We need your help to expand
our educational work on female genital mutilation. We
are currently training dedicated staff to carry out awareness-raising
work with all parts of the community to make them aware
of the consequences. We need additional funds to set up
community workshops, and to work with local radio. As
people have so much confidence in our organisation, we
feel we can achieve a lot.
In Mali, female genital
mutilation is practised by all religions (Animist, Muslim
and Christian). It is thought to have originated in Egypt
3-5,000 BC and is widely practised in sub-Saharan Africa.
Mali has the highest incidence of mutilation in West Africa
and over 90% of girls still undergo an extensive operation,
usually with a communal implement and without anaesthetic.
The clitoris and often the vaginal lips as well are removed.
Almost all women of childbearing age are already excised.
This has been the ‘normality’ of womanhood
for so long, that people throughout society are unaware
that the practice is harmful, that excision is not carried
out in the rest of the world, and that unexcised women
have so few health problems.
In most cases, female
genital mutilation is carried out simply because it is
an ‘ancestral tradition’. There are also many
unfounded reasons for the practice: that a girl’s
clitoris can grow into a penis, that it promotes a woman’s
fertility, that an open vagina eases childbirth, that
it ensures a girl becomes a woman, and for cleanliness.
The main immediate problems
of the operation are immense pain, haemorrhage, shock
and death, anaemia from blood loss, damage to the adjoining
organs, urine retention, tetanus and septicaemia infection.
In every village, girls die from loss of blood. However,
when deaths happen, they are given spiritual causes such
as ancestral displeasure, loss of tradition, or a fault
with the girl herself. The physical operation itself is
never cited as the cause.
It is estimated that 50%
of excised women suffer ongoing health problems. These
include recurrent urinary infections; very painful and
blocked periods; infections causing sterility; overgrowth
of scar tissue and cysts, development of neuroma (a tumour
or mass growing from a nerve); prolonged and obstructed
labour as scar tissue cannot stretch – which can
lead to death of the mother, brain damage and death of
the baby, fistula damage making women incontinent (and
thereafter hidden from village life); and marital problems
due to frigidity. The majority of women have no access
to medical treatment for chronic problems and few families
have the means to pay for operations, or a caesarian if
the mother is many days in childbirth.
Many people who have attended
our midwifery courses would like to see the practice stop,
but this will be a gradual process of social change. So
far it is mainly the young who are stopping the practice
within their families, but this has to be kept quiet.
It is vital that we extend our educational work on the
consequences of female excision to all parts of the community:
community leaders, religious leaders, men’s groups,
women’s groups, youth groups and schools, as the
children who go to school are listened to at home. The
most effective work that has so far been done on this
is through Community Workshops, where leaders and representatives
from villages from the whole district are brought together,
but these are fairly costly to set up (c£650 for
a 5-day workshop). Teaching images and resources are needed,
and we would also like to raise £800 to work with
local radio.
People in
rural Mali are isolated. Their world is the area they
can walk to and there are no televisions or newspapers.
The ‘right to knowledge’ is an issue of poverty.
So much of women’s unnecessary suffering can be
avoided. Once everyone in the community knows that it
is the physical operation itself that is causing so many
of their problems, it is gradually possible for the whole
village to agree to stop it. Although the tradition is
perpetuated by women, men must also be convinced that
they can safely marry unexcised girls. In other parts
of the world, mutilating traditions such as foot-binding
and corseting gradually disappeared with greater knowledge.
