FGM - Not for the Squeamish

A 7 year old girl takes her mother’s hand as they board the plane in DC. They are headed for Nigeria, to visit the mother’s family and introduce the girl to her grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins. The streets of Abuja seem strange to a child born in Washington. Her uncle drives them out of the city to a small village where the family lives, and a wonderful dinner celebration welcomes the new comers. The next morning the women tell the girl that she is being taken to the “woman’s place” for a special ceremony, and she is excited. She will become a woman!!!
They arrive at a small hut away from the village and all go inside. The child is frightened but consoled by her mother. Next, she is undressed and told to lie down on the ceremonial blanket, made especially for her. She willing does so, though she is still frightened. She doesn’t understand what the women are saying in their foreign tongue. The next few minutes are a blur of fear and pain as the women pin her to the blanket and her grandmother shows her a rusty knife and chants something. Next, her grandmother saws off her genitalia, both pair of labia and her tiny sensitive clitoris. She screams and screams, and passes out from fear and pain. Her mother tells her that now she is a woman.
This true story describes a process called by many names but commonly known as Female Genital Mutilation or FGM. This disgusting, degrading, and utterly unnecessary mutilation is practiced in many countries around the world, mostly by Muslims of certain sects, but also by some African tribes. This little girl was one of the lucky ones. She went home to medical care and didn’t die of shock or infection. Thousands of children are not so lucky. Mutilations done with rusty can tops or broken glass shards often result in death. But hey, these are only girls, right? More where they came from, right?
WRONG!!!! These are children being abused in a most savage way. What have you done lately to oppose these practices? Read the article from UNICEF linked below for more information, and for the sake of a little girl somewhere, DO SOMETHING!!!
(Oh, and on the wedding night? The most badly scarred brides are “opened” with a sharp dagger, providing the husband proof of virginity, and lubrication. That make you feel any better?)
Image: diasporadical.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/fgm.jpg
UNICEF: http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_genitalmutilation.html