Genital Mutilation — The Unspeakable Atrocity

39 MOST recent estimates indicate that 48,000,000 African women, ranging in age from a few days to beyond puberty, are currently victims of ritual genital mutilation. Though it is spoken of in Africa as “circumcision” it is actually quite distinct from the removal of the foreskin of a boy. Annie de Villeneuve gives an eye-witness account of what actually happens to girls : “Among the Somalis the initiation rites take place in the home among the women relatives, neighbours and friends. The father stays outside the door as a symbolic guard. . . The little girl sits down on a stool that is not even wiped and several women hold her down firmly. After separating the outer and inner lips with her finger, an old woman attaches them with large thorns onto the flesh of each thigh. With her kitchen knife the woman then pierces and slices open the hood of the clitoris and begins to cut it out. While another woman wipes off the blood with a rag, the operator digs with her fingernail a hole the length of the clitoris to detach and pull out that organ. The little girl screams in extreme pain ... If she faints, spice powder is blown into her nostrils to revive her. After a moment the woman takes the knife again and cuts off the inner lips. Then the mother begins to scrape off the skin from the inside