It’s 4 am and I
am wide-awake yet exhausted at the same time…so I figured that I might as well
be useful and work on a blog post.
*Please note that this is a fairly graphic post about female genital mutilation.....
Our days are busy.
This week we are doing a few more field visits which are very interesting. It
is always nice to get out of the classroom and see how effectively (or not)
theory become practice.
Yesterday we
visited a district health center in Arusha. Essentially it is a public clinic
that does all out patient treatments. I am still learning how their health care
structure works and at 4 a.m. on little sleep, the details are fuzzy. Lets just say that we are lucky in the
United States. One of the main
issues is that the country only allocates about 3% of its budget towards the
health care system and even less to the educational system—but that’s a topic
for another day.
The problems are
sort of predictable. There is a shortage of nurses, infrastructure is lacking
and they have nowhere near the capacity to serve all the people in need of
health services. Plus, each district has only one health center, which makes
accessibility very difficult.
There are private health facilities, but they are very expensive.
From there we
went to visit a NGO called HIMS. One of the main missions of the organization
is to raise awareness and put an end to female genital mutilation, which is a
common practice among many tribes. It is very prevalent within the Maasai Tribe, of which there are many in the Arusha region. I know that I have learned of it in the
past, but learning about the gritty details in the area where it is still
ingrained in the culture of certain tribes is a whole different story. The
cultural myths, the misogyny, the gender marginalization and the brutal reality
of what happens to a woman/girl when she gets mutilated are a lot to
comprehend. I might as well share them with you for some nice light reading:
So first of all,
it is considered a right of passage. A girl is not considered a woman until she
has been mutilated (also referred to as female circumcision), even if she is 50 years old. Essentially the clitoris is
regarded as a penis and if a woman has her clitoris, it is as if there are two
men in the household. Another myth surrounding the clitoris that I was told—I
believe as a scare tactic—is that during childbirth, if the woman still has her
clitoris, it will grow very long and wrap around her throat and kill her.
There are three
types of genital mutilation and it can happen as early as the age of seven. The
type of mutilation depends on how sexual the girl appears to be. The more
sexual she appears to be, the more extreme the mutilation. Let me remind you
that these are observations of a young, developing, prepubescent girl. If she
seems to show few signs of having a high level of sexuality, then just the
clitoris is removed. This takes away her ability to receive physical or sexual
pleasure. If she shows signs of a higher level of sexuality, then the clitoris
and the labia are removed. Not only does this take away the ability to
experience sexual pleasure, but it also takes away the bodies ability to
produce fluids that are necessary for lubrication during intercourse. So, not
only is sex not pleasurable, but it is also painful as there is lots of
friction and they commonly have to use lard as a lubricant for the husband’s
ease of penetration. Below is a picture of the tools used to perform the task.
The third type
is the most invasive, which includes actually stitching up the opening, leaving
just a small hole for urine and menstruation. This is to ensure that she is not
able to have sex at all. The stitching is then removed when it is time for her
husband to have sex with her.
All of these
practices are done in a very unsterile way. It is hard to know how many women
get infections and/or die from this practice because if it happens, it is meant
to be a secret and goes unreported. If you thought it was bad enough, wait,
because it gets worse.
Another
repercussion of the genital mutilation is that it decreases the body’s ability
to expand during childbirth. I am not going to go into those details because I
think that you can connect the dots. Most of us know about the physics and
necessary body mechanics involved for childbirth. So, one practice to lessen
the burden on the body during childbirth is that once a woman becomes pregnant,
she begins to be extremely underfed for the duration of her pregnancy. The
purpose is to keep the child as small as possible in order to ease the birthing
process. The reasoning makes sense, but the reason that it makes sense is so
hard to comprehend that we are back in the realm of not making sense again.
I remember
learning about this practice in the past and trying to understand it through a
cultural lens, hearing about it more in the context of a right of passage for
the woman. However, as I learn more, there is no part of me that does not see
this as an extreme abuse of human rights.
Here is a poster in the clinic that is being used to educate and encourage the ending of this practice:
Education is
key. I think that a lot of them do it because of the myths, beliefs and stereotypes
that are ingrained in their culture. For instance, the girl must sit on a
cowhide for the circumcision procedure. It is believed that once she sits on
that hide, if she does not get circumcised, she will die…
I realize that
this was a bit of a harsh and graphic post. I didn't really enjoy writing this or reading this myself. However, I do believe that the more honest
we are, that faster and more appropriate change is possible. I have no
solutions. I am just sleepless in Tanzania and this was what I felt I needed to
write about.
At the very
least, may this make you feel gratitude for the freedoms that you do have. I don’t
know what else to say…I don’t think that there is really an upbeat way to end
this post.
So, I will just say goodbye.
Love,
Sadie
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