WUNRN
PAKISTAN - LOW AWARENESS OF HIDDEN
FGM/C PRACTICES
Photo: Groundreporter/Flickr -
“Recently, we examined a woman who complained of pain in her genital region. We
were shocked to see when we examined her that she had suffered some mutilation
of her private parts. I have read about these practices but I didn’t know they
took place here,” Zeba Khan, a 4th year medical student, told IRIN.
Though female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) takes place, the practice is
hidden, hardly ever spoken of, barely known about. The country, for instance,
is considered to be “free”
of FGM/C, like a number of other Muslim majority countries in the region.
Indeed, this view is widely held. “No such thing happens here,” Saadia Ahmed, a
gynaecologist, told IRIN.
But there is evidence which suggests this widely held view may be inaccurate.
“I can still remember when it happened,” Zehra Ali*, 22, told IRIN. She said
soon after her eighth birthday, her mother “gave me a big bowl of ice-cream” and
then led her to a spare bedroom where an elderly woman spoke to her kindly, had
her lie down on the bed and did “a terrible” thing. Zehra says a small part of
her clitoris was quickly snipped off, that she felt “some pain” but mainly a
strong sense of being “violated”. She said the episode, which she “never
forgot”, causes her problems “now that I am married” and that she needed
counselling before she was willing to consent to sex, “for psychological not
physical reasons”.
Bohra community
Zehra belongs to the Bohra community, a sect of the majority Muslim population
which numbers some 100,000, according to official figures, and is based mainly
in the southern
Other groups which carry out the mutilation are groups with African or Arab
origins, such as the ethnic
Sheedi community which numbers several thousand, came to the country
originally as slaves during the 19th and 20th centuries, and is based primarily
in Sindh. There has been little research on the practice among these groups.
Zehra believes that even today at least 50-60 percent of Bohra women undergo
circumcision, involving usually a symbolic snipping of the clitoris. “In the
past there was more mutilation, and I think 80-90 percent of women suffered it.
More awareness has helped reduce the practice,” she said.
It is rarely spoken of.
It is just something the women know about and do |
“I have seen females who have suffered `khatna’ as female
circumcision is called. Sometimes there is merely a symbolic snipping of some
skin, but in some women - especially those who are not so young, there is
somewhat more extensive cutting,” said a midwife (she preferred anonymity) in
the Tando Muhammad Khan District of Sindh, who has attended to Sheedi women.
She said she herself did not perform circumcisions.
According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), FGM/C “includes procedures that intentionally
alter or injure female genital organs for non-medical reasons”. It says
an estimated 100-140 million girls and women worldwide are living with FGM/C,
92 million of them in
“Symbolic” cutting
Shershah Syed, a former president of the Society of Obstetricians and
Gynaecologists, who devotes his practice to serving deprived women, told the
media he had come across cases in urban
“In
The WHO lists the string of complications that can arise from the procedure,
including repeated infections, cysts, infertility, higher childbirth
complications and the need for repeated surgeries.
“In our community, this practice has taken place for generations. The girls
nowadays have it done in sterile conditions. It is rarely spoken of. It is just
something the women know about and do,” said Raazia*, 60, a member of the Bohra
community and a grandmother. She says her granddaughters “will be safely
circumcized.”
“The impact is not just on health, it is psychological too. Such practices
leave deep scars, and in our country these have not been studied at all,
because so little is known about the mutilation of women in this way,” said
Aliya Rizvi, a psychologist.