The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
July 5, 2019

 

Last week, the Liberian Legislature moved to pass the Domestic Violence Bill but scrapped the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) stipulation that would have outlawed the practice. 

More than 100 million girls and women are estimated to have been victims of FGM. While female genital mutilation takes different forms around the world, in Liberia it is most commonly the act of partial or complete removal of the clitoris and/or the prepuce. The practice is historically believed to ensure women’s virginity and reduction in the female’s sexual desire. 

UNICEF estimates that 44% of Liberian women between the ages of 15 and 49 have undergone the procedure. This number, however, is not as comprehensive as the topic of FGM is still a taboo subject in Liberia. The figure, instead, is based upon the number of women who reportedly participated in the Sande Society initiation. Sande is a women’s secret society found in Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast, and other West African countries. The society initiates girls into adulthood through teachings and rituals which include female genital mutilation. 

Girls, between 8 - 15 years old, often go to join the society for initiation. In rural areas, the initiation is all but mandatory. As a woman’s ability to get married, socio-economic status and family ties rely on her completion of the initiation. 

The practice, which is often performed without anesthetic and by unlicensed practitioners has been proven to cause long-term effects such as incontinence, chronic genital infections, painful urination and periods, labia and vaginal scarring, dyspareunia, increased risk of HIV and childbirth complications. 

The practice of FGM in the last few years has gained global media attention as there are now growing reports of FGM being practiced by individuals and groups in Europe and the United States. With reports from victims and the scientifically proven effects of FGM on women’s health, it’s a wonder how the practice has managed to continue for so long.

The arguments I’ve heard and read in defense of FGM, is that it is a “traditional practice and should be left alone.”, that “there are no harmful effects”, that the “women in the village like it”. 

“Women in the village like it.”  Then let them choose for themselves when they become adults. Forcing little girls to undergo FGM is a cruel and unusual punishment for being born a woman. When an eight-year-old child is held down and forced to go undergo a completely unnecessary medical procedure that can lead to serious health complications and consequences it becomes a violation of her human rights. 

 

Doctors from Clitoraid, a U.S.-based non-profit, has performed over 500 post FGM reconstruction surgeries since 2009, and have a two-year waiting list. In February they announced their 2nd clitoral restorative surgical mission in Nairobi, Kenya, from March 4 - 14, 2019 to help over 100 victims of FGM.  The evidence clearly shows that the victims of FGM are real, and many of its victims do not like it. 

“There are no harmful effects.” The victims say different, listen to them here, here and here. 

“It’s a traditional practice and should be left alone.” For oppressed groups, old values are commonly the last line of defense. FGM may be another instance of self-protection against the immortal paternalism of past colonizers, but we should not hold onto archaic traditions that have proven to be detrimental to women’s health and infringe on their human rights. 

Ending FGM begins with educating communities and people of its harmful effects. I do not seek to villainize traditional society or its people, but as we move further into the 21 century, we need to leave harmful old practices behind. There are other ways to maintain and celebrate who we are, as a people, without sacrificing the health of women. 

The fight to end FGM is not a West vs East, Modern vs Tradition, or even Men vs. Women battle, but rather a fight over Women’s right to choose. FGM takes away a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body. 

The effects are long-term, and its consequences are the adult woman’s problem. The victims are mothers giving birth in indescribable and unnecessary additional pain, the 30-year-old that develops cysts because someone took away her rights at 3 years old. 

As I sat down to write this piece, my father mentioned to me why my sisters and I never visited the village without him. For years his mother, an ‘urban but totally traditional’ woman wanted to take us to the village alone with her for the summer. But year after he refused, always finding an excuse to not send his little girls there alone. 

I do not think my grandmother was a bad person who wanted to harm us. It’s what she believed in and what she understood was right. Maybe if she was taught to understand that certain things are not just a part of a ‘woman’s natural pain’, but often the effects of unhealthy and unnecessary practices she would have not insisted on such a ‘trip’. 

Many traditional myths are not rooted in fact. As we’ve learned that patriarchy was a learned system and not a tradition of all African homes. FGM is also muddled in similar myths: a good friend of mine, a Liberian political commentator and heavyweight, explained to me a few years ago the real roots of FGM, as he had understood it, “The practice began so that colonizers would not want to have sex with enslaved women.” He was unable to explain its continuing persistence following freedom. 

 

Maybe because there is still no freedom, for many African women. From unfair and unlivable wages, human trafficking, growing up without access to education and in the shame of FGM, many African women are still in bondage like in slavery --- of the mind, heart, and body. 

I speak of the mind, because of what the practice of FGM communicates to a young girl about her body. It occurs before many can even spell their own names, but it does tell a girl what her worth is as a member of society and a human being. 

Although giving the African continent its first female president, Liberia remains just one of two countries in West Africa that has yet to ban FGM. On the international stage, African leaders have promised to protect women and to work for their equality and uplift their standard of living. Which practice more compromises a woman’s standard of living than FGM? 

Thankfully, through the work of advocates in Liberia, there has been a decrease in the practice. With data reporting a prevalence of 44.4% in women aged 15–49yrs, a decrease from the figure of 58.2% reported by the DHS in 2007. 

On her last day of office, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf banned female genital mutilation, but the time limited ban expired in January. Our Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor has spoken out over her disappointment with lawmaker’s decision to drop the FGM ban from the Domestic Violence Bill. I now call on President George Weah to stand up for women. 

He declared himself as, “Liberia’s Feminist-in-Chief”, and pledged to “fight for gender equality and empowerment,” at the Shereos Foundation opening ceremony in Liberia this year. We have high expectations for him and his administration. He must make the case to lawmakers to outlaw FGM in Liberia, or sign an executive order banning the practice. 

If you believe that FGM has no place in Liberia, and no place in a girl’s life, please sign this petition: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/action/amend-laws-to-prevent-sexual-violence/ 

 

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