By Amy Vaya

Country of Residence: Bahrain

The first time I ever heard about female genital mutilation (FGM), I was 20 years old. A friend told me about a book she had read called ‘Desert Flower,’ by former model Waris Dirie, who had undergone the procedure as a girl.

Even as she described it, I found myself utterly unable to comprehend such cruelty. Why on earth, I thought, would someone need to do that to another human being, much less a three-year-old child? I hunted down the book and raced through it in a matter of days, learning about her story with a growing sense of horror.

Dirie thought it was normal to feel pain every time she urinated, because she had never known anything else. She never even realised she was missing body parts until, as a young woman, she saw her female roommate’s naked body. Both women wept. I wept.

All these years later I still remember that book because it was so shocking to me that such a thing is practiced anywhere in the world. And then I put it out of my mind.

It wasn’t until quite recently that the subject resurfaced in my life. A dear friend, who was just a passing acquaintance at the time, had posted online about how she had suffered FGM as a child. My mind raced back to this book and I was thunderstruck. It was one thing for it to happen to Waris Dirie in the 1960s in Somalia. It is quite another for it to happen in the 1990s, in the country where I live!

I became extremely upset. Even though I did not know her that well, this became personal. She had been raised exactly as I had been, gone to similar schools, had mutual friends, and had similar interests. Our lives overlapped so much except for this one glaring fact—her bodily integrity had not been respected. She had been violated in the worst possible way.

I watched videos about the Bohra community in which they discuss khatna with pride and I was disgusted. I thought of the other Bohra friends I’d had through my life and suddenly couldn’t see them the same way anymore. I felt like the women had been mutilated, whether they saw themselves that way or not. I was surprised at the men’s position. Perhaps they were ignorant of the fact this was even happening. The alternative–that they were deliberately inflicting this cruelty on their women–was just too much for me to stomach.

I was so upset I spoke to my mother about it. And would you believe it, at her age, that was the first time she was ever hearing about FGM? That should tell you how little this subject is spoken about among communities.

If we don’t talk about it, we can’t know it’s happening. And if we don’t know it’s happening, we can’t possibly stop it.

FGM should never have begun, and it certainly has no place in the 21st century. Let’s be clear–the aim of FGM in my opinion was never ‘cleanliness’ or any medical benefit–it is purely to reduce or remove a woman’s sexual pleasure, and I fail to see how that benefits anyone.

To the parents: If you think it will help you control your teenage daughter’s raging hormones better, think again. She is going to be a sexually mature adult for a lot longer than she is going to be an unmarried teenager under your roof. Do you really have the right to alter the rest of her life? Is ‘tradition’ even meaningful or important if it adversely affects the quality of life so much?

To the men: I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that perhaps you don’t know this is going on among your womenfolk. If that is the case, then learn about it, and protest it. And protest it you must, because this does not benefit you. Do you really want to marry a woman who may never enjoy sex with you? Do you really want to be in a marriage where your wife never initiates sex because it doesn’t feel good or is downright painful for her?

To the women: Keep going and be strong. You deserve to not have body parts removed without your consent. It is such a basic human right; it should go without saying. Your body is inviolable and you deserve for it to be respected as such.

On April 10, the U.S. Department of Justice decided not to appeal the November 2018 judgement by a US District Court which ruled that the federal law banning Female Genital Cutting is unconstitutional. The District Court had stated that FGC is a “local criminal activity” to be handled at the state level and that Congress did not have the authority to enact the federal law under the commerce clause. While the Department of Justice cites such technicalities as the reason behind its decision not to appeal the District Court’s ruling, it has also urged Congress to address the flaws and problems with the federal law against FGC so that it can be strengthened. 

The District Court’s ruling in November came in the case of Dr. Jumana Nagarwala and others, who were charged with performing/aiding female genital cutting in Detroit, Michigan, on nine minor girls.

 In positive news, however, 31 out of 50 states in the USA now have laws banning Female Genital Cutting after Idaho, Arkansas, and Utah passed laws to that effect in the past few months. 

The Idaho legislature passed a bill outlawing FGC on March 20, and the law will be effective from July. Utah state legislators unanimously passed a bill against FGC a week earlier, on March 14. Meanwhile, the law in Arkansas, passed in February, not only criminalises FGC but also provides for introducing awareness programmes about FGC.
18 states in the US have yet to pass their own laws banning genital cutting for girls and women, which is now vital since the District Court has ruled that FGC is a state-level crime. 

Meanwhile, in India, a group of grassroots Muslim women’s organisations in India released a manifesto on March 28 for political parties to take up ahead of the 2019 national Parliamentary election in April and May. The manifesto includes the demand for a special law to ban female genital cutting in India. The Indian Supreme Court is currently hearing a set of petitions demanding a law against FGC, as well as a counter-petition defending FGC on the grounds of the constitutionally-guaranteed right to religious freedom. The liberal Muslim women’s groups that released their “women’s manifesto” hope that India’s leading political parties will commit to ending FGC in their own official election manifestos. 

By Brionna Wiggins 

One day, fifteen years ago, while Karen McDonnell was teaching reproductive health at George Washington University (GWU), a student of hers was absent from the class. While that may not seem out of the ordinary, it was quite strange for this particular student. He was a diligent medical doctor from Guinea who attended the university for a Master’s in Public Health. He never missed a class before. Upon his return, Karen asked him if everything was okay. 

He told her that he had almost lost his wife. 

His wife had given birth to their first child, but when she was young, she underwent female genital cutting (FGC), and it caused complications during the delivery. No one knew how to properly care for her at the hospital while she delivered, and she nearly bled out. In short, those caring for her were unprepared for her case. 

“This isn’t something I was interested in yesterday,” Karen said, alluding to the years she’s spent on this project and reflecting on how far she’s come in understanding FGC. She remembers hearing about it in undergraduate school. Back then, FGC was simply an issue mentioned in passing during class. For the students in her graduate school at that time, it may not have seemed like there was anything to be done about it. “It’s a cultural practice, you can’t change culture. So let’s make it safer,” Karen said the instructors told students. The best solution at the time was medicalization, perhaps even providing clean blades. Karen knew that it still didn’t seem right and didn’t feel comfortable with the idea. The blade may be cleaner, but the potential health issues would remain. 

Karen pressed on working at George Washington University, spending decades focusing on domestic violence in her work. But the incident with her student sparked the motivation for advocacy. “That student changed my life in opening my world to [FGC].” 

Since then, Karen has worked with the former students and current students to educate others about how to care for those who have undergone FGC. She simply started by talking more in-depth about the practice with her students so they were made aware of the topic. Then two years ago, when the Office on Women’s Health came out with a funding mechanism for a medical project, Karen thought, Finally, we’re getting some attention here! They began working with survivors and RAHMA: a DC-based organization that addresses the stigma around HIV/AIDS in the American-Muslim community, as well as advocates against FGC. The team at GWU was awarded the health-focused funding to do work on a project that would teach other health practitioners how to give provisional care for those who have undergone FGC. Thus started the development of an online toolkit to educate women and healthcare providers on a topic that was once shrouded in secrecy. This toolkit is intended to be easily accessible and resource-filled with proper terminology and answers to questions that aren’t usually asked. 

The members of the team include a variety of survivors, advocates, health professionals, and others on-board with the multi-year program. In-depth interviews were conducted for both survivors of multiple countries and health-care providers that worked with survivors. The interviewers asked a myriad of questions: Tell us your experience? How did you get involved? If you had a toolkit, what would you want in there? What would you want providers to know? What do you want women to know? 

What’s even better is that women are coming forward with the willingness to share their stories, thanks to increased awareness and support from organizations such as Sahiyo that encourage them to do so. A turning point for these women had to do with their health: they started questioning why they had urinary infections and trauma they’ve carried since childhood. Beginning this conversation was the first step. 

The online toolkit is useful for survivors, their doctors, and others in the community. It will have an optimized search and curated content, which ensures that the information is scholarly, reliable, accurate, and useful for the website visitors. While doctors would ideally ask their patients about certain conditions that affect them, this resource can potentially fill in their gaps of knowledge when interacting with their patients. Additionally, the kit would cover essential concepts for survivors to ask health professionals. The team plans to have a community tool section that can be used by men and religious community leaders.

 Karen and many others are making a difference by working on this resource for survivors and their doctors. By understanding the complications that accompany their condition, it will ensure they receive proper support. 

More on Brionna:

Brionna is currently a high school senior in the District of Columbia. She likes drawing, helping others, and being able to contribute to great causes.

Part II: Cleanliness and religious reasons for FGC

By Saza Faradilla

Country of Residence: Singapore

This blog post is the second in a four-part series about female genital cutting (FGC) in Singapore. This second installment explains two of the five reasons raised by my interlocutors about FGC in Singapore: cleanliness and religion. (Read part one here.)

While medical practitioners confirmed that the cut has no effect on cleanliness, Muslim interlocutors believed it still helps with cleanliness, which was pivotal to their religiosity. Religiously, FGC is expounded upon in a hadith (record of the traditions or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), but there have been various interpretations of this hadith. Institutionally, the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) has avoided releasing any official statements on the religious mandate of FGC for the Muslim community.

This second installment explains some of the reasons the interlocutors provided for practicing FGC – cleanliness and religion.

Reasons for FGC

Cleanliness

The first reason some interlocutors (especially those who support FGC) shared is that of cleanliness. They believe a part of the vagina traps dirt and needs to be removed, which makes for easier cleaning. To them, this high hygiene standard is particularly crucial for prayer. The evocation of religion is significant here because it shows that my interlocutors actually view religion as the reason for FGC, and that cleanliness happens to fall under that umbrella. However, the practitioner I spoke to disagreed and said that there are no medical benefits to FGC because the “cut is so small, it doesn’t affect anything”. I believe the perceived idea of cleanliness and purity arises out of a misunderstanding of the cut and its specificities (amount cut, area cut etc).

Religion

According to Amnesty International, “FGC predates Islam and is not practiced by the majority of Muslims, but has acquired a religious dimension”. For most of my interlocutors, their belief in Islam is an extremely important reason for FGC.

I will first explore the ways my interlocutors linked FGC to Islam through the evocation of several hadiths and mazhab (Islamic jurisprudence, usually referring to specific Islamic teachers), and then go on to engage with different readings of these hadiths, and also discuss the position that religious authorities and leaders have taken with respect to FGC in Singapore. One of the hadiths that was alluded to by many of my interlocutors is the one told by Al-Baihaqi:

“There are a group of people who allow cutting for women by referring to the hadith where Um Habibah was cutting a group of women. On one day, Prophet Muhammad visited her and found a knife in her hand (for cutting). Prophet asked and confirmed that the function of that knife is really for cutting. Um Habibah asked, “Is cutting for women haram (forbidden)?” Nabi (Prophet) Muhammad said, “Oh women of Ansar, do the cutting but be sure to not cut too much.”

My interlocutors who support FGC said this hadith provided a clear approval of FGC from Prophet Muhammad, as he did not try to stop Um Habibah from cutting other women, but actually endorsed it. Not all my interlocutors were able to provide exacting details of this account, and they mention the details to varying extents. Most know of this as hearsay.

On the other hand, protestors of FGC interpret the hadiths and religious instructions differently. With reference to the same hadith above, Dalia said, “The fact that Prophet Muhammad came across this proves that it was already an Arabic tradition that was pre-Islamic. A lot of things that were already happening, the Prophet did not stop. He was trying to win over the Qurayshi people and so he could not exactly stop them. But the fact that he said to not take much means he already disapproves of FGC”.

I was keen to interview someone from MUIS (Islamic Religious Council of Singapore). Although repeated emails to them went unanswered, I found a past fatwa  where MUIS strongly endorses FGC as part of the Islamic tradition.

“According to the majority of ulama, circumcision is compulsory for men and women. It should be done early in life, preferably when still an infant, to avoid complications, prolong [sic] pain and embarrassment if done later in life. Any good Muslimah doctor can perform circumcision for women.”

However, this fatwa was removed from the website  in recent years, and MUIS has not since provided a reason for the removal or replaced it with another fatwa.

From my research, it is evident that religion is a significant reason for those who practice FGC. Indeed, religion is used to justify FGC around the Muslim world. It is notable that the same hadith is interpreted very differently by both proponents and opponents of FGC. In my concluding paragraphs, I will discuss the policy implications of MUIS taking an ambiguous stance toward FGC and urge them to produce a clear directive.

Part III of this series will focus on more reasons for the justification of FGC, including tradition and the control of female sexuality within patriarchy. 

Saza is a Senior Executive of service learning at Republic Polytechnic in Singapore. She recently graduated from Yale-NUS College where she spent much of her college life developing her thesis on female genital cutting in Singapore. A highly under-researched, misunderstood and personal issue, Saza sought to understand the reasons behind this practice. Saza is passionate about women’s rights and empowerment and seeks to assist marginalized populations as much as possible.

To learn more about the activists retreat, read the summary report.  

In March 2019, Sahiyo U.S. hosted our second annual activist retreat for women connected to the Bohra community who are concerned about the issue of FGC within the community. Sahiyo understands it takes many to bring about social change, and as a result, we work with individuals, organizations, and coalitions in a collaborative fashion. As advocates and activists, we are better together and can find the best solutions if we collaborate and work as one. 

The Sahiyo Activist retreat helps to build a network of U.S. based Bohra activists by 1) strengthening relationships with one another, 2) sharing best practices and providing tools for activists to utilize in their anti-FGC advocacy work moving forward. The retreat was also an opportunity for advocates/activists to discuss both the challenges and opportunities they face in advocating against FGC. This year, Sahiyo also initiated our peer support program, Saathi, a program attended to build a support system for activists. As per Sahiyo’s 2017 Activists Needs Assessment, findings suggest that having a support system in place was crucial towards building a critical mass of voices seeking to create change. Both the Activist Retreat and Saathi program seek to do so. 

To read reflections from participants who attended the retreat, click here.

Photo Courtesy Of Pixabay on Pexels.com

By Cameron Adelman

A major finding of the research project I have been conducting on the social and emotional correlates of female genital cutting (FGC) is that in communities that are more supportive of FGC, there are more reasons to support the practice. Some reasons in support of FGC include the practice as a coming of age ceremony, being promoted by religious/spiritual/community leaders, and being used to preserve a girl’s virginity and to promote her marriageability. Additionally, women are more likely to suffer social and emotional consequences such as having less social support and more negative feelings surrounding the community’s beliefs. 

In my last blog post, I talked about the conception of my research project on risk factors for female genital cutting and social/emotional issues related to the practice, and the divergence of the project from what I had originally envisioned. The majority of my data and the statistical analyses I ran were from the Demographic Health Surveys Program (DHS). The analysis of the DHS data pointed toward a number of social, emotional, and physical issues that appeared to be more common in women who had experienced FGC, as well as a number of beliefs that were more common in women who had experienced FGC, and some socioeconomic factors that appeared to be related. From this information, I was able to go through my own data and select the information that could help support a working theory of increased stress and emotional concerns for women who had experienced FGC. My data was also helpful for establishing a link between community attitudes and social/emotional wellbeing.                                                                               

My analysis of the data Sahiyo led to a few key findings:

• First, the number of cultural reasons supporting FGC was positively correlated with how supportive a community is of FGC. With a positive correlation, this means that as one factor increases, the other does as well, so the more reasons a participant selected for why FGC was a part of her culture, the more supportive her community was likely to be of FGC. 
• Second, the number of cultural reasons for why FGC is practiced was negatively correlated with how the community attitude toward FGC made a participant feel. With a negative correlation, this means that as one factor increases, the other decreases. The more reasons a participant selected for why FGC was a part of her culture, the more negatively she felt about her community’s supportiveness of FGC.                                                                  
• Third, how supportive a community is of FGC was negatively correlated with how a participant felt about the community attitude, and how many personal sources of support a participant listed that she had available to her. 
• Finally, the number of personal sources of support a participant had was positively correlated with how a participant felt about her community’s attitude toward FGC.

Despite the immense help of Sahiyo, I had only 11 participants of my own after sending out a survey to gather data, which was insufficient for a full research paper. This limit is what led me to the DHS. After seeing how significant the findings from the DHS data were it became clear that the best route forward was to take the aspects of my data from Sahiyo members about community attitudes and use that to supplement my findings from DHS. 

With my data analysis completed, I’ve begun the work of writing the paper that will hopefully be submitted for publication in a research journal at the end of the semester. The results so far suggest unique challenges to supporting women in communities that still actively promote and support FGC. I hope with the work I have done that it can lead to improved services for women in areas both supportive and unsupportive of female genital cutting. 

More on Cameron:

Cameron Adelman is a senior neuroscience major and women and gender studies minor at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. He has been working on his research project about social and emotional effects of FGC since last year. The findings of his research among women who have experienced FGC suggest a number of sociocultural confounds in trying to develop and deliver support systems for women living in practicing communities. Cameron’s hope is to help advise best practices that take these factors, as well as additional risks to wellbeing, into account.

By Anonymous

Country: United States 

Age: 50 

I may not be able to share the same emotional or physical experiences of some of the other Sahiyo participants who attended the Sahiyo U.S. Activist Retreat in March 2019 and who have undergone khatna, but I have a story to tell. My mother, myself, nor my daughter have undergone khatna, and that is not the end of the story, but the beginning of this restlessness in me to do something for others in my community who have undergone it. 

Khatna conversation made landfall on my household when my daughter was 7-years- old. There was pressure from my mother-in-law to have my daughter cut. Her argument was that she would never suggest something that was bad for her granddaughter. There was no Sahiyo platform to educate my family members then so one could imagine my struggle twelve years ago. Seeing my mother-in-law so upset, my sisters-in-law got involved and they insisted that I should just lie to my mother-in-law to end the matter. I had been told to shut my mouth in my monthly Bohra menij groups, also. “Don’t do it, but speak about it otherwise.” 

Let’s fast forward to after the Sahiyo retreat that I attended in March. A few days later, I met a friend at a gathering who had brought her 9-yr-old daughter along. I was very curious and worried if she had gotten her daughter’s khatna done, so I asked the question. She replied that she hadn’t and that she was, in a strange way, thankful that the conversation about the Detroit incident happened at the same time as when it was time for her daughter’s khatna. She saw all that was happening with the case and thought against the act. She wanted to know if I knew more about the case and I was thankful I attended the Sahiyo retreat, as I was able to give her more details about the case and was comfortable and confident to hold a dialogue on khatna. 

My thought is that the Detroit case is very important. Even if the outcome may or may not be to our liking, it did cause a big stir in our Bohra community and at least one more girl was spared the blade. 

By Farzana Doctor

Country of Residence: Canada

Age: 48

When the first emails circulated about last month’s Sahiyo retreat in New York City, I wasn’t sure why I wanted to register, only that I knew I had to.  I felt anxious the week leading up to the event and couldn’t pinpoint the reason why.

During the opening exercise, when we listed our hopes for the weekend, a voice in my head said, quite definitively, “healing.” This surprised me because I’ve been thinking and writing about khatna since 2016, when I joined WeSpeakOut and began my healing journey. Over the previous years I’ve seen a therapist, talked to friends and family, and even finished writing a novel on the subject. What more healing was there to do?

But I put up my hand, and the notetaker recorded “healing” on the flipchart page. I felt vulnerable in my honesty, but I told myself to remain open to whatever could come from the gathering. Anxiety thrummed through my body.

On the second day, I listened to the woman across from me share her khatna memory, and a deep sorrow rose up in me as I recognized elements of shared experience. A painful penny dropped. I didn’t participate much in that session, just quietly wiped my tears and journalled my realizations.

Later, in a pair-share exercise with the woman sitting next to me, I found myself relating to an aspect of her story, even though it was quite different from my own. It was like she was indirectly speaking to my fears and they quieted somewhat.

On the third day, I sat with my Saathi (my partner in the peer support program that Sahiyo is piloting) and I talked to her about ways I might shift my activism from “behind the scenes” to being more public. I was still anxious, but sharing with her also made me feel brave.

After the retreat I spent a few hours hanging out with another participant. She commented that I’d seemed grounded the whole weekend and I told her that I was good at wearing a calm mask. In fact, I had dissociated a little during some of the sessions, missing bits of the conversation and activity instructions. While I’ve long known that this is one of my coping strategies, saying it aloud to her, to another Bohri woman, was powerful in a way I couldn’t name right then.

But, after a week of reflection, I can name it now: the Sahiyo facilitators created an intentional space of respect and safety, and then twenty-one feminist Bohri women stepped into it. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.  

This was what was so incredibly powerful for me.  And so healing.