6th, 2007 by Anindita Sengupta
Budour Ahmad Shaker died while undergoing female circumcision in Egypt. She was 12. Hopefully, her tragic death will not be forgotten. The horrific incident and resulting public protest has prompted Egypt’s health minister to announce a formal and absolute ban on female circumcision, or female genital mutilation.
Female circumcision involves the removal of the female clitoris, which conservative families believe is a way of protecting a girl’s chastity. The practice is common among Muslim as well as Christian families in Egypt and other African countries. According to The Economist report, a nationwide survey carried out in 2005 revealed that 97% of married women claimed to have been circumcised. But a more disturbing trend is that two-thirds of circumcisions are performed by doctors.
The Guardian says that female circumcision was made illegal in Egypt in 1997. But there were loopholes that many medical professionals took ample advantage of. Shaker’s untimely death has brought to the forefront something that too often we relegate to the back of our minds. Not only is this a primitive rite that reinforces discriminatory attitudes towards women, it is also painful, sadistic and potentially deadly!
Of course, it will take more than mere legislation to change something so ingrained. It’s important that doctors (whom we think of as ‘healers’) be held to task for wielding scalpels of destruction. But unless the larger cultural issues are addressed, people will continue to practice it on the sly and endanger the lives of their little girls by taking them to quacks. I think it’s important to sensitize people, especially parents, about the dangers of this practice and hold them accountable as well. Shaker died because of the effects of anaesthesia. No doubt the doctor was responsible (and he has been arrested). But were the parents any less culpable?
The BBC website has a discussion on the issue of FGM and the counterpoint comes from some people who say that if a woman chooses to have the operation, there’s nothing wrong with it. Well, firstly, a lot of girls are circumcised before they become women so the question of choice is a little irrelevant. Secondly, to make an informed choice on the matter, a woman should have equal access to information about the pros and cons, which I doubt is the case most times.
The defense for practices like FGM, which are deeply entrenched in any society, is usually the protection of culture. But what is culture? Not a static museum piece but an evolving phenomenon. As we move into an increasingly globalised world, we need to arrive at some things we universally agree on — the meaning of words like murder, genocide, suicide; what constitutes human rights violation; what constitutes child abuse. By all means, let’s celebrate our differences and protect our individual cultures. But let’s not forget that at the core, we are all human beings.
July 7th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
That’s awful, I heard about it before but in tribal Africa. I’ve lived in different countries and I’ve been able to observe how deep rooted ideas are in different societies. You never really know how brainwashed you are by your own culture until you see it from the outside.