Genital Mutilation In Sudan

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