WUNRN
West
Africa - Burkina Faso: Clinic for Clitoral Reconstruction for FGM Victims
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Three million girls every year in Africa are vulnerable to
FGM/C, according to WHO estimates (file photo) |
BOBO-DIOULASSO, 6 May 2009 (IRIN) - Construction has
begun of West Africa’s first clinic for reconstructing clitorises for victims
of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). Amid high demand, the US
non-profit Clitoraid is funding the clinic, dubbed “Pleasure Hospital”, in
Bobo-Dioulasso, western Burkina Faso.
Financed through the non-profit’s “Adopt a clitoris”
campaign that sponsors women wishing to have clitoral reconstruction, Clitoraid
raised more than US$50,000 to build the facility. Construction began in March
and is expected to be completed by September.
Once opened, US-based gynaecological surgeons will offer
free clitoral
reconstruction surgeries to FGM/C victims from across West Africa.
Currently too few surgeons are available to serve the number of women who want
to reconstruct their mutilated clitorises and the price in private clinics
remains unaffordable for most, according to the few surgeons trained on the
procedure in Burkina Faso where the surgery was pioneered in 2006.
“Clitoraid decided to build the clinic in Bobo-Dioulasso
because it is at the crossroads of several West African countries,” said Mariam
Banemanie, president of Clitoraid’s local NGO partner, Voices of Women.
Cross-border FGM/C
has been on the rise in West Africa in recent years, with cutters and
girls evading one country’s laws by participating in FGM/C in a neighbouring
country.
Three million girls are at risk of FGM/C every year in
Africa, according to World Health Organization (WHO),
which defines FGM/C as any injury to female genital organsfor non-medical
reasons.
“The clinic will restore justice and give women the
ability to feel sexual pleasure,” Banemanie told IRIN. “Burkinabé women are
beginning to stand up for what they believe in – why should sexual pleasure not
be a part of that?”
There has been such high demand for the reconstruction
surgery that Clitoraid has placed a cap on the waiting list at 100, she said.
Voices of Women receives daily calls from women – and sometimes husbands –
expressing interest in the procedure, she added.
Prospective patients receive counselling from the NGO’s
psychologist who – on request – puts them in touch with women who have had
clitoral reconstruction surgery in private clinics.
Abi Sanon, 36, said she was “lucky” to undergo clitoral
reconstruction at a hospital in Ouagadougou in 2006. “I wanted to find my
integrity and to know real pleasure. The procedure cost $320; my boyfriend
contributed. It has really changed our lives. Before, I did not really know
what pleasure felt like, and now it is not my boyfriend who calls the shots in
our relationship – it is much more equal,” said Sanon, who told IRIN she had
her clitoris cut as a young girl.
Sanon told IRIN she was surprised at her family’s
positive reaction when she informed them she had wanted the surgery, since she
said talking about sexual pleasure is still seen as taboo in her country.
Her 70-year-old mother has expressed interest in having
the procedure once the hospital opens.
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