FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION REFUGEES

 

FGM refugees

R.A.Kazimoto

Female genital mutilation, also known as ‘the cut’ is the practice of removing certain parts of the female genitalia for purposes of subduing or suppressing sexual urges in the growing girl child. It is practiced on girls of different ages from quite young to teens. Different ideas are posed to back up the practice as being legitimate, they range from religious to cultural. The religious concept seeming to mirror the circumcision of the boy child as practiced by biblical Jews reflecting spiritual cleanliness while the cultural one varies from one society to another.  The net effect boils down to the fact that the female body is reduced to a baby making factory with the unavoidable implication that copulation per se is taboo.

The geographical distribution of FGM is so interesting, it is practically global, especially if the time line is extended backwards far enough. As time goes on many cultures are abandoning the practice, here in East Africa however the abandonment seems halfhearted. Some consider it necessary while others prefer to go with the trend and shun it. We therefore have victims, victims of FGM are so varied. In a typical rural setting where FGM is becoming slowly outdated, there is always the preceding generation, those who underwent the cut and consider themselves some kind of the true bearers of the traditional norms of their society. The chaga word “sambura” means the uncircumcised one, it is derogatory, it is a tool of stigma, the ladies who refer to others using such terminologies tend to also deny them certain rights or privileges. This in turn leads to peer pressure and tends to perpetuate FGM. What is an FGM refugee? if a family (or an individual) moves from an area where FGM is practiced to another where it is not practiced for the sole reason of running away from the culture, we have a legitimate FGM refugee status.  But there is a worse situation, if a man realizes that his lady is sexually defunct due to FGM he tends to look elsewhere for the expected satisfaction, but what of his beloved woman? She can not understand what went wrong, she can only see betrayal and cheating. And what of our religious affiliations, you cannot go jumping around from one woman to another and maintain you are Christian!, Christian marriages are supposedly cast in stone so once in no way out, immaterial of FGM status of your spouse. Men in such situations tend to establish business activities that involve travelling to areas where their desires can be met without jeopardizing their marriages we therefore have another variety of FGM refugees.