December 6, 2006
A Small Revolution in Cario
Theologians Battle Female Circumcision
By Amira El Ahl in Cairo,
Der Spiegel
In Cairo, a small revolution has been launched: A conference of
high-ranking Muslim theologians has agreed that the practice of female
genital mutilation is irreconcilable with Islam. The painful and often
deadly practice of female circumcision affects millions of women in
Africa.

Fatima's scream is as blood-curdling as it is heart-wrenching. The little
girl, who looks to be about eight years old, screams in a panic, initially
in fear and then because she is unable to bear the pain she is
experiencing. She is lying on the floor of a dirty hut somewhere in the
Ethiopian desert. Her body is contorted with pain as she screams, cries
and finally lies there whimpering. Her new, green floral dress is soaked
in blood.

Two men and her mother press the delicate child against the floor and pull
apart her thin little legs. An old woman crouches in front of Fatima,
holding a shiny razor blade and a thick, threaded darning needle. Today is
the day Fatima will become a woman, a decent woman.

The purpose of the thick darning needle is to lift the lips of the vulva
to facilitate cutting them off. The old woman moves the razor blade into
position. First she slices off the small lips of the vulva and then the
clitoris. There is blood everywhere. The girl arches her small,
sweat-soaked body. The old woman repeatedly pours a milky liquid onto the
wound to prevent infection. Then the grandmother comes into the hut, pokes
at the wound and tells the old woman to make a deeper cut. The process
starts all over again. Fatima's screams become almost unbearable. If the
sight of this girl under female circumcision is so difficult to bear, how
can she possibly stand the pain?

Finally the deed is done. The wound is sewn shut with thorns, leaving only
a tiny opening. A straw is inserted into the small opening to prevent it
from closing. Then Fatima's legs are tied together with a rope to allow
the wound to heal. She will lie in bed, her legs tied together in this
fashion, for several weeks.

The old woman completes her barbaric task with a slap on her subject's
behind. Fatima is now a woman.

Millions of victims

About 6,000 girls fall victim to genital mutilation every day, or about 2
million a year. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that between
100 and 140 million women worldwide are circumcised. Most circumcised
women live in 28 African countries, as well as in Asia and the Middle
East. According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), at least
90 percent of all women are circumcised in developing countries like
Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia and Sierra Leone, while almost no women
are circumcised in Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

WHO distinguishes among four types of genital mutilation:


Type I, or "clitorectomy": Excision of the skin surrounding the clitoris
with or without excision of part or all of the clitoris
Type II, or "excision": Removal of the entire clitoris and part or all of
the labia minora
Type III, or "infibulation": Removal of part or all of the external
genitalia and stitching together of the vaginal orifice, leaving only a
small opening
Type IV: Various other practices, including pricking, piercing, incision
and tearing of the clitoris.

One out of every three girls dies as a result of infibulation, also known
as pharaonic mutilation.

Women have been circumcised for thousands of years, and the custom has
become deeply ingrained in human thought. Tradition demands that women be
circumcised, and it is often the women themselves who wish to continue
this ritual, partly to prevent sexual desire in girls. Indeed, an
uncircumcised girl is considered worthless on the marriage market in many
places because she is perceived as being "impure" and "loose."

Sharp condemnation

Although circumcision is often justified for supposedly religious reasons,
there is no religious justification for the practice in either
Christianity or Islam.

Sharp condemnation by religious and moral leaders is needed to ban this
horrific practice. But movement does appear to be afoot -- at least if an
event that took place in Cairo two weeks ago is any indication. It
bordered on a minor revolution.

Muslim scholars and academics from Germany, Africa and the Middle East
spent two days discussing female genital mutilation. The goal of the
conference was to declare this form of circumcision to be incompatible
with the ethics of Islam as a global religion.

It was a German who organized and funded the conference. In 2000 Rüdiger
Nehberg, 71, a man known for adventurous exploits that have included
crossing the Atlantic in a pedal boat, founded Target, a human rights
organization dedicated to fighting female genital mutilation. Since then
Nehberg, accompanied by his life partner Annette Weber, has been traveling
throughout Africa with his video camera, documenting the inhuman practice
and attempting to win over political and religious leaders for his cause.
Wherever he goes, Nehberg says: "This custom can only be brought to an end
with the power of Islam." In organizing the conference, which was held at
Cairo's Al-Azhar University under the patronage of Egyptian Grand Mufti
Ali Jumaa, Nehberg has come one step closer to his goal.

Many important Muslim scholars attended the event. The Egyptian minister
for religious charities, Mahmoud Hamdi Saksuk, condemned the practice, as
did the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar University, Mohammed Sayyid Tantawi. Even
the renowned and notorious Egyptian religious scholar and journalist Yusuf
al-Qaradawi, who enjoys great popularity in the Middle East as a result of
his commentary on the Aljazeera television network, attended the Cairo
conference.

Qaradawi did full justice to his reputation as a hardliner by initially
criticizing the fact that the conference was paid for by a foreign
institution, and not the practice of mutilation. He also complained that
the title, "The Prohibition of Violation of the Female Body through
Circumcision" was biased and presumptuous.

A practice forbidden by the Koran

But after plenty of hemming and hawing, even Qaradawi managed to agree
that the Koran states that it is forbidden to mutilate God's creation. "We
are on the side of those who ban this practice," he said, but added that
doctors ought to have the last word.

This wasn't enough for women's rights activists. Mushira Chattab, the
Egyptian first lady's special ambassador and chairwoman of the National
Council for Childhood and Motherhood, called upon the legal scholars at
the meeting to take a clear position against female circumcision. Then she
turned to Qaradawi and said: "You should not leave it up to doctors to
condemn this practice."

Every doctor at the conference agreed that there is no medical
justification for female genital mutilation. Heribert Kentenich,
physician-in-chief of the women's clinic at the DRK Hospitals in Berlin
expressed a "complete lack of understanding" for the fact that 75 percent
of circumcisions are now performed by doctors in Egypt. "I find it almost
more horrifying that doctors are enriching themselves by doing this," he
added. The drop in the estimated incidents of female circumcision has
dropped significantly -- some believe as much as from 97 percent to
approximately 50 percent -- but it is impossible to obtain precise
figures. Even at 50 percent, that would still represent roughly 400,000
girls a year. Kentenich believes that the "medicalization of female
genital mutilation makes it seem more acceptable."

The direct consequences include hemorrhaging, as well as severe pain and
anxiety that can lead to trauma. Besides, the practice can also cause
infections in the urinary tract, the uterus, the fallopian tube and the
ovaries. Other consequences such as tetanus infections, gangrene and blood
poisoning can be fatal. Besides, women who are subjected to pharaonic
mutilation experience increased pain during menstruation, when blood
accumulates in the vagina because the opening is too small to permit
normal flow. Mutilated women are also at greater risk for becoming
infected with HIV.

Intercourse is painful for circumcised women. To be able to penetrate, men
must often force themselves into their wives' vaginas. Those whose penises
are incapable of doing the job use a knife to enlarge the opening.

Circumcised women can face complications during pregnancy, and both the
mother and child are at greater risk of dying in childbirth.

There is no religious justification for this practice. All three major
monotheistic world religions define man as a perfect creation of the
Almighty, and condemn doing any harm to God's creation. In Sura 95, Verse
4, the Koran states: "We have created man in our most perfect image."
Besides, in Islam men and women are meant to experience sexual
fulfillment, and it is considered the husband's matrimonial duty to
satisfy his wife -- a near impossible task when a woman is circumcised.

Although the conference's attendees were generally in agreement over these
facts, men repeatedly insisted on defending circumcision as an established
custom. "Our women have been circumcised for thousands of years, and they
have never complained," said an agitated elderly man in the audience. The
conference, he said, was a Western conspiracy, and showing pictures of
circumcisions was a crime.

But the academics and scholars in attendance declared genital circumcision
to be a deplorable custom without any basis in religious texts. They
called upon the parliaments in the countries where the practice is common
to pass laws making genital mutilation a crime.

The Grand Mufti of Egypt signed the resolution the next day. Ali Jumaa
declared that he firmly believed that the fight against this terrible
custom would succeed. Muslims base much of their behavior on legal
opinions issued by religious scholars.

For Rüdiger Nehberg, the adventurer on a crusade for women, the conference
represented the fulfillment of a dream. He now plans to "print a small
book containing the recommendation and the scholars' comments and
distribute 4 million copies worldwide."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

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