Female Gential Mutalition Essays - Mammal Female Reproductive System

Female Gential Mutalition Female Genitalia Mutilation Picture this, a young innocent girl, between the age of eight and twelve, running around, playing, and having a good time. Then she is snatched away to a foul hut, whose floor is nothing but dirt. Once in the hut, the helpless girl is stripped of all her clothing and pinned to the dirt floor. Her tiny legs are spread and held wide apart with a tight grasp. Soon afterward, a midwife, with no education in human anatomy or medicine, enters the hut and says a prayer. While the young girl is held down in this most vulnerable position the midwife takes a handful of sand and rubs it all over the girl's genitals (Walker 106). With no anesthetics and a jagged rock, that merely has a sharpened edge, the midwife begins to cut on the most tender area of the young girl (Rushwan). The midwife cuts away the clitoris and the tissue at the entrance of the vagina. When the midwife is finished cutting and perfecting her excision, she takes a thorn bush needle and sews from the head of the clitoris all the way down to the vaginal opening with the exception of one small place where a sliver of wood is placed. The wood is put into place so that when the scar tissue forms a minute opening is left for urine and menstrual flow to escape. After the raw edges have been sewn up a mixture of butter and herbs is placed over the wound. This is done to cease the blood that is now gushing out of this helpless young girl (Female Genital Mutilation). The above is only a brief description of a type of mutilation that millions of girls encounter every year in Africa. What is it that would cause parents to inflect such pain on their little girls? Female genitalia mutilation consists of four principal types. One type of FGM is very similar to the type of circumcision that is performed on males. This includes cutting around the perimeter of the hood of the clitoris in order to remove it, but leaving the body of the clitoris in place. This form of FGM is called female circumcision or Sunna circumcision. Another form of female genitalia mutilation is called excision or clitoridectomy. Removing the entire clitoris and either part or all of the labia minora is performed in this type of mutilation. Intermediate circumcision, another form of FGM, is very similar to a clitoridectomy. The difference is that in addition to the removal of the clitoris and part or all of the labia minora, that part or all of the labia majora is also removed. The last and most severe form of FGM is called infibulation or pharaonic circumcision. This includes the removal of both the clitoris and the labia minora, as well as much of the labia majora. Then th e remaining sides are sewn together (Walker 367). This ritual begins with the facilitator praying and singing praises. Then, as a woman identified as P.K. retells her dreadful experience, she was instructed to lie down on a mat. P.K. says that no sooner had her frail, young, legs hit the mat they were tightly grasped by heavy hands and spread wide apart. Her legs and arms were both immobilized. Next, she tells that a foreign substance was rubbed all over her genital organs and that it caused a very unpleasant sensation. She later discovered that the foreign substance was sand and that it was used in order to assist in the operation. P.K. goes on to tell that as a hand grasped a part of her genital organs ?[Her] heart seemed to miss a beat. [She] would have given anything at that moment to be a thousand miles away; then a shooting pain brought [Her] back to reality as her excision had begun (Walker 106). This operation is performed under extremely poor hygienic conditions. The facilitator of this excision will often use an UN-sterile knife or a rock that merely has a sharpened edge. In addition, the entire process is done without any form of anesthetics (Rushwan). When Waris Dirie retells her memory of when her body was sliced and mutilated she