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Combating female genital mutilation in
Iraqi Kurdistan
15.8.2009
By Haje Keli
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August 15, 2009
SULAIMANIYAH,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — As the
first organization in Iraqi Kurdistan to open a
women’s shelter, WADI is an authority on women’s
issues in the region, an area of great concern to
any activist or observer concerned with true
democratization and respect for human rights. When
the organization’s “Nawa center” opened in 1999, the
social acceptance for such an institution was
scarce, and the group’s volunteers faced daily
challenges of various types. In some people’s eyes,
women's shelters are seen as institutions that break
up homes, and the female beneficiary is believed by
those people to be bringing shame upon her family.
Furthermore, even the employees of the organization
have faced ridicule for their efforts.
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The Association for Crisis Assistance and
Development Cooperation, WADI.Photo:
Kurdish Herald 2009 |
Mr. Falah
Murad Khan, the director of WADI’s office in
Sulaimaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan, laughingly recalls an
incident where he was phoned by an anonymous caller
telling him that he should be ashamed that, as a
man, he was working on "feminine" affairs. This was
after Mr. Khan appeared on a radio show talking
about WADI’s efforts to fight female genital mutilation
.
In a
region plagued by various issues of gender
discrimination, WADI has devoted much of its efforts
as of late to one particular, serious issue: female
genital mutilation. This practice involves partial
or total removal of the external female genitalia,
which more specifically includes partial or total
removal of the clitoris and the labia minora. This
painful surgery is customarily performed on women
usually between the ages of 4 and 12, without regard
for medical concerns or sanitation. The procedure
itself is customarily done by a woman using a razor
or knife,www.ekurd.net
and
no anesthetic is provided. Following the cutting,
the woman’s bleeding wound is covered with ash and
sometimes icy water is used in an attempt to control
bleeding. The victim of this procedure may indeed
bleed to death or contract a potential lethal
infection.
This phenomenon has been widely discussed over the
last few years in Kurdistan; although no one has
ever provided any real data regarding the number of
Kurdish women who have been victimized in this awful
way. This changed in 2003, when WADI sent out teams
of workers to knock on the door of every house and
ask the women if they had been “circumcised”. This
bold idea bore fruits, as the different teams
discovered disturbing tendencies among the rural
population of Kurdistan and then developed a plan of
action to address this issue.
WADI assembled teams consisting of specially trained
employees and assigned them to different areas such
as Raniya/Qaladize, Germiyan, Erbil and
Sulaimaniyah. These teams, consisting of only women,
traveled around villages and knocked on doors,
seeking to inform the people about genital
mutilation. The first year of the project was
dedicated to using data obtained to map the various
areas that have been specifically affected by trends
of female genital mutilation. The teams began
contacting women in certain villages,www.ekurd.net
gathering them to view a film produced by the
organization about genital mutilation. The film is a
sort of documentary where doctors and religious
scholars speak of negative effects of genital
mutilation. The doctor in the film speaks about the
damage done to women from a medical point-of-view,
while the Islamic cleric states that it is non-
Islamic to circumcise girls. There are also women in
the film, victims of genital mutilation, who share
their painful experiences. After viewing the film,
there was time for a discussion among the women, and
according, to WADI’s employees, some of them
realized that genital mutilation was a bad thing and
stated that would not put their own daughters
through it.
The following year the WADI teams went back to the
same homes and spoke to the same women that they had
met who were shown the film, with the purpose of
finding out if the women had indeed spared their
daughters from circumcision, or if they had
succumbed to pressure from the rest of the village.
The film would be shown again, but now the WADI
teams would concentrate specifically on the
unconvinced women. The third year, the teams yet
again went back to the villages they were assigned
to the first year and spoke with the same women from
the last two years. From 2005-2008, the WADI teams
visited a total of 84 villages.
As the American-led war against Saddam Hussein
approached in 2003, the WADI organization trained
groups of workers to provide immediate assistance to
internally displaced women and children as a result
of the war. When it became obvious that the war did
not impact women and children in the Kurdistan
autonomous region, the organization switched its
focus and traveled to various villages to see what
sort of aid women were in need of. This is when the
teams discovered that females in many of Kurdistan’s
rural areas had similar stories of post-circumcision
complications. Many of the village women had been
genitally mutilated, and reported that, as a result,
they suffered physically and sexually.
A major long-term - indeed lifelong - complication
of so-called circumcision is that women lose a sense
of sexual desire. Unfortunately, not everyone sees
this as a negative consequence. Mr. Khan explained,
“This is not seen as a problem, as sex is viewed as
being for the enjoyment of the man only.”
In 2004, the teams of WADI spoke to 1,500 women in
the Germiyan region, and 907 of them admitted to
being victims of female genital mutilation. At the
same time, the team assigned to the Erbil region
discovered that 380 of the 440 women they spoke to
subject to the practice.
Four female employees of WADI present during the
meeting in Sulaimaniyah told various stories about
the people they met and discussions they had during
the course of their work. During their many meetings
with the women of villages, they discovered that
some women were mutilated during their wedding day.
They had also been told that some women had been
mutilated so badly that parts of their inner thighs
had been sliced off in the process.
One would hope that the local government would be
the first in line in addressing the serious issue of
female genital mutilation. Sadly, according to Mr.
Khan, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of
Endowments and Religious Affairs were, at first,
very open to collaboration with WADI, but after all
the plans were set, they withdrew their support.
According to Mr. Khan, the Ministry of Health
claimed that the statistics presented by WADI were
inaccurate, and it was impossible that so many
females could have been subjected to genital
mutilation. Mr. Khan explained that the sudden
reluctance of the ministries to cooperate with WADI
might be because the government sees this sort of
work as possibly generating bad publicity for the
region.
Regardless of the difficulties facing those who seek
to combat female genital mutilation, there is
actually a glimmer of hope. The WADI teams have
discovered that, after fighting genital mutilation
for years, there is now, in some areas, a certain
stigma attached to the practice. The younger
generation, upon choosing a wife, will ask her if
she has been “circumcised”. If she has been, she
becomes less desirable because now men know that a
woman sexual urges decrease substantially as a
result of this mutilation. Many men in the younger
generation want their wife to enjoy sex as much as
they do.
WADI is taking a special approach in tackling this
serious societal problem, as, year-after-year, they
work with the same people. The people who viewed the
film about the genital mutilation were contacted the
following year and the year after to see if they had
“changed” their minds. This approach has the likely
affect of giving those contacted a sense of
importance and motivates them to be a more active
part in this focused,www.ekurd.net
individualized effort. At the same time, it provides
for reliable data concerning the efficacy of WADI’s
approach to education on the issue of female genital
mutilation. One will hope that they can continue in
their efforts despite the various obstacles that lie
in their way, and receive increased support from
both governmental and non-governmental groups to
expand their efforts. It would be a true victory for
Kurdish society if the practice of female genital
mutilation could soon become a thing of the past.
Source : Kurdish Herald Vol. 1 Issue 4, August
2009
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
kurdishherald com
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