Women's-rights groups such as Population Action International, Equality Now,
RAINBO, the Washington Metropolitan Alliance Against Ritualistic FGM, and the
Program for Appropriate Technology and Health (PATH) and other groups form a
loose information-and-activist network on FGM. More important, immigrant women
who were circumcised as children have joined forces to fight the tradition
among compatriots in this country.
Soraya Mire, a thirty-four-year-old Somali film maker who lives in Los Angeles,
has been touring the country with her film Fire Eyes, which shows
African children being circumcised. Asha Mohamud, a Somali who has worked as a
pediatrician and who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, now directs several
FGMprojects in Kenya and the United States for PATH. Mimi Ramsey has made it
her avocation to visit African businesses and communities in this country and
proselytize against FGM.
Ramsey typifies many who, after hearing about FGM in the media, have finally
been able to talk about an experience long suppressed. For years she had gone
to doctors for help with the aftereffects of her radical circumcision. For
years doctors, either because they were stunned by what they saw or because
they were trying to be culturally sensitive, said nothing to Ramsey about what
had been done to her and simply prescribed various topical creams and jellies
to ease her pain. But in February of last year all that changed.
"I went to a doctor for the problem I have down there," Ramsey says. "He asked
me, 'Why did they do this to you? Why did they remove all your genitalia?' He
was in shock." After returning to her apartment, depressed and confused,
Ramsey, a devout Christian, prayed for some answers. Later that night she saw a
television program about FGM and the Nigerian woman's asylum case in Oregon. It
answered many of her questions. "I was angry and still am. The morning after
the show I got up and called all the African women from my address book who
live in the United States. I asked them, 'Are you a victim too?' And they said
yes. I said, `Let's talk about it. I'm not going to shut up
anymore.'"
MOST of the talk about circumcision in this country has focused on male
circumcision, as people have made the case that it causes physical and
psychological pain to infant boys. When it comes to women, "circumcision" is at
best a misnomer.
"Cutting off the clitoris is equivalent to cutting off much of the penis," Asha
Mohamud says.
This is why opponents and medical leaders use the more descriptive and more
accurate term "female genital mutilation." Although in a tiny percentage of
cases FGM consists of a small cut to the hood of the clitoris, typically it is
much more severe. It usually involves the complete removal of the clitoris, and
often the removal of some of the inner and outer labia. In its most extreme
form—infibulation—almost all the external genitalia are cut away, the
remaining flesh from the outer labia is sewn together, or infibulated, and the
girl's legs are bound from ankle to waist for several weeks while scar tissue
closes up the vagina almost completely. A small hole, typically about the
diameter of a pencil, is left for urination and menstruation. The cutting is
usually done with a razor, a kitchen knife, or a pair of scissors. It is rare
for any anesthesia to be used. The age at which FGMis performed varies among
countries and communities. In some countries it is done on infants in the days
or weeks after birth; in others, such as Senegal, it is part of an elaborate
rite of passage that comes with puberty. In parts of Nigeria and Burkina Faso,
FGM is practiced during the seventh month of a woman's first pregnancy, in the
belief that if the baby at birth comes in contact with its mother's clitoris,
it will die.