Female Genital Mutilation: A Controversial Human Rights Issue

Female Genital Mutilation: A Controversial Human Rights Issue

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is practiced predominately in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Northern Africa, where a woman’s genetelia is entirely and or partial removed for cultural or non-therapeutic reasons. In cultures where premarital virginity is a representation of family honor, it’s a way of controlling and suppressing female sexuality. The simplest form involves a small cut to the clitoris or labial tissue and the most severe involves the extensive tissue removal of the external genitalia, where the labia majora is stitched together and only a small portion remains open for urine and menstrual blood. In many cultures the clitoris is often viewed as unclean and masculine in nature, so by removing it the woman is considered “acceptable” because her ability to have sexual pleasure is altered. The procedure of FGM generally occurs sometime between infancy and adolescence. The practice is almost always preformed without the consent of the female. The procedure is painful and often performed without anesthetic. According to WHO (World Health Organization) an estimated, 100 and 140 million women and girls in the world have under-gone some form of FGM. In this paper, I will demonstrate how FGM affects the well being of girls and woman physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

WHO classifies FGM into four major categories. Type I is referred to as Clitoridectomy, and it the partial or total removal of the clitoris (a small, sensitive and erectile part of the female genitals) and, in very rare cases, only the prepuce (the fold of skin surrounding the clitoris). Type II is Excision, the partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora (the labia are "the lips" that surround the vagina). Type III is Infibulation the narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal. The seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the inner, or outer, labia, with or without removal of the clitoris. Type IV is all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, e.g. pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterizing the genital area. A females clitoris is very important to her sexuality; the equivalent mutilation performed on a male would be the amputation in different degrees to the penis.

Different terms are used to describe the practice of FGM. Besides FGM, female genital cutting and females circumcision (FC) are used. When "female circumcision" is used, it suggests that it is similar to male circumcision. However, the degree of cutting is much more extensive, and leads to array of harmful ramifications. Some activists argue that describing these females as mutilated my cause problems to ethnocentrism when those who are critiquing have been cut. The use of FGM is more accurate