Michelle Scavone

Matthias S Klein is right to feel annoyed that there was little media coverage to announce the fact that female genital mutilation aka female circumcision is now illegal in Egypt.

In a country where it is estimated that 90% of females are circumcised, this is an astronomical decision and one that I applaud wholeheartedly. However, just because something is outlawed doesn’t mean it will cease to exist. Egyptians will need to be stringent in their education and monitoring policies to ensure this rule is abided by, and it is more than likely that there will be many evaders. Despite this, I believe it is a positive step for women in a world where blatant abuses of human rights, violence and terror still dominate the ways of many lives.

This decision to ban FGM came recently after a 12 year old girl died during an operation. How horrible that innocent lives are lost at the hands of this barbaric practice. While I have been fortunate enough to never be exposed to such an atrocity in my youth, I can still imagine how this poor 12 year old and others like her would have felt, laying in wait for the procedure: scared, alone, in pain, helpless. The mothers of the girls probably felt the same when they had their operations - but had long forgotten the fear. Perhaps, at the time, the mothers vowed to never let this happen to their own children. In a world where something horrible occurs so routinely that it ceases to be horrible and is accepted as normal, it is not surprising that practices such as this continue with such prevalence.

Trying to understand the history and rationale of this practice, I did a little internet research. I found that FGM is carried out for the following brief reasons:

• Hardening girls up for their adult life, both physically and mentally
• Showing to the world that the girls are ready for a family, a husband and to be a woman
• Attempting to stop young girls from being promiscuous
• Religion/cultural belief or obligation

The practice can be so severe in some cultures that it horrifies me to even conceive: in extreme cases all genetalia is cut off, leaving a tiny hole for urinating, sex, menstruation and giving birth. In many African countries where this is most prevalent, FGM is done with penknives or fragments of broken glass, according to Amnesty International. All sexual sensation can be lost forever. Those poor girls.

I do believe the debate on the outlaw of FGM is an ethical issue rather than a cultural one. As I touched on in my previous post about Zimbabwe, torture, violence and murder are a way of life in some parts of the world and the people affected are virtually helpless to fight against the tyranny. FGM, on the other hand, is a violation of human rights that can and should be avoided - and women shouldn’t be persecuted if they decide not to do it.

In reading about the FGM debate I wondered if it was my business to feel righteous about how other families in other cultures far from mine choose to live their lives. I would certainly feel that it was nobody’s business to question my life choices. But as I said, this is an issue of human rights being violated. These girls, some as young as three, deserve to have the say in how their bodies are treated. They deserve, like any other female in the Western world, to live in a body that nature created, to enjoy sex as nature intended, and to not feel shame for any reason.