Female Genital Mutilation in Islam: Difference between revisions

Islamic FGM lacks the element of Severance as it generally occurs at home or hospital<ref>'[http://archive.today/2021.04.26-080016/https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/nov/18/female-genital-mutilation-circumcision-indonesia The day I saw 248 girls suffering genital mutilation' by Abigail Haworth, The Guardian (2012)]</ref> with family members present and often participating<ref>[http://archive.today/2021.04.26-080404/https://www.nowtolove.com.au/health/diet-nutrition/the-final-cut-can-we-end-female-genital-mutilation-12912 I was 7 when I was mutilated while my aunt held me down]</ref>; it does not have the 'prescribed sequence' of the Transitional phase, not even prayers; and there is no incorporation - status after FGM is largely the same as before (however - 'uncut' girls are frequently bullied, shunned and stigmatized by their 'cut' peers<ref>[https://archive.ph/2021.04.26-080534/https://plan-international.org/case-studies/uncut-girls-club#50% THE UNCUT GIRLS’ CLUB]</ref>. The fact that this bullying stops after the girls have undergone FGM suggests the procedure does confer ''some'' increased status).   

Rites of passage are public or semi-public, with either the whole community as witnesses or initiates. Islamic FGM is generally a private and secretive affair occurring within the family. With rites of Passage a Master of Ceremonies imparts secret or occult knowledge to the initiand. No such thing occurs with Islamic FGM. Rites of Passage occur at important transitional life events (such as birth, puberty, marriage, death); Islamic FGM can occur any time between birth and puberty, and its timing may depend on quite practical factors: for example, families and isolated villages, rather than having to pay for a ‘cutter’ to visit as each daughter reaches a certain age, will have ''all'' their daughters cut during a single visit of the ‘cutter’, girls from a wide range of ages therefore being cut at the same time.   

This is reflected in the fact that anaesthetics are generally not used, even when available.  [[File:Fgm-in-the-middle-east.jpg|thumb|Iraqi Kurdish four-year-old Shwen screams during her circumcision in Suleimaniyah on April 14, 2009]]{{Quote|[http://archive.today/2021.04.27-044528/https://www.unfpa.org/pcm/node/9481 Female genital mutilation (FGM) frequently asked questions, UNFPA (2020)]|'''Anaesthetic and antiseptics are generally not used''' unless the procedure is carried out by medical practitioners.}}[[File:Endfgm-campaign-video-016.jpg|thumb|August, 25, 2008. Tuz Khurmatu, northern Iraq, a midwife (who also delivered Omer and is a trusted and valued member of the neighborhood) slices part of seven year-old Sheelan Anwar Omer's genitals (Photographer: Andrea Bruce).<ref>Image cropped from larger photo - for original see http://archive.today/2021.04.26-065336/https://i0.wp.com/freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/files/2012/06/Kurdish-girl.jpg?ssl=1</ref>|alt=]]{{Quote|[http://archive.today/2021.04.27-042745/https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13131835.i-screaming-mother/ 'I was screaming for my mother' (2013)]|I remember I was screaming for my grandmother and my mother to help me but no-one did. I wasn't given any medication before or after - '''not anaesthetic, nothing'''.}}{{Quote|Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Survivor Tells Her Story (2016) - youtu.be/jlyj9hgdbrQ|My aunt was a doctor, so when she led me downstairs for a clinic and instructed me to lie flat on my back on her operating table I didn't think to question her authority. '''With no anesthetic''' and very littlewarning she performed a ritualized cut.}}{{Quote|{{cite web

|Remember, '''there were no anesthetics''' because for we you have to walk the walk, you have to dance the dance. It's what makes you a woman. When you feel that pain it shows you that pain is all you know as a woman.}}Why are anaesthetics not used? [[File:Indonesia - susanfemalecircumcision-1.jpg|thumb|Medicalised FGM in Indonesia - note the apparent lack of anaesthesia (see also [http://archive.today/2021.04.26-080016/https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/nov/18/female-genital-mutilation-circumcision-indonesia The day I saw 248 girls suffering genital mutilation] The Guardian 2012) |alt=|350x350px]]There are several possible reasons. It may be that mothers and other older females in the family expect their daughters to undergo the same procedure (and suffering) that they did; anaesthetics may be unavailable or too expensive for poor families; the illegality of FGM in many countries may make anaesthetics hard to obtain for 'cutters' - or discourage those who can legitimately obtain and use anaesthetics (such as doctors, midwives and nurses) from practicing FGM. The non-use of anaesthetics may also be to some extent due to the fact that cultures that practice it do not understand it as a medical matter but a religious or technical matter and the concerns, priorities and paraphernalia of medical procedures don't apply. This may also explain why it is so often performed with germ-infested instruments, with no regard to asepsis and with crude ersatz instruments.   

However, probably the most significant factor, one which might explain why anaesthetics are not used even when the mutilation is performed by nurses in medicalised environment, is that trauma is part of the functionality of FGM.     

Ordeal, pain and fear are used in rites of passage to alter the identity and personality of the initiand and it appears that FGM makes use of pain to the same ends.      {{Quote|[p365  ‘Male and female circumcision: Religious, medical, social and legal debate‘ by Sami A. Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh]|One of [FGM's] disastrous effects is deterioration of the relation between the girl and her parents. The girls has the feeling that these last betrayed her.}}

{{Quote|[https://www.amazon.com/Infidel-Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali/dp/0743289692 p33 'Infidel' - by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2007)]|Haweya was never the same [after being subjected to FGM]. She had horrible nightmares, and during the day began stomping off to be alone. My once cheerful, playful little sister changed. Sometimes she just stared vacantly at nothing for hours.}}PTSD is almost universal in girls who have undergone FGM.<ref>[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28164288/ Cognitive behavioral therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or anxiety disorders in women and girls living with female genital mutilation: A systematic review - Adegoke Adelufosi et al (2017)]</ref><ref>[https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-018-1757-0 Psychopathological sequelae of female genital mutilation and their neuroendocrinological associations - Anke Köbach et al]</ref><ref>[https://www.taskforcefgm.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/FGM__Trauma.pdf 'Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Memory Problems After Female Genital Mutilation' -  Alice Behrendt, Dipl.-Psych. Steffen Moritz, Ph.D.]</ref> This is the psychological state produced by the 'ordeals' of in Rites of Passage, which are designed to break the person down in order that the 'new person' be reconstructed. In an act analogous to slave-branding - whereby arbitrary violence and pain was used to render the slave manipulable and submissive to his/her master, the child learns that people she loves and trusts are capable of betraying her, and of inflicting great violence and pain. This makes her submissive not just to her family, but also to her community, her religion, her god and to her future husband,.                

FGM is usually written about in terms of it being a crime against ''women'', that it is women who suffer from FGM and its consequences. However, it should be remembered that the victims of FGM are children, that FGM is a crime against the child long before it is a crime against the woman. FGM makes it probable that the child's first and most intense experience of her sexuality is one of cruelty, betrayal, pain and prolonged suffering. This is likely to generate anxieties considerable anxieties around her body, her sense of self, her sexuality, and of sexuality in general - and implant in the the child (and the woman she will eventually grow up to be) a dysfunctional relationship to her body, to her sexuality and the sexuality of others. This will manifest itself socially in her being more chaste, modest, pure and asexual - which is the ultimate goal of FGM.                 

{{Quote|[https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1016/S0020-7292(00)00237-X 'Female genital mutilation (FGM) management during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period' H Rushwan (2000)]|The psychological and social consequences of FGM include acute anxiety, frigidity, depression and neurosis which may result in marital disharmony.}}