WE THOUGHT WE HAD IT HARD

I learned that Saida was one of the first women to speak out against female circumcision in her community. Her daughter, who had been circumcised several years ago, had just given birth to twins. She was in labor for 4 days and almost died because of her circumcision scars. Saida now tells other women, "We are the victims of this practice, it is not our religion ~ it is a bad practice." Saida was just elected president of the Anti-Female Circumcision Association, a local organization whose mission is to end the centuries old practice throughout the Afar territory. To this day, thousands of Afar girls still get circumcised each and every year. Because they still believe its okay for them to cut on babies.

They were small girls who just liked to have fun. Play with their siblings if they had any. But I realized that it didn’t matter what age you were or who’s child you were , all that mattered was that they figured it must and it had to be done sat aside of what anybody say . nor how hard you cried kicked and screamed .they were going to do it anyway. So before researching this topic I thought it was certain ages or age groups and it wasn’t. Even though it’s not right at all. I realized that they only did what they thought was best for you or your child you had no say so. You had no input about anything but help me hold them down.

So while looking up this and realizing what happened to beautiful women whose lives were ruined to satisfy a man. Only cutting you enough so you would be able to use the rest room. It then came to me how women all over the place have it and had it hard sat aside of the things you think you’re going through. How hard your life was. When no one could take the pain those women had to take because in their countries that was what the men believed in. They didn’t give a damn how you felt. All it was I want to make sure they stay pure for marriage for the men in our country.

In a way it sort of seemed like they were slaves. It made them scared to speak up. Afraid to have children, because they didn’t want them to go through the same things they went through. Most people wanted to kill themselves if it meant they had to be circumcised. No one wanted to bare that pain and I don’t believe no one could ever go through what happened to them.
Therefore I am very proud that Saida spoke up for women. And I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for her to sit through that, and listen to her sister crying. Also for her sister to hear her crying. We must learn to be aware of what happen in other places besides were we are from.

“AND WE THOUGHT WE HAD IT HARD”

www.google.com

How it happened?

Amna Bari’s most vivid memory of the day she was circumcised in her native Sudan are the screams of her younger sister. "Me and my sister went together for this occasion and they started with my sister.”That was when we were very young but I have still in my memory that she started to scream, she was five when it was done and I was a year older. "I remember that when it was my turn it did hurt," she recalled. Amna Badri and her sister were among the more fortunate of woman who have been circumcised. It often done to ensure a woman will be faithful to her future husband but Amna Bari’s liberal family did not approve of the practice.
Although they went along with it so as not to bring shame on the family, they ensured that Amna and her sister only underwent the mildest form of the practice which involves slicing off a piece of the clitoris. Girls must sometimes be circumcised to marry.

But Mrs. Badri said even though she had been circumcised that did not stop taunts from other girls who had undergone what is known in Sudan as phoronic circumcision, the most severe form of the practice. It involves the entire removal of the genitalia and the stitching up of the outer lips of the vagina leaving only a small hole for urination and menstruation. "The other people in my age group at school, they teased me and said mine was different from theirs because they had had phoronic circumcision.

"So they said we were not circumcised because it was nothing compared to what they had had done," she said.

Neither of Amna Bari’s two daughters has been circumcised - Mrs. Badri and her sister were the last women in her family to undergo the procedure. Her family started a campaign against the practice in the late seventies and travelled the country trying to persuade others to give it up. Mrs. Badri said that now it was thought that only a minority of Sudanese families still favoured circumcision for their daughters. But figures from the World Health Organisation show female genital mutilation (FGM), or female circumcision, still affects approximately 138 million women and girls worldwide.

Side effects

Girls as young as three undergo the process, but the age at which the operation is performed varies according to country and culture. Health workers say that the operation is often carried out in unsanitary conditions. Anaesthesia is rarely given and frequently unsterilised implements such as razor blades, scissors, kitchen knives and pieces of glass are used, sometimes on more than one girl, which increases the risk of infection. in extreme cases girls can die as a result of haemorrhaging, septicaemia and shock. Basic implements are often used in circumcisions

Mrs. Badri said that her circumcision had few repercussions, but that some of her friends who had the extreme form are still suffering side effects. "They had complications starting from when they started their periods. "They had a lot of pain because the blood can't easily get out, also a lot of them had continual abscesses. "The most complicated situation is childbirth because they have to be cut open and then they insist on being re-circumcised, stitched up again," she said. FORWARD, a leading UK charity working in the field and the organiser of next week's FGM conference in London, has estimated that up to 15,000 girls in Britain are at risk.
The practice was outlawed in the UK in 1985 but many circumcisions are thought to be carried out clandestinely. The organisation said definitive figures are difficult to come by due to the wall of silence surrounding the procedure, but anecdotal evidence pointed to the numbers rising. Mrs. Badri, who came to Britain with her family as a political refugee in 1997, now works to raise awareness among circumcised women of health services available to them.

But she said some women still believed circumcision was necessary. "Doing circumcision over here is out of the question but sometimes they take children back to Sudan. "We can't convince them that this is a bad habit and they shouldn't take that risk with their kids," she said.

- jpg - www.thurnfilm.de/.../layla.jpg

History of (FGM)

Most societies which traditionally practice male circumcision also practice various forms of female circumcision, and usually for similar reason. This is often overlooked by critics of female genital mutilation, but even more forgotten is the extraordinary history of medically rationalized female circumcision in Anglo-American societies, which justified it in much the same way as the male version.

Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision or female genital cutting, is defined by the world Health organization who as the range of procedures which involve “the partial or who complete removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural or any other no therapeutic reason”.

It is estimated that approximately 138 million African women have undergone FGM worldwide and each year, further 2million girls are estimated to be at risk of the practice. Most of them live in African Counties, a few in the Middle East and Asian counties, and Increasingly in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the united states of American and Canada.

The procedures are traditionally carried out by older women with no medical training at all, they just try the best way they could or what they think is right. Anesthetics and antiseptic treatment are not generally used and the practice is usually carried out using basic tools such as knives, scissors, scalpels, pieces of glass and razor blades. Often iodine or a mixture of herbs is placed on the wound to tighten the vagina and stop the bleeding although sometime it doesn’t work.

The age at which the practice is carried out varies, from shortly after birth to the labor of the first child, depending on the community or individual family. The most common age are between 4 and 10 years of age. This suggests that circumcision is becoming less strongly linked to puberty rites and initiation into adulthood.

http://www.fgm.google.com/

My sources

While none of the accounts constitutes a blind defense of this social practice, all three emphasize the need for a holistic perspective that brings into the discourse the rich, complex and diversified nature of African civilization- in its patriarchal and matrifocal dimensions, its strength and weakness, its glory and pain. African Polytheists (including the Ancient Egyptians) as well as African Muslims, Christians and Jews, have often practiced female and male circumcision in their rites of passage, for the transition to puberty and adulthood seldom went unnoticed. Forcing the children that they must be circumcised, if they want a husband want to make a good wife. As well have a good or great marriage.

Ifeyinwa Iweriebor points out that the practitioners do not perform genital surgery on their girls (and sons) to harm them, but rather they engage in the activity for "the noblest of reasons. But their not realizing that their not doing it to hurt them, but in the end their hurting and cutting their life, deeper then their cutting on their body parts. Because each and everyday they go to use the restroom , they still reflect on that day that moment .and look down at what’s been done to them ,without their approvals ." For Apena the issue of female circumcision is more appropriately contextualized in analyses of age, class and power, than in term of gender. Aisha Samad Matias reminds us that the custom was in some cases done to enhance sexuality; that all groups circumcising females generally circumcise males; and that the actual day of circumcision is one of accomplishment and recognition as much as fear and pain. When it’s all said and done their teaching the young women to be afraid and not wanting to look forward into having any relations with their partner. Because it makes you think I have to be cut in order to have a good husband and to have a good life. But I would hurt everyday because I was cut. But yet I would show no fear .only within.

http://www.ask.com/bar?q=women+circumcised+in+africa&page=2&qsrc=19&ab=2&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ccsu.edu%2FAfstudy%2Fupd3-2.html

http://www.ask.com/bar?q=women+circumcised+in+africa&page=2&qsrc=19&ab=3&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.guttmacher.org%2Fpubs%2Fjournals%2F2313097.html

http://haneydaw.myweb.uga.edu/twwh/fgm.html

http://www.light-of-life.com/eng/reveal/r5405et7.htm

http://www.javno.com/en-world/genital-mutilation-of-women-in-sandzak_17024

http://www.egyptiancastle.com/community/justice/circumcision/circumcision01.htm

why I chose this

This paper is a mind opener, I didn’t know how much, also how bad little girls had to suffer at the ages of my nieces and nephews 5 and 6 years of age .Its horrible its UN caused for. That shouldn’t be done. But in the eyes of the people their country it was the right thing to do. The men they felt as if it was just right. They figured that they were helping them, keeping them from their self , but in the end , they were really hurting them, and in a way killing them.

And I feel their pain in a way .I understand how the parents feel. Getting cut on feeling all the pain. Because they don’t want them to give themselves up. They want them to save themselves for marriage .So their held down tied to a table. Praying that they cut the right thing and if they don’t they figure oh well next person . it seemed like they showed know remorse . They didn’t care if those people those mothers lost their little girls they just wanted to make sure they weren’t able to have sex. Because men so called ruled what ever they said goes. The women had know say so.

As going through and listening to many people many women as adults now saying how bad they were hurt. How they couldn’t not have any satisfaction with their husband because they were cut and it makes them have flash backs of when the men cut them when they were taken from their beds in the middle of the night while they were asleep. Know one in our world today would be able to take the pain they did. Be able to sit and even watch. You could barley take a shot by the doctor. So how could we as women be able to stand being cut by people that had No type of experience it was just something they came up with. The looks upon their faces made you want to cry.

This made me want to think outside of the box. What would happen if we as young and older women had to go though that? I believe it would make lots of people want to kill themselves. Just so they want have to go though the pain.

http://www.copts.com/english1/wp-content/_22765_egypt-circumcision.jpg

What I know & What i want to know

On America new top model , the model Fatima came with some shocking facts . That in a small country the little girls use to get circumcised as small children so that the want be able to have sex until they were married . The girls began to get married at 12 and 13 years of age. Because they were force to, because that’s what people believe in were they were from. Little girls as young as 5 and 6 years away were taken away from their parents in the middle of the night while they were asleep and you could hear the screams. The mothers would be crying, because they new that their daughter wasn’t ready. Some girls bleed so much until they died on the table and the men didn’t care they just went on to the next victim kept it moving. Not really caring that the mothers just lost their little girl.

In Assosa a girl named Endieyewho Asmare began to tell her story of what happened to her. She was married at the age of 13 she was married because her mother was ill. One night her husband and some other men came and woke her up, placed her one the table and began cutting. Before they made sure all the doors and gates were closed. They placed her on the table tied her down.

They came with knives. She was terrorized and she screamed over and over again. Sayings don’t do this to me. But they refused and kept on cutting. With the knives they cut her up and down (mutilated her genitals. This scared her for life. They than cleaned her up and left. But after they left the bleeding didn’t stop. It continued to flow. For months. Through her clothes. She was barely able to move she was like on a stand still. Her parents came and saw what had happened to her and they took her away while her husband wasn’t there took her to the doctor. And she was treated, soon to come after she got well. He came and tried take her back. They even went to court because that’s what her husband wanted to do. The courts told her she had to do back to him because she was married to him. And her mother cried pleading that the court wouldn’t make her go back. Endieyewho cried out saying NO I want go back please don’t make me go back her hurt me and he hurt me until in bleed for days I want go back.

Now could you picture your daughter going through something like that not having a choice what to do with their bodies. And the mothers not having a say so because the men ruled them. Or better yet could you picture yourself going through that. Not knowing if you’re going to live or die while their cutting you with knives and sewing you up. Taken what’s yours but in they’re eyes it was theirs. Taken freedom by people who wasn’t doctors.

http://www.iankim.net/images/circumcision.jpg