It is impossible to sleep at ease while there could be so much cruelty in the world. Poverty, famine, unemployment, human massacre due to political conflicts…the war as such! This is a dramatic reality that does exempt childhood.

Let´s draw attention to one of the most barbarian demonstrations against the right of women: The genital mutilation that has been practiced during thousand of years against girls from different cultural, ethnic and religious groups such as Muslim, Jewish, African ones. Its main objective: To deprive them of their clitoris that constitutes a key point in their sexual stimulation, thus being considered in those nations as a sinful one.

The rite, which is done by old women from the community who are named as Dayas in Egypt, Khafedha in Sudan and Ouddo in Somalia, is carried out by using knives or pieces of glasses in unhygienic conditions while in the urban areas they rely on doctors, nurses or midwives, and only in those cases they are anaesthetized.

There are some variations in their practice; the most frequent one is the clitoris-removal surgery with infiltration that is named as the Pharaonic circumcision. The first one is a total female circumcision that may include the division of the lower labium and it is practiced in the 80% of the cases. The second one constitutes the most extended one; it removes the clitoris, lower labium and part of the upper labium by sewing them to both sides of the vulva.

In many cases, they insert a straw into the vagina in order to prevent it from occlusion and allowing the flow of urine and the menstrual blood. We repeat the fact that process is carried out without anesthesia. Is it or not a savage procedure?

In ancient times, women from Egyptian upper social classes and girls kidnapped in Sudan were subjected to such savage mutilation, given the fact of the high prices paid by them in the market of slaves.

The Greek historian named Herodoto wrote about the existence of that practice in Egypt in the 5th century B.C. There is also a Greek papyrus from the year 163 B.C. that is displayed in the Britain museum that reflects the circumcision as a ritual of initiation right at the moment when girls were receiving their dowry.

During the 19th century, it was incredibly prescribed the absurd surgery as a common treatment against epilepsy, hysteria, melancholy, lesbianism and excessive masturbation in nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

The World Health Organization (OMS) stated that each year nearly two million women live in risky situations and more than 130 million ones are affected by its serious consequences.

The female circumcision may cause some fatal dangers for human health: Tetanus disease, hemorrhages or menstrual fluid retention which constitutes a mortal risk as well as the infertility in the long run caused by chronic vaginal and uterine infections, menstrual irregularities, painful sexual intercourse or its physical impossibility, urinary sepsis and complication during natural birth not to mention the deep and negative psychological effects that in many cases are disguised through a feeling of resignation.

This irrational practice has been carried out in northern Africa, Middle East, aboriginal population from Australia, regions from Oceania, the Amazonas basin, as well as some nations from Asia and the current of refugees and immigrants who took that practice to Europe, Australia and North America.

It was already in the year 1997 when the verdict issued by the Egyptian Supreme Court prohibited the female genital mutilation after a fierce debate held among governmental officials and Islamic conservatives. Therefore, doctors who broke the legal regulation could be imprisoned and lost their licenses to practice their occupations.

When the aforementioned legal procedure was orientated in public hospitals, angry protests sparked off from Islamic conservatives who argued that such practice had been backed by Islamism during 14 centuries and the fact about abolishing it would be acting against god.

However, the verdict on the abolition of the female circumcision, contrary to the civilized world may think, has not made happy the majority of Egyptian women given the fact that they are incredibly supporting the practice of the aforementioned mutilation. Besides, there are 90 % of them who had experienced that type of mutilation and defend its practice from a cultural and religious point of view.

From the 300 women interviewed, 56% of them said that they accept it due to their respect for the tradition, 23% of them mentioned the social acceptation and only the 11% declared religious criteria. It was also confirmed that women who have not been circumcised are considered inept for marriage and stigmatized.

The OMS, the United Nations Fund for childhood (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (FENUAP) issued a joint declaration in support to the battle against the female circumcision by considering it as a dangerous one. The three organizations proposed a joint plan aimed at reducing drastically the aforementioned mutilation in a 10 years period as well as eliminating it within three generations.

Would it be enough 300 years to eliminate a 14-century tradition?

The battle continues but it is beyond the legal force of the verdict and the female mutilation as such given the existence of myths that enslave female mentalities as well as ideas that are carved in the mind of women who have been subjugated to abuse and ignorance.

It is a difficult path to eliminate taboo subjects. However, there is a surprising failure in that type of tradition: The Koran does not authenticate the operation, and wives and daughters of prophet Mahoma …were not circumcised! By Heidy González Cabrera