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Afghanistan: Drug economy increasingly mafia-like
Vietnam, a UN test case
UNDP focuses on Arab women
BMZ budget 2007
Financial markets: Sitting on a powder keg
Somalia: Experts fear escalation
Female genital multilation: Scarring body and soul
Informal institutions: sometimes good, sometimes bad
01/2007
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[ Female genital mutilation ]
Scarring body and soul
140 million women and girls worldwide have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates a further three million girls are added each year. This operation, which is irreversible, can have serious physical and mental consequences. It is practised primarily in 28 African countries as well as in some Arab and Asian countries.
At an international conference at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, leading Muslim clerics recently spelled out for the first time that FGM has no base in the Koran. They called the practice a “punishable aggression against humankind” and demanded that all Muslims terminate this millennia-old custom, in which the external female genitalia are partially or completely removed. In 10 to 15 % of cases, the vagina is also sewn together, leaving just a small opening.
It remains to be seen what impact this recommendation of Egypts leading Islamic jurists will have on the ground. According to Germany’s Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, their fatwa “cannot be estimated highly enough in its significance”. Colette Dehlot, head of the WHO division of Family and Reproductive Health, welcomed the resolution. She remains skeptical nonetheless, as there are already many conventions and laws that make female genital mutilation a punishable offence: “All of this is not enough, we have to break down the resistance locally.” The laconic comment of Fadumo Korn, an author and board member of Forward, a Frankfurt-based charity, is: “Great, but female genital mutilation occurs in Christian countries, too.”
The Cairo fatwa accordingly played only a minor role at a conference held in Berlin by the GTZ (German Technical Cooperation), the German Development Ministry and anti-FGM network Integra, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), in December. Activists against this destructive tradition are particularly concerned about the trend of doctors increasingly performing the operations in some countries. Today, 75% of affected women and children in Egypt are cut in hospitals, where the operation takes place under anaesthetic and under hygienic conditions. Nonetheless, mutilating women this way still violates their human rights.
The WHO therefore strictly rejects the medicalisation of circumcision. It recently published a study, based on data of 28,000 women from six African countries, in the medical journal The Lancet. According to this study, pregnant women who underwent FGM have a greater risk of losing their child before or after birth. Furthermore, they are more likely to face problems when giving birth. Haemorrhaging, infections, the formation of abscesses and cysts, infertility, the occurrence of fistulas, incontinence and an increased risk of HIV/AIDS are also quite common after FGM. However, these health problems are not necessarily connected with FGM.
Education and prevention are the order of the day. Respectful conduct by foreign agencies is very important in this context, warns Alice Behrend of Plan International, an NGO: “When deep outrage meets ancient traditions, dialogue is impossible.” She works as a regional gender-relations consultant in Sierra Leone and recommends engaging in non-judgemental exchange, involving all segments of the population. FGM, she stresses, must be regarded a social issue, not a mere health issue. Furthermore, she would welcome more and better data. Too often, she says, it is argued in affected regions: “Your information is very interesting, but the situation here is completely different.”
Petra Meyer
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