MILLIONS OF WOMEN still undergo female genital mutilation – an operation performed on young girls in preparation for womanhood and marriage which can lead to disability and even death. This month we bring you two special features on how communities in Africa are bringing about change.

At the cutting edge
Swift turnaround in Uganda

CLAUDE SAUVAGEOT

Kapchorwa is a tiny town in the remote mountains of eastern Uganda, home to the Sabiny people. Isolated by geography, poverty and a lack of industry, they are fiercely protective of their culture. Left to their own way of life for centuries, they are the only people in Uganda to circumcise their women.

But today there is radical change in Kapchorwa. Not only have Sabiny girls chosen to reject the practice, but their right to choose has been sanctioned by the custodians of culture and tradition, the Clan Elders.

This astonishing and swift turnaround is due to a program known as REACH, Reproductive, Educative and Community Health. The success of the program has been mainly due to its approach which is, above all, respectful and non-judgemental. It encourages the Sabiny people to be proud of their culture while questioning the legitimacy of some of its practices. It accepts that a ritual which marks a girl’s passage into womanhood is culturally valid and should be enhanced – with celebrating, dancing, singing and even gifts to symbolize the coming of age. What it rejects is the practice of circumcision itself which serves no purpose.

But what of the girls themselves? Even those who dread the pain and health complications can still be intimidated by a tradition which asserts they are not women till they are cut. To remain a girl means having no status within the community and ruined marriage prospects. But now REACH arms teenage girls with significant facts about the dangers of female circumcision. I watched Judith, a 17-year-old, persuade her class- mates that arguments for circumcision were just ‘harassment’.

CHARLOTTE METCALF

They argued vigorously – one girl said her grandmother told her she would curdle the milk of any cow she touched were she not cut. Another said she would not go to heaven. In response, two sisters, 17 and 18 years old respectively, passionately insisted that they would become women when their education was complete. In their eyes, genital cutting had nothing to do with achieving maturity.

As for the women who had already been circumcised, I wondered what their feelings would be, watching their younger sisters and daughters avoid their grim fate. Surprisingly I came across little bitterness, mainly a desire for other girls not to endure what had been forced upon them.

Stop Press: A recent visit for a follow-up film found that change is slow, but it is happening. Out of 850 girls who would normally have been circumcised, 320 were not.

Charlotte Metcalf

Charlotte Metcalf’s films The Cutting Edge and Welcome to Womanhood are available in English, French and Spanish. Contact TVE Distribution, Prince Albert Road, London NW1 4RZ, England.

 

Secrets can't last forever
A new approach to female circumcision

Aja Tounkara Diallo Fatimata circumcises thousands of young girls every year in Conakry, Guinea. The practice, she admits, causes untold health problems for millions of African women, particularly when they give birth.

So why does she do it? She doesn’t.

Rather than cut, Tounkara, who began her career as a gynaecologist, just pinches the girls – enough to make them cry out. Then she pours mercurochrome, a bright red antiseptic that looks like blood, onto their genitals, and wraps a bandage so tight that they ‘walk funny and look like they are in pain’.

Tounkara has practised what she calls her ‘simulacrum’ since 1969, when she saw a girl nearly bleed to death. She began trying, in her capacity as a midwife, to convince parents not to circumcise their new born daughters. ‘When they invariably said that their relatives were going to do it anyway, I would suggest the simulacrum. We would take lots of photos,’ she said. Tounkara has taught her trick to midwives and traditional circumcisionists ever since. But ‘secrets can’t last forever’, she says and to the dismay of many she has gone public.

‘Some accuse Tounkara of compromising the movement,’ says Marie Helen Mottin Sylla, head of the Senegalese-based Synergy in Gender and Development group. ‘But they are usually the ones removed from the reality of the situation... sometimes the not-to-do-it-and-not-tell-it approach is the best that is possible.’

Many Africans campaigning against female circumcision think Western activists’ misconceptions about the practice might be harming their cause. One is that sexual pleasure is not possible when the clitoris is removed. ‘When Western women stand up and tell circumcised women that we cannot experience sexual pleasure they are laughed out of the room.’ Westerners also often believe only Muslims perform female circumcision. In fact Christians, Animists, even African Jews practise it, she claims.

Female circumcision is an African problem that needs an African solution. ‘Change comes carefully by addressing people’s motivations. With female circumcision, these may be tradition, religion, hygiene, notions of beauty or notions of what an African woman should be,’ said Mottin Sylla. Tounkara points out that she has waited 16 years before going public. During this time thousands of Guinean women have been tricked. ‘Now they can see that contrary to local belief, they have not grown penises, and their husbands are happy sleeping with them.’ Tounkara still performs the simulacrum, but claims she is no longer tricking people. ‘Now they are just tricking themselves.’

David Hecht

SHILPA GULATE

How much does a groom cost in 1997?
The price of a suitable boy has skyrocketed in India. Gone are the days when even highly qualified grooms settled for a Vespa scooter as dowry – now only an Opal Astra or Peugeot will do. VS Suresh, a public relations officer in Bangalore, insists that dowry rates vary according to the profession of the groom. ‘An engineer is worth Rs 5 lakh ($14,000) in cash, a car, a site, 50 to 100 gold sovereigns along with marriage expenses,’ he says. ‘A doctor is worth Rs 10 lakh ($28,000) to 15 lakh ($42,000) in cash, a car, all household goods, a paid honeymoon trip abroad, a site and financial help to start his own clinic.’ ‘A software engineer is worth Rs 30 lakh ($84,000) minimum,’ says R Vidya, a young housewife. Journalists and artists are right at the bottom of the barrel, for parents dislike putting their money on presumed losers.

The Asian Age on Sunday, New Delhi, India

Porn viewers hit by cyberscam
Internet surfers downloading pornography from a Website from a computer in Moldova have fallen victim to one of the most innovative cyberscams yet uncovered.

The site promises surfers free pictures once they have downloaded an ‘image viewer’ program. But unknown to them, the program disconnects their modem from their local internet service provider, and dials Moldova direct. Even when they leave the Website, their surfing continues to be routed via the Moldovan computer.

The scam was uncovered by the telephone company Bell Canada, which noticed some of its customers had racked up charges of more than $750 on a single call by staying on-line for six hours.

New Scientist, No 2068

SRI LANKA