For Kurdish Girls, a Painful Ancient Ritual

[cali]

The Widespread Practice of Female Circumcision in Iraq's North Highlights The Plight of Women in a Region Often Seen as More Socially Progressive

Sheelan's Circumcision
A seven-year-old girl is taken by her mother to be circumcised in Kurdish Iraq, where more than 60 percent of women have undergone the traditional and controversial procedure.
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 29, 2008; Page A09

TUZ KHURMATU, Iraq

Sheelan Anwar Omer, a shy 7-year-old Kurdish girl, bounded into her neighbor's house with an ear-to-ear smile, looking for the party her mother had promised.


There was no celebration. Instead, a local woman quickly locked a rusty red door behind Sheelan, who looked bewildered when her mother ordered the girl to remove her underpants. Sheelan began to whimper, then tremble, while the women pushed apart her legs and a midwife raised a stainless-steel razor blade in the air. "I do this in the name of Allah!" she intoned.

As the midwife sliced off part of Sheelan's genitals, the girl let out a high-pitched wail heard throughout the neighborhood. As she carried the sobbing child back home, Sheelan's mother smiled with pride.

"This is the practice of the Kurdish people for as long as anyone can remember," said the mother, Aisha Hameed, 30, a housewife in this ethnically mixed town about 100 miles north of Baghdad. "We don't know why we do it, but we will never stop because Islam and our elders require it."


Kurdistan is the only known part of Iraq --and one of the few places in the world--where female circumcision is widespread. More than 60 percent of women in Kurdish areas of northern Iraq have been circumcised, according to a study conducted this year. In at least one Kurdish territory, 95 percent of women have undergone the practice, which human rights groups call female genital mutilation.

<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/01/07/ST2009010702598.html?sid=ST2009010702598

Sorry, I'm NOT culturally tolerant when it comes to the oppression and mutilation of girls and women.

[phillysuse]

1. Stories like this make me appreciate Saddam Hussain -

He was secular and kept these religious wackos under control.
Women attended college and were doctors, engineers, teachers, scientists under Saddam.
Bush got rid of Saddam and now we have a resurgence of the crazies in both the Shiite and Kurdish areas.
I do not believe in cultural relativism and I can't imagine that this practice contributes to equal rights for women.

[cali]

2. Nope. There was just as much of this under him

in the Kurdish areas as now- if not more. And female circumcision isn't widely practiced in other parts of Iraq. This has zip all to do with Saddam.

[anigbrowl]

20. Quite true, but somehow I doubt we've made any effort to reduce it

Lots of oil in Northern Iraq, after all. that takes priority, it seems.

[pnwmom]

3. I agree. FGM is an objective evil, with severe health risks and no medical benefits.

No cultural history can excuse this.

[stubtoe]

4. This is also widely practiced in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Been practiced for centuries, but attitudes may be beginning to change at long last.

There is a protest movie about female circumcision in Senegal called "Moolaadé" by Ousmane Sembene, that's available on Netflix.

[OwnedByFerrets]

5. This shit is done by bastards here in american too....how despicable.

[cali]

11. this shit is not legal in america and it's very rare

why some of you who read something critical of another culture feel the kneejerk need to immediately parrot "it happens here too", is beyond me.

[OwnedByFerrets]

27. Did that make you feel good cali? I sure hope so, because other than

that, it was a worthless post. I loath this behavior in ANY FUCKING CULTURE and it should be illegal everywhere.
I was trying to make folks aware that this procedure happens here too. Don't know how you missed that.

[cali]

33. You did a piss poor job, ferret.

and yes, I'm glad that this isn't legal here and isn't a significant problem re numbers. Gosh, isn't that just terrible of me?

[OwnedByFerrets]

36. You really should get some help.

[Sultana]

30. IDK either

[MH1]

6. "Islam and our elders require it"

I'm not an expert on Islam but I strongly suspect this has nothing to do with what's written in the Koran.

It's hard to know how much abuse of women in certain Islamic cultures is really driven by Islam and how much by other cultural factors. But it sure doesn't help the image of Islam when people say things like this, if there is no repudiation from other Muslims.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

17. then here's your repudiation

there is NOTHING in the Qur'an or Hadiths about this. It is a practice that is localized and is not general throughout the Islamic world.

[anonymous171]

22. That's what I figured.

Sounds like it was a tribal practice that became associated with Islam.

[JerseygirlCT]

23. Yes. More cultural oddities being accepted as

religious. There's a lot of that, unfortunately.

[MH1]

28. Thank you.

That's what I thought.

[FloridaJudy]

29. On the contrary

The Qu'ran does assign women a lesser status - it's not unique in this: so do the Old and the New Testament. But on this issue the Qu'ran is clear: women are entitled to sexual pleasure. Don't blame Islam for this atrocity. It's a holdout from even older patriarchal traditions.

The argument from the Qu'ran has been effectively used by women's health advocates to outlaw this practice in other areas of the world.

[flvegan]

7. Jesus.

"Kurds who support circumcising girls say the practice has two goals: It controls a woman's sexual desires, and it makes her spiritually clean so that others can eat the meals she prepares."

You have to be shitting me. So, basically, women are worthless in this part of the world. Nice.

[ZombieHorde]

8. Their ideal woman is a sexual automaton. Think about what martyrs get in heaven.

[demosincebirth]

15. What a bunch of horseshit!

[Mari333]

9. please. call this what it is. mutilation, torture. child abuse. sometimes murder.

rusty glass or metal used to cut away a child's labia and clitoris. with no anesthetic. no different then if a male child had his penis cut off. and for the rest of their lives, they are destroyed human beings.

[cali]

10. not that I disagree with you but

the child in this article was given anesthesia.

[uppityperson]

13. "lignocaine" is lidocaine which stings when it is injected, feels like you are being burnt.

Let me repeat, it stings when injected. It is more than a "sting", feels like a burning or like a really big wasp sting. Yes, she may not have felt the cut, but the injection stings and burns. EVEN if done hygienically, I disagree with the practice.

Edited to add, did you look at the pictures? #7 shows her screaming when she is cut. If it were simply numb, she wouldn't be doing that.

From the article.

When Sheelan entered the room, her mother, Nawchas and a local woman placed the girl on a tiny wooden stool the size of a brick. The midwife applied yellow antiseptic to her pelvic area and injected her with lignocaine, an anesthetic. Little children peeked through the window to see what the noise was about.

"It's all right, it's all right," Sheelan's mother whispered, as the girl screamed so loudly her face turned red. She tried to bunch up her skirt over her pelvis and shield the area with her hand, but the women jerked her arms back.

(cut) (not meant to be a pun)

Back home, Sheelan lay on the floor, unable to move or talk much. She clutched a bag filled with orange soda and candy and barely said anything except that she was in pain.

But she became more animated when asked whether it was worth it to have the operation so her friends and neighbors would be comfortable eating food she prepared. "I would do anything not to have this pain, even if meant they would not eat from my hands," she rasped slowly. "I just wish that I could be the way I was before the procedure," she said.

[PM Martin]

12. I agree. There is no tolerance for oppression.

[BlooInBloo]

14. Crikeys. The freakish things boys do girls.

[anigbrowl]

19. Or that midwives and mothers do to girls, in this case.

It's a patriarchal culture, but your comments are misleading. Many cultural traditions which limit the sexual freedom of women are part-propagated by women with a vested interest in the status quo. There is an evolutionary basis for intrafemale hostility in addition to patriarchal cultural considerations.

Rather surprisingly, Islam is also the spiritual home of the world's largest matrilineal society, in Indonesia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minangkabau

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

16. FGM is not Islam-it is practiced by some non-Muslims too

It was an ancient practice pre-dating Islam. NOTHING in the Qur'an or Hadiths about it.

[cali]

18. If you had read the entire article

you'd know that it doesn't say that FGM is Islam- though obviously some claim that it is in the Qur'an.

[JerseygirlCT]

24. The mother quoted in the OP

says that it is - ayeshahaqqiqa is just refuting that claim.

[Sultana]

32. No, psychos just tack it on to religion

Ok, in Egypt 90-something plus women have undergone FGM (muslims and christians). But FGM doesn't exist in places like Saudi Arabia.

It's more to do with culture than religion.


:crazy:

[anonymous171]

21. Holy shit that is fucking terrible. nt

[Liberal_in_LA]

25. Horrible. Some women in Africa are turning away from this practice. thank goodness

[BoneDaddy]

26. disgusting practice

sick backward culture

[Sultana]

31. Anyone else here about this?

Girls flee circumcision in Kenya

At least 300 girls in south-western Kenya have fled from home and sought refuge in churches in a bid to escape forced female genital mutilation (FGM).
The girls, some as young as nine, are at two rescue centres in rural Nyanza province, police told the BBC. Female circumcision is banned in Kenya, but remains common in some areas where it is considered to be part of a girl's initiation into womanhood.
The traditional ceremonies take place between November and December.

Security

The girls in Kuria District are now in the care of the two churches and Maendeleo Ya Wanawake, a women's organisation. Police are providing security at the centres to ensure that the girls are not forcibly removed or harassed. Beatrice Robi, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake's district chairperson and a gender activist, says that at least 200 girls are undergoing circumcision in the district a day. She said she had found a seven-year-old girl who had just been circumcised.
"There are more girls who are still in their homes and they are undergoing it , whether it is voluntarily or they are being forced," she told the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7766806.stm

[elehhhhna]

34. "ancient ritual" or disfiguring custom that's had a resurgence thanks to FUNDIE NUTBALLS?

yep. the latter.

[cbc5g]

35. I'm not tolerant of the subjugation and brutalization of women that occurs daily in muslim countries

either. No, i'm not going to be culturally sensitive to atrocious and brutal practices and it's sad that you don't hear muslim leaders denounce this shit. I assume they condone it if they don't denounce it and it's a reason i'll never visit the middle east. It's horrifying the way women live over there.