FREETOWN (AFP) – A teenage girl died after undergoing a botched female circumcision in Sierra Leone, police said Thursday just days after the death of a 10-year-old girl in Guinea.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is widespread in the neighboring west African countries, with about 90 percent of women in both countries undergoing circumcision.
Teenager Fatmata Turay died after she was circumcised in an initiation ceremony in the village of Mabolleh in north Sierra Leone and three women involved, including the girl’s aunt, have been arrested, police said.
The death comes just days after a 10-year-old girl in Makpozou, a forested area in the south of Guinea, died in similar circumstances, according to the country’s social action ministry.
The child died in a circumcision camp for young girls, the ministry said. Female circumcision is common in west Africa, where it is considered a female right of passage and where practitioners can earn up to $50 per girl.
Sierra Leone recently ratified a 2003 African Union protocol that seeks to ban FGM.
Cutting male and female genitals are similar. 1) They are unnecessary, extremely painful, and traumatic. 2) They can have adverse sexual and psychological
effects. 3) They are generally done by force on children. 4) They are generally supported by local medical doctors. 5) Pertinent biological facts are not generally known where procedures are practiced. 6) They are defended with reasons such as tradition, religion, aesthetics, cleanliness, and health. These reasons are used to mask underlying reasons. 7) The rationale has currently or historically been connected to controlling sexual pleasure. 8) They are often believed to have no effect on normal sexual functioning. 9) They are generally accepted and supported by those who have been subjected to them. 10) Those who are cut have a compulsion to repeat their trauma on their children, a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. 11) The choice may be motivated by underlying psychosexual reasons. 12) Critical public discussion is generally taboo where the procedures are practiced. 13) They can result in serious complications that can lead to death. 14) The adverse effects are hidden by repression and denial. 15) Dozens of potentially harmful physiological, emotional, behavioral, sexual, and social effects on individuals and societies have never been studied. 16) On a qualitative level, cutting the genitals of male and female children are the same. The harm starts with the first cut, any cut. 17) The decision is generally controlled by men though women may be supportive.18) They violate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. 19) They generally exist together. 20) To stop one, we must stop both. Then we may better develop toward our individual and social potential. May courage overcome conformity.
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