Female genital mutilation in Sudan

Female genital mutilation (FGM) was made illegal for medical practitioners in Sudan in 1941; nevertheless it has remained a regular practice by local health practitioners, especially at the discreet request of mothers among closely-knit communities. Despite the belief, female genital mutilation actually has very little to do with religion and is more of a cultural practice found only in some parts of the Muslim world. Some activists say it was devised in Pharaonic times to keep tabs on women giving birth to boys, an ongoing concern for Pharaoh. However, in today’s day and age, the cultural stigma still remains. In Sudan in particular, girls may be bullied by others who have survived the practice, taunting them for being “impure” or that “they will never get married” – cultural notions are that men prefer females who have undergone FGM. There is little frank discussion about the repercussions. International organisations and civil society alike tend to berate the practice for its initial severity and violence but fail to highlight how the trauma is sustained throughout the victim’s life after the event. Many girls have said the act of FGM is really just the beginning. Whilst working for women’s organisations in Khartoum I encountered some stories which illustrated the extent of the ritual, with some girls as young as seven having to go through it. East Africa carries out the most invasive form of FGM. In some countries, only part of the external genitalia is removed. In Sudan and some other East African countries, both the external and internal parts are removed with the rest sewn together, leaving small openings for urination and menstruation. From interviews with women at Al Ahfad University for Girls in Omdurman, we discovered the following findings. During intercourse: There are occurrences when doctors in Sudanese hospitals are confronted with women who are bleeding or losing large amounts of blood. One woman who has undergone FGM, told me that during intercourse, her husband took to her genitals with a knife. Afterwards, while his wife was still bleeding, he took her to the hospital where she was treated and once recovered, she was taken to a practitioner to be re-circumcised again. In childbirth: Women who have undergone FGM are more at risk of post-partum haemorrhage. When it comes to childbirth, those who have been sewn up often have to be cut open again to allow the baby to come out, otherwise the child will suffocate and in turn risk killing its mother. On the plus side: There is much activity enforced by international and national civil society, trying to address this issue in pioneering ways. The Babiker Bedri centre in Omdurman has been trying to shift cultural attitudes. Led by female psychologists, the organisation holds parties in villages and communities for those girls who have not gone through the procedure, giving them t-shirts to wear with captions reading “I have not had FGM and I am proud of it”. Often as a means of reinforcement, those girls who have had FGM are thrown celebratory parties to welcome them to womanhood.