Geography of Female Genital Mutilation
by The prevalence of FGM greatly varies among countries of the world. The procedure is currently practiced in about 28 African nations, some Middle Eastern countries, among a few minority groups in Asia and areas that immigrant communities reside. Frequency rates tend to fluctuate widely.
On the lower end of the spectrum, the Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) and Uganda report a 5% occurrence rate; while in countries such as Egypt and Somalia up to 98% of their women population have experienced varying degrees of mutilations.
Estimates claim that 15% of all women worldwide who have been circumcised have endured the most severe form, yet between 80-90% of circumcisions are of this nature in Somalia, Sudan and Dijbouti (WHO fact sheet 2002). According to Amnesty International, many men and women in commonly FGM-practicing countries believe that FGM is so normal and universal that they cannot envision a woman who has not undergone the procedure. In a 1989 interview with Ahmed, a 32-year old Sudanese veterinarian, she noted that “Until recently it never occurred to me that there was anything strange about women’s circumcision.” Moreover, in a news report titled “Egyptian Court Allows Female Circumcision,” published in a 1997 Toronto Globe stated, “According to a government study…97% of 14,779 Egyptian women polled had been circumcised. Eighty percent of those circumcised said they were pleased with the results.”
The increase of immigration and the dual penchant of tradition and fierce secrecy have caused female circumcisions to spill onto the soil of Europe, Canada, the Pacific and the United States. Typically, families of women and girls living in industrialized nations have the operation performed illegally by “doctors” of their own communities who share the same beliefs. More often however, the girls are sent abroad to their homeland to be mutilated or traditional practitioners are brought into the country and paid for by families pooling their resources.
FGM in the US
The American public who are aware of FGM usually assume that it barbarically practiced in faraway, remote places and does not reach into the homes or lives of the United States. Yet consider this alarming quote by an American doctor: “A baby girl, two years of age, had been troubled all her life with anuria and malnutrition. She had been treated by different doctors for different diseases, but with no benefit. The clitoris was completely buried beneath an adherent hood. In a few hours after circumcision, the red, angry boils on her face had perceptively paled; in thirty-six hours they were dried up. Her kidneys began to act normally, and she was transformed from a cross, peevish, discontented child into a state of perpetual sunshine.”
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