"Female circumcision": How is it that girls are still crippled
In Russia, again talking about crippling operations on the genital organs of girls - the project "Legal Initiative" published a report on these practices in the republics of the North Caucasus. This is the second such publication, the first was published a year and a half ago. This time, the researchers concentrated on how men in the region treat mutilated operations, and also studied how the situation has changed since the publication of the first report and whether it has changed at all. Even according to approximate and most modest estimates, 1,240 girls, mostly from Dagestan, are victims of mutilation in the North Caucasus each year.
Female genital mutilation seems to be a distant practice from the past, but they are much more common than it seems. Evidence of modern operations can be found not only in some countries in Africa and Asia and in the Middle East, where patriarchal traditions are preserved, but also in countries considered more “prosperous,” such as the United States or Singapore. According to estimates of the United Nations Population Fund, about two hundred million women who are victims of the practice live in the world. This number can be much higher, because not all women admit that this has happened to them: many live in closed communities and protect traditions from outsiders, others are ashamed to admit what happened to them, still others do not see anything terrible in what happened - and do not want to draw attention to it.
What is "female circumcision"
Female genital mutilation is also called “female circumcision”, but this term is gradually rejected in world practice: it causes associations with male circumcision, a procedure that can be carried out for medical reasons. In fact, there are no and cannot be medical prerequisites for female circumcision - on the contrary, it can lead to serious health problems and even death. In English, in addition to the term "female genital mutilation", that is, "female genital mutilation", you can also find the expression "female genital cutting" - this can be translated as "damage" or "incision of the female genital organs", depending on the type of procedure.
WHO identifies four types of practices according to their severity. Type I, or clitoridectomy, involves the complete or partial removal of the clitoris. In some cases, only the hood of the clitoris is removed or an incision is made. Type II involves the removal of the clitoris and labia - sometimes only small labia, sometimes small and large, are removed. With type III (also called infibulation or "Pharaoh circumcision"), small or large labia are removed, and then the tissue is sutured, leaving only a small hole. Finally, all other genital mutilation, such as punctures, incisions, cauterization, or incisions in the vagina, are classified as type IV.
Most often, crippling operations are performed on underage girls. In half of the countries where they practice, mostly girls under five are exposed to them; in other countries, they are more likely to be encountered by teenage girls. In Kenya, the procedure was traditionally carried out on the wedding day - most often the girls by this time were eighteen to twenty years old.
Female genital mutilation can lead to serious consequences: cruelty of the practice plays a role, and the fact that it is often performed with unsterile instruments, and the wound is not disinfected. Immediately after the procedure, women experience terrible pain, they can face serious blood loss, infections, injuries and many other complications - even death. In the long run, they can be supplemented with infections of the urogenital system, problems with menstruation (it may become more painful, or a woman may have a problem with the removal of menstrual blood from the body), sex (a woman experiences pain during intercourse, is deprived of the ability to have fun) difficulties in childbirth and death of newborns. After the “Pharaoh's circumcision”, women can undergo more than once operations: for sexual contact and childbearing, the tissue is cut (this process is called deinfibulation), and sometimes after birth, they can be stitched again, and so several times - and each operation means new risks. All this - not counting the heavy consequences for the psyche.
Where and why do crippling operations
According to the United Nations Population Fund, female genital mutilation is practiced in twenty-nine African countries (for example, in Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and others), some communities in Asia (in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka), in the Middle East (Oman, UAE, Yemen), in Iraq, Iran, Palestine and Israel, South America (in Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Peru), and also in selected communities of Georgia and Russia. Victims of the practice are also becoming in Europe, the USA, New Zealand and Australia - immigrants from countries where the practice still exists face it.
The most common in the world are crippling operations of the first and second type. About 10% of all victims go through the operation of the third type, that is, “Pharaoh's Circumcision” - it is found in Somalia, Djibouti and the northern province of Sudan. Candidate of political science, lawyer, president of the Center for the Study of Global Issues of Modernity and Regional Problems "Caucasus. Peace. Development" and one of the authors of the report on mutilation in the republics of the North Caucasus Saida Sirazhudinova notes that in the Caucasus most operations are reduced to imitation of circumcision. (scratching, notching), but more violent forms of the practice can be found.
In some cases, crippling operations are associated with the idea that it is supposedly more hygienic. Many believe that the practice should make a woman "less temperamental", reduce her sexual activity - and since she does not enjoy sex, she will not cheat on her husband and her marriage will remain strong.
The operations themselves are often performed by community elders. In this case, the patriarchal tradition is supported by women - most often they are the ones who perform the crippling procedures. In the North Caucasus, the procedure is usually carried out by close relatives of girls: mothers, aunts, grandmothers. In some countries, the procedure, on the contrary, is “medicalized,” and it is done by medical specialists: doctors, nurses, and midwives. This happens, for example, in Egypt, Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria and Guinea; You can find evidence that it is in Dagestan. This is believed to make the procedure less hazardous to health and more hygienic, although dangerous health effects may occur in any case.
How to try to fight it
Legislatively, the problem of "female circumcision" was dealt with relatively recently - in the eighties-nineties. Now the legislative ban is valid in twenty-five African countries (although in Liberia it was introduced only this year - and only for a year), as well as in many countries of Europe, Australia, Canada and the USA. Since 1997, UN has been involved in female circumcision - the organization has publicly condemned crippling operations and calls for the development of an appropriate regulatory framework.
“Two years ago I was an ardent opponent of state intervention in this issue. Now I think it is inevitable and desirable,” said Svetlana Anokhina, journalist and editor-in-chief of the Daptar portal, regarding the situation in Dagestan. On the one hand we need the scheme that we have already developed - exposure through the Ministry of Health, distribution of booklets, leaflets, which should be in every gynecology, maternity hospital, district hospitals. Plus, the strictest order to doctors to report on such cases. hovenstvom. This mutilation practices, is a mockery of a child who has not attained the age of majority, the adoption of such a decision for it is a criminal offense. This was all forgotten. "
True, legislative initiatives alone are not enough: procedures can still be carried out underground. Yulia Antonova believes that it is possible to influence the situation at the state level: in a report on the situation in the North Caucasus, the authors cite successful international strategies. “But you need to understand that if we speak, for example, of African countries or European countries with a large influx of migrants, there the period of struggle with these practices ranges from thirty to forty years. We are only looking for a way,” she adds. Antonova also notes that many legal norms remained “dead” for a long time: the operations were hushed up, people refused to complain about their close relatives who made the decision about the operation.
Saida Sirazhudinova says that in several Avar areas where the practice was traditionally held, she was abandoned. Somewhere it happened under the influence of the Soviet government, the policy of atheism and the “emancipation of the Goryanka”. Somewhere changes happened later, about twenty years ago - thanks to a religious revival, attempts to understand the questions of Islam and the imams, who said that the procedure is not necessary or not necessary at all.
“In order for the situation to change now, it is necessary to increase both general and religious literacy of the population,” said Saida Sirazhudinova. the position of local religious authorities (at the level of the village or the community - jamaat), with whom the population is directly confronted and who is asking questions. In most cases, it is the imams of the rural level who contributed to the eradication of operations nd.
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