Trigger warning: Below is one person’s account of her experience with female genital mutilation in India. This story may be disturbing and/or triggering for some. We thank her for being brave and sharing her story with us.
By Anonymous
“Sit here..here on this steel plate. [Takes out a pair of sharp scissors]. Shh! Just close your eyes...[Removes my underwear]. Nothing will happen, darling! [My mother holds my hand]. It’s done…[She covered my mouth]. It’s almost done. [I was bleeding]. Don’t cry...Good girls don’t cry! [Because good girls…they…they get circumcised].
The events of my circumcision, or female genital cutting (FGC), continue to be a source of haunting noise to my listening ear.
My 7-year-old self only thought of a promised chocolate treat, given to compensate for that deadly pain; how her Maa would kiss her cheek for being a brave girl sitting on that steel plate. She did not know she was sitting in that shadowy hideous place to pay for her sin: the sin of being a woman. When you are as young as 7, you are not aware of the moral conscience. You do not pay attention to the right or wrong of things, and keep doing as you are told. When puberty hits, you start becoming more aware about yourself and questioning things being right or wrong. At 14, I became mature enough to understand what happened to me when I was 7; I was able to identify it as FGC.
The practice is followed by many communities across the globe. Some communities dictate FGC as a mandatory thing for the women to undergo through their religious leader’s sermons.
It is believed that the cutting or removal of total or partial genitalia will give the men complete satisfaction and comparatively more pleasure while indulging in sexual intercourse. People in these communities believe it is obligatory for the women of the family to go through FGC for social acceptance.
There is no reference to FGC in the Qura’an or any other holy books. It is completely driven by societal norms. I am angered that these societies feel it is ethical to control how a woman should be through her genitals, so that she may be accepted within the community.
As a teenage girl who has realized what has been done to me, the fire within me to destroy the ritual from this world rages, because I care too much for the young girls who still keep getting bribed for a chocolate at the cost of their clitoris removal.
FGC can have haunting effects on survivors’ physical and psychological health. Women whose total or partial clitoris have been removed are prone to a variety of infections in addition to excessive pain and bleeding. They may not experience intense pleasure during sex. It can severely affect mental health as well, resulting in anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder. FGC can make a survivor feel fragile and weaker in their societal position; it can make them insecure about their body.
Personally, I don’t feel confident enough to open up about being a victim of FGC without sharing this story anonymously. I don’t want people to pity me because those who are to blame do not realise their faults yet. I think FGC is a worthy reason for not feeling obligated to follow the rules my community puts before me, including ways of dressing appropriately or maintaining my community’s integrity.
As I see it, I chose to use ‘FGC’ over female genital mutilation (FGM) because mutilation means harming a person on purpose. I believe if my parents were aware enough about the practice being so much more than ‘in the name of God’, they wouldn’t have made me go through it. Personally, I don’t think laws would make a heavy impact on ending this practice because there are people who will conduct it illegally with unhygienic instruments even when India has banned the practice. To end FGC, it has to come as a revolution, the obliteration of an age-old, traditional ritual. Only when we ALL decide to make a change, can the world be saved.
In the name of God, people perform such rituals, which makes these lines from Deaf Republic more and more sensible – “At the trial of God, we will ask- why did you allow all this?”
The answer will be an echo- why did you allow all this?”