female circumcision
Posted by Danger on February 28th, 2009 filed in Human Rights, WTF?if you are squeamish ….. stop reading now.
For the past six years, [Rugiatu Turay] has been waging a war against the practice, which many in Sierra Leone, including senior politicians, see as an initiation rite.
Her organisation, the Amazonian Initiative Movement, tries to protect young girls from the knife. “I picked the name because I am trying to talk about strong, powerful women,” she says Ms Turay, who works with her 20-strong staff in and around the northern town of Lunsar.
So far, she has persuaded about 400 practitioners of female genital mutiliation (FGM), who are often called soweis, to lay down their blades and stop their role in the traditional bondo ceremony. “Silence means consent. But if you say the truth people listen … We go to the schools, mosques, everywhere.”
Ms Turay was mutilated at her aunt’s house where she was staying with her three sisters and her cousin. “We didn’t even know that we were going to be initiated,” she says. “They called me to get water and then outside they just grabbed me.”
She was blindfolded, stripped, and laid on the ground. Heavy women sat on her arms, her chest, her legs. Her mouth was stuffed with a rag. Her clitoris was cut off with a crude knife. Despite profuse bleeding she was forced to walk, was beaten and had hot pepper water poured into her eyes.
“My mother had always told me never to let anyone touch me there. I was scared and I tried to fight them off. Nobody talked to me but there was all this clapping, singing, shouting,” recalls Ms Turay. “When I tried to walk on the seventh day I could not walk.
All they could say is ‘Today you have become a woman‘.”
Continue Reading:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/genital-mutilation-women-fight-africas-taboo-1633423.html
February 28th, 2009 at 2:14 PM
this hideous torture…only young boys get circumcision. Not girls! This is crazy:(
February 28th, 2009 at 2:44 PM
Vomitous. And so much worse because it is violence women are perpetuating on each other. My respect to the AIM for trying to stop it.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:47 PM
WTF!
thats horrible
February 28th, 2009 at 5:26 PM
Yeah i heard about this, they do this to women because they don’t want them to be “distracted” by pleasure, etc etc or something along those lines. But its perfectly alright for the men to have it though…how sweet. Fucking bastards.
February 28th, 2009 at 8:38 PM
I find this woman admirable, to take her own personal tragedy and use it to advocate for others, much like you otep :]
Anyway, this is sickening and almost unfathomable. Why don’t they pour acid on her g-spot while they’re at it. Seriously, wtf.
March 1st, 2009 at 9:44 AM
That shit is really fucked up. It happends all the time in Africa. It’s so that they won’t have sex before they’re married and when the man gets her she’s still a virgin. But the thing is it’s painful that way.
March 1st, 2009 at 9:57 AM
SOOOO infuriating. What a mindless, evil ritual. Isn’t the clitoris the one thing that lets you have an orgasm without penetration? Therefore, these women are cutting each other down to be dependent on men on such a vulnerable level. There’s no angle I can see this from that won’t still make my blood boil… Except the thought of putting all the soweis and their advocates under a giant potato masher…
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:27 AM
It’s fucking sick, I have all respect to those who work to put a stop to it, and none at all for those who accept female circumcison.
I don’t give a fuck if it’s cultural and done for centuries and blah blah, when will people learn to use their minds?
Love you for writing about it.
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:36 AM
Mmm, there was a teen book about this. Fortunately, the girl in the book had it done and unfortunately her parents were so deluded that it made her a woman it was sad.
I’m glad you brought this up, I’d almost forgotten about it.
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:39 AM
I had to hunt for it, but here it is.
March 5th, 2009 at 9:28 AM
This was revolting when I first learned of this happening some years ago. It still turns my stomach to think that this is still going on. Those poor girls :-\
I wish Rugiatu Turay & her staff well in their efforts to stop female mutilation…blanking as female circumcision.
Again with men imposing another horrid passage upon women. They should have one testicle ripped off by a hawk & see how they like it when they are let in excrutiating pain with people clapping, singing, and celebrating.