By HOLLY MILLER
When I travelled to Uganda last year with some of the ActionAid team, we met women from a community in the mountains east of Kampala. On the first day there, we spent several hours chatting with the women about their most intimate experiences.
All the women in the group had been ‘cut’ – the term used in many parts of Uganda to refer to the practise of female genital mutilation (FGM). FGM is the removal of the clitoris, and sometimes the inner and outer labia. In some instances, FGM can also involve the vagina being sewn shut.
The stories they shared with us were horrific.
One woman, Beatrice*, spoke of how when she had resisted, the rest of the community had shunned her, saying she had no place gathering water with them or participating in community food preparation because she was “dirty”. She continued to resist, despite being told she was bringing shame on her family. But she woke up one day in her mother-in-law’s house, with blood all over the sheets. She had been drugged and cut against her will.
But resistance like this is not common. Most of the women had willingly undergone FGM—although all their stories were similarly shocking. They were unable to walk immediately after the procedure, in some cases bled for months, and when healed, found sex almost impossible. Their marriages foundered, their husbands slept separately, and in some cases, their families collapsed.
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I assume (and I may be assuming a lot here, granted) that the belief that a woman's genitals are 'dirty' or 'wrong' in some way and therefore need 'tailoring' by FGM is a cultural belief sprung from religion of some kind. If I am correct in assuming this - has no-one ever stopped to think that if their God created them as they are - why didn't He give them genitals that conform to their 'clean' ideals?? I just find this kind of cultural difference so bewildering. It makes me very grateful to be a woman in the West but my heart just aches for these women - for the pain and ongoing difficulties they suffer as a result of FGM and the misinformation and poor education that continues their belief's and forces it onto the next generation. So sad.
I do not want to judge their culture, but my heart aches for these women. Sending love and light