"My two sisters, myself and our mother went to visit our family back home. I assumed we were going for a holiday. A bit later they told us that we were going to be infibulated. The day before our operation was due to take place, another girl was infibulated and she died because of the operation. We were so scared and didn’t want to suffer the same fate. But our parents told us it was an obligation, so we went.
We fought back; we really thought we were going to die because of the pain. You have one woman holding your mouth so you won’t scream, two holding your chest and the other two holding your legs.
After we were infibulated, we had rope tied across our legs so it was like we had to learn to walk again. We had to try to go to the toilet, if you couldn’t pass water in the next 10 days something was wrong.
We were lucky, I suppose, we gradually recovered and didn’t die like the other girl. But the memory and the pain never really goes."

Zainab eight years old

Female Genital Mutilation, often referred to as "female circumcision", is probably the extremist and most violent form of possession and repression of females by males.

Defended by culture and tradition as an important cultural identification practice and an initiation into womanhood, young girls, usually at the ages of 4 to 8, are forcefully taken by their own family members to undergo a partial or total removal of their external parts of the genitalia to prove to their future husbands that they are truly virgins and also to intensify their pleasure penetrating into an infibulated vagina.

The procedure is usually carried out by an elderly woman, traditional midwife or even a barber! All with no medical training and using unsterilized objects like broken glass, tin can lids, blunt knives, scissors, or razors. These crude tools, the poor lighting, the septic conditions and the fact that the victims are not given anesthesia or antibiotics and rarely have access to medical treatment (if for example the bleeding doesn’t stop), often result in additional damage except the dire physical pain, the permanent sexual deformity and the mental trauma for life.

In most FGM societies a girl can not be considered an adult until she has undergone this procedure, and she can’t marry without being mutilated first since virginity which is, considered especially important by Moslem men, can be easily proven before the price is paid to the father.

About 140 million of the world's women have undergone this brutal and traumatic procedure that aim to restrain their sex drive so they stay virgin before they marry and loyal after they do.

Female genital mutilation is classified into four major types:

• Clitoridectomy: partial or total removal of the clitoris (a small, sensitive and erectile part of the female genitals) and, rarely, the prepuce (the fold of skin surrounding the clitoris) as well.
• Excision: partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora (the labia are "the lips" that surround the vagina).
• Infibulation: the most extreme form of FGM that constitutes approximately 15% of all procedures. Infibulation involves the complete removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, as well as the inner surface of the labia majora. The two sides of the vulva are then stitched together with thorns or by silk or catgut sutures so that when the remaining skin of the labia majora heals, it forms a bridge of scar tissue over the vagina. The girl's legs are sometimes tied together from thigh to ankle for two to eight weeks, to prevent her from moving and to allow the healing of the two sides of the vulva. Nothing remains but the walls of flesh from the pubis down to the anus, with the exception of an opening at the inferior portion of the vulva to allow urine and menstrual blood to pass through.
If the vulva does not heal successfully or the opening is considered too big, the girl is operated on again.

• Other: all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes including a diverse range of practices, such as pricking the clitoris with needles, burning or scarring the genitals, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterizing the genital area as well as ripping or tearing of the vagina. These types are found primarily among isolated ethnic groups as well as in combination with the types mentioned above.

"I was genitally mutilated at the age of ten. When the operation began, I put up a big fight. The pain was terrible and unbearable… I was badly cut and lost blood… I was genitally mutilated with a blunt penknife. After the operation, no one was allowed to aid me to walk… Sometimes I had to force myself not to urinate for fear of the terrible pain. I was not given any anesthetic in the operation to reduce my pain, nor any antibiotics to fight against infection. Afterwards, I hemorrhaged and became anemic. This was attributed to witchcraft. I suffered for a long time from acute vaginal infections."
Hannah Koroma, Sierra Leone

Most of the girls and women who have undergone genital mutilation live in 28 African countries, although some live in Asia (among the Bohra Muslim populations in parts of India and Pakistan, and amongst Muslim populations in Malaysia and Indonesia) and the Middle East (Yemen, Oman, Iraq and Kurdistan). In some societies, FGM is being practised by new groups when they move into areas where the local population practice FGM.

As a result of immigration and refugee movements, FGM is now being practiced by ethnic minority populations in other parts of the world, such as USA, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The organization FORWARD estimates that as many as 6,500 girls are at risk of FGM within the UK every year.

The reasons of female genital mutilation include a mix of cultural, religious and social factors within families and communities:

• Behind this brutal procedure lies the belief that by removing parts of girls' genital organs, sexual desire is minimized, so when they reach the "dangerous" age of puberty it is easier to protect their virginity, and therefore their and their entire families’ honor which is depended upon the girls not to be "opened up" prior to marriage.
• Some believe that an unmutilated female can’t conceive, therefore all should be mutilated.
• In some genital mutilation practicing societies, unmutilated women are not allowed to handle food and water before they were mutilated and in all of them it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to marry if someone has not undergone genital mutilation.
• Some believe that children born to uncircumcised women are stubborn, troublesome and more likely to be blinded or otherwise damaged if the mother’s clitoris touches them during birth.
• It is associated with cultural ideals of femininity and modesty, which include the notion that girls are "clean" and "beautiful" after removal of body parts that are considered "unclean". Popular terms for mutilation are synonymous with purification (tahara in Egypt, tahur in Sudan), or cleansing (sili-ji among the Bambarra, an ethnic group in Mali).
• Some believe that if the baby's head touches the clitoris during childbirth, the baby will die.
• In some cultures, there is a belief that a woman's genitals can grow and become unwieldy, hanging down between her legs, unless the clitoris is excised.
• Some groups believe that a woman's clitoris is dangerous and that if it touches a man's penis he will die.
• Intact clitoris will generate sexual arousal and in women if repressed can cause insubordination.
• An unmodified clitoris can lead to masturbation.
• It makes a women's face more beautiful.
• It prevents vaginal cancer.
• It enhances the man's sexual pleasure.
• It prevents the face from turning yellow.
• Some view the clitoris and the labia as male parts on a female body, thus removal of these parts enhances the femininity of the girl.
• Older men may not be able to match their wives' sex drive.
• An unmodified clitoris can lead to lesbianism.
• It prevents the development of nervousness in girls and women.
• Though no religious scripts prescribe the practice, practitioners often believe the practice has religious support.
• It is an important ritual, signifying the acceptance of a woman into society and establishes her eligibility for marriage.

20 reasons that beyond their disability to justify this kind of act, actually reflect the aggressive and repressive formation of thought that tramples everything in its way. Even causing mothers to mutilate their own daughters’ bodies and wound them for life.

Depending on the degree of mutilation, Female Genital Mutilation can have a number of short-term health implications:

• Severe pain and shock
• Immediate fatal haemorrhaging
• Infection
• Open sores in the genital region
• Injury to nearby genital tissue
• Frequent and painful urination
• Urinary Incontinence
• Tetanus
• Septicemia
• Abscesses
• Benign Tumors
• Urethra Injury
• Clitoral Cysts
• Neurogenic Shock as a result of pain and trauma
• Progressively Enlarging Scars
• Hemorrhage may also occur after the first week as a result of sloughing of the crust over the artery, usually because of infection
• Damages to arteries and veins as a result of the cutting of the inner and/or outer labia

Many girls enter a state of shock induced by the severe pain, psychological trauma and exhaustion from screaming.

"It now took a quarter of an hour for her to pee. Her menstrual periods lasted ten days. She was incapacitated by cramps lasting nearly half the month. There were premenstrual cramps: cramps caused by the near impossibility of flow passing through so tiny an aperture as M’Lissa had left after fastening together the raw sides of Tashi’s vagina with a couple of thorns and inserting a straw so that in healing, the traumatized flesh might not grow together, shutting the opening completely, cramps caused by the residual flow that could not find its way out, was not reabsorbed into her body and had nowhere to go. There was the odour too, of soured blood, which no amount of scrubbing ever washed off."

Long-term FGM implications:

• Vaginal and pelvic infections
• Neuromas
• Increased risk of Vesico Vaginal Fistula
• Sexual dysfunction
• Difficulties and pain in menstruation
• Recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections
• Kidney stones
• The whole genital area becomes permanently and unbearably painful
• Various gynecological and obstetric problems
• Major blood loss can result in long-term anemia
• Because FGM is practiced as a group rite on many girls at once using the same cutting implement, it can cause the spread of HIV, Hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases
• Difficult micturition is due to obstruction of the urinary opening or damage to the urinary canal
• Continuous leakage of urine and faeces can plague the woman all her life and turn it into a living hell

The practice of binding the victims’ legs after an infibulation may aggravate an infection by preventing drainage of the wound. The infection may spread internally to the uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries, causing chronic pelvic infection and infertility. Infection may include tetanus, which is usually fatal, as well as potentially fatal septicemia. Gangrene occurs when spores are introduced from unsterile instruments or faecal contamination.

In addition to the mentioned physical health consequences, mutilated women suffer with every intercourse since the vagina was physically narrowed. For some women, intercourses will remain painful all their lives even if none of the long term implications affected them. Women "have" to undergo gradual dilation by the husband after marriage. This is very painful and may take several months. Sometimes it is not possible for the husband to penetrate at all, and the opening “has” to be re-cut.

All this pain is not just physical. It goes very deep and will be with them forever. There are significant psychological, psycho-sexual and social consequences of Female genital mutilation. It leaves a lasting mark on the life and mind of the woman who has undergone it. The psychological complications of genital mutilation may be submerged deeply in the child's subconscious mind, and they may trigger the onset of behavioral disturbances. And sometimes the psychological damage is immediate like the loss of trust and confidence in the ones who are supposed to protect the young girl but led her and held her tight while she undergone extremely violent and traumatic experience.

In the longer term, women may suffer feelings of incompleteness, anxiety, depression, chronic irritability, frigidity, marital conflicts, conversion reactions, or even psychosis. Many women traumatized by genital mutilation may have no acceptable means of expressing their feelings and fears, and they suffer in silence forever.

Female genital mutilation is a symptom of a very sick world.
140 million of the world's women have undergone this brutal act.
More than 3 million girls are mutilated every year.
8,220 per day
342 girls per hour
One girl every 10 seconds
All must face physical and mental scars for the rest of their lives.

Only in an extremely chauvinist, raciest and violent world, female genital mutilation can occur conventionally and expand every year.
The little local resistance and the few opposition organizations fail to convince families not to mutilate their children. The fact that in some of these countries FGM is illegal also doesn’t help decreasing the brutal act and not even the exposure of immigrants to societies where FGM is not only illegal but also caught by the absolute majority as a cruel ritual that should be stopped.
And if it can’t be stopped in areas where it is totally unacceptable to deliberately mutilate children how can we ever hope it will stop where it is totally unacceptable not to?