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Cote d’Ivoire: Report on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or Female Genital Cutting (FGC)
– Reported, July 26 2014
The form of female genital mutilation (FGM) or female genital cutting (FGC) practiced in Cote d’Ivoire is Type II (commonly referred to as excision). The practice is prevalent among Muslim women and is also deeply rooted in traditional Animist initiation rites in western, central and northern Cote d’Ivoire. It crosses ethnic and socioeconomic lines. Some believe the practice seldom occurred among the original population but was imported by immigrants from neighboring countries.
This practice is now deeply rooted in regional traditions. Initiation rites featuring this procedure are common in many villages. The tradition is part of a young girl’s dream of womanhood and social integration, her mother’s desire to host an elaborate party and celebration and the family’s way of supporting social convention.
The practice on village women is strongly linked to the survival of local secret societies and mask-cults at the heart of village spiritual life. The clitoris is thought to possess power and its removal during initiation gives that power to the village spirits and traditional spiritual leaders or masks, without which the spirits/masks and the entire village would die.
Attempts to eradicate the practice, or even to transform it from a physical to a symbolic act, are perceived as threatening to “assassinate the people” of the village.
Reporting on a seminar it held on tradition, the Ivorian Association for the Defense of Women’s Rights (AIDF), the most active Ivoirian non-governmental organization (NGO) in the fight against violence against women and FGM/FGC, said: “Tradition is the foundation of society. Questions of tradition remain taboo because the desire to explain the irrational would lead to the incrimination of certain traditions and, consequently, of an entire social system in which woman and child occupy a place of little worth.”
Type II is the excision (removal) of the clitoris together with part or all of the labia minora (the inner vaginal lips).
Persons who perform this procedure are usually older women who thus make their living. The procedure is generally done without the aid of anesthesia and outside modern medical facilities. The excisor uses a knife or razor blade. She often brings along accouterments of her calling a long strand of metal bells and sacks filled with bottle caps. These are used by other women present during the ceremony who shake the noisemakers covering the cries of pain. The excisor often sings traditional songs. It is not unknown for the excisor to cut several girls at a single ceremony presenting obvious health risks.
FGM/FGC carried out in childhood in the village usually takes place between four and seven years of age. If the girl goes away to school, the procedure may be performed later when she returns home for vacation. Such girls have been known to ask for it between the ages of 15 and 20. Occasionally, it is performed on babies.
Figures on the number of women who undergo this procedure later in life or under duress are unknown. Pressure is most common in cases where an unexcised woman is preparing to marry a man whose family demands that she be excised, as a girl who has not been excised is regarded as dirty. In such cases, it is generally the mother-in-law or grandmother-in-law who pressures the woman into undergoing it. However, the husband may also demand it as an excised woman is thought to like sex less and be more faithful to her husband. If a woman refuses to submit to the wishes of her in-laws, she challenges the power structure of the entire extended family. This can become grounds for interrupting or canceling a marriage.
CREDITS:
http://www.refworld.org/