Princeton Journal of Foreign Affairs

Female Genital Mutilation in Eritrea
Michelle Toering

The international community should intervene to protect the rights of women and to stop
the medical and psychological damage caused by the traditional practice of female genital mutilation.

Sadia and her sister were seven and ten years old respectively. They had
lived in London for the past four years with their mother who had
managed to get them out of Eritrea during the war to avoid danger. They
now are returning to Eritrea under the presumption that it is just for a
visit. They do not know their mother's real intentions. Upon their arrival
she whisks them away to their grandmother's hut and on the next day
their fate becomes apparent. They are handcuffed and tied down. An old
woman enters the hut and begins the operation. They are cut open, the
clitoris is removed, the lips are sewn together, and their legs are then
bound for 40 days to ensure that their wounds heal properly. They have
been traumatized, violated and scarred for life. They can no longer bear
to look at their mother. She has betrayed their trust.

Sadia and her sister are two of 100 million women and girls who undergo
the painful operation of female circumcision every year, a procedure
which has become known as female genital mutilation. This term was
coined once the severity of the medical and psychological consequences
of the operation were realized in the 1970s. It is a traditional practice that
is performed on women whose ages range from just a few days old to a
couple of decades old in at least 27 African countries as well as in the
Middle East and Asia. It is an operation that has left some dead, some
paralyzed, and many permanently scarred, both physically and
psychologically.

Methods of Circumcision

There are three types of circumcision that are performed on women and
children: clitoridectomy, excision and infibulation. Infibulation is the most
severe of the three; however, even clitoridectomy involves an operation
that is equivalent to partial penisectomy (the removal of part of the male
genitals). Severe hemorrhaging, urinary tract infections, loss of bladder
control, and death, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder and
depression are some of the consequences that can result from this
procedure. The medical and psychological consequences of the
procedure have created an international debate over female genital
mutilation.

International Intervention

The primary concern of the debate is the issue of intervention. Female
circumcision is a traditional practice that is over 200 years old. To those
who practice it, female circumcision represents an integral part of their
culture. Many in the Western world view it as a violation of human rights.
According to international law, the international community cannot
intervene in the domestic affairs of a nation. The community accepts that
the traditional practices of developing countries are domestic affairs and
are best left to the discretion of the people. However, when traditional
practices become violations of human rights, is the international
community justified in intervening?

Until recently United Nations special agencies supported a policy of
non-intervention due to the cultural sensitivity of the issue. However,
arguments for intervention have gained support in recent years as the
practice has spread. Due to civil war in a number of African countries,
refugees are moving across borders and taking the tradition with them.
International agencies initially responded by holding workshops and
conferences on women's issues and harmful traditional practices. The
purpose was to address the issue without imposing other beliefs on the
traditions of the country. Today, however, these organizations are slowly
beginning to play a more direct role. This new approach has been
criticized by African nations because they deem it disrespectful and
insensitive to African culture. Human rights workers and feminists have
labeled female genital mutilation a barbaric primitive practice that should
be abolished immediately. Those who practice it do not believe that the
Western world has properly acknowledged the reasons for the practice
and the tradition that lies behind it, causing tension between the agencies
and the local organizations with which they are trying to work.

Cultural Heritage

To understand the debate, one must understand the reasons behind the
procedure. The primary reason female genital mutilation is practiced is to
control the sexual desires of the woman and ensure that she is still "pure"
at the time of her marriage. These cultures believe that if women are left
intact, they will be sexually promiscuous; removing the clitoris and sewing
the genital area to leave a small opening for urine flow and menstruation
reduces the desire of the female to have sex, not only because she can
usually no longer achieve orgasm, but also because sex will be too
painful. Female genital mutilation is also performed to maintain the honor
of the family. An uncircumcised girl is considered dirty and "hot" (sexually
active); she and her family become pariahs. One 10-year-old girl who
had not been circumcised was taken to the doctor because she was ill.
Upon examining her, he noticed she had not been mutilated and told her
how lucky she was. The girl became upset and informed him that he was
wrong, that she was an outcast because she had not undergone the
operation, and that she was dirty and unworthy of living. Because the
girl's mother, in the interest of protecting her daughter, had not allowed
her daughter to have this operation, the girl violently resented her mother.

These cultures view circumcision as a prerequisite for marriage;
uncircumcised girls do not marry. Those who are circumcised and marry
bring larger dowries if the hole left by the operation is very small.
Religious beliefs are another reason Muslims cite for practicing female
genital mutilation; however, nowhere in the Koran is it mentioned that
women should be subjected to this procedure. These cultural beliefs are
wide-spread among many nations of the world.

Eritrea, formerly a part of Ethiopia, is one of these nations. According to
the 1995 Eritrean Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS), female
genital mutilation is practiced on 95% of the female population. The age
at which females are subjected to this operation varies from one region of
the country to another. In rural areas, it is performed any time before
puberty, whereas in more urban areas it is usually performed within a few
days of birth.

Education Campaign

The anti-female genital mutilation campaign in Eritrea has gained
momentum in the past few months. During the war for independence, the
Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), the primary military operation
in Eritrea, successfully campaigned against female genital mutilation in the
northern region of the country. However, when the EPLF became the
governing party at independence, party leaders abandoned the campaign
against female genital mutilation because it had become a highly
politicized, and therefore risky, issue. Since then, the National Union of
Eritrean Youth and Students (NUEYS) and the National Union of
Eritrean Women (NUEW) have become the main organizers of this
campaign with the support of Radda Barnen (the Save The Children
organization of Sweden) and the Pastoral and Environmental Network
for the Horn of Africa (PENHA).

Direct international efforts to aid the anti-female genital mutilation
campaign in Eritrea have not been an option. The international agencies
that are present in Eritrea are limited in what they are able to do. The
government will not allow any outside organizations to create
independent programs or projects within the country, instead requiring
them to work through a local organization on projects that have been
initiated by and are run by local groups. International agencies thus play
the role of resource provider. According to representatives of the
international organizations, this role has been difficult, as they are
accustomed to spearheading efforts of this sort. However the
government's policy has the beneficial effect of forcing aid agencies to
train Africans in jobs which would otherwise be done by outsiders. As a
result, Eritreans have learned effective research methods and
campaign-planning skills. More governments in the developing world
should adopt this approach because it allows for the development of the
skills of domestic professionals and therefore allows for the continuation
of these programs once the international agencies leave. Approaching the
situation in this manner precludes the development of a dependent
relationship between local groups and the international organizations.

The anti-female genital mutilation campaign in Eritrea focuses on
education. Even though the initiative to change this tradition is being taken
by the local people, female genital mutilation remains a very difficult issue
to discuss for those who practice it. Men turn away when questioned,
claiming it is a women's issue, and women state that they do not have a
choice as no man will marry them if they are not circumcised. Thus the
campaign has begun by educating birth attendants and the uneducated
women in society and focusing on the medical consequences of the
practice so as to skirt cultural sensitivity issues. Many men and women
were unaware of the severity of the medical consequences prior to the
efforts of the campaign.

Eritrea's government has yet to join in the campaign; government officials
claim that they prefer to wait until the level of awareness is high enough
so that they can then formulate legislation that would prohibit female
genital mutilation. However, it is difficult to predict when awareness will
reach the requisite level. The campaign is still in the process of compiling
statistics and making preliminary contacts with local leaders. NUEW has
begun work-shops to train various groups of women. The international
agencies support these efforts although they do not give as much financial
assistance as they might. If the international community uses its resources
to the fullest to educate and to increase awareness of female genital
mutilation, the seriousness of the issue could be become more widely
recognized and perhaps more lives could be saved.

Female circumcision is not an problem that is going to be resolved
overnight, and it is not an issue which we, as outsiders, have the right to
condemn. However, the international community should intervene to help
protect the fundamental human rights of women and children. In doing so,
the international community must approach the issue with a very keen
sense of the circumstances of the practice, the culture which we are
encountering and the sensitivity of the issue among the people.

Notes:

Much of the information presented in this article was obtained
first-hand from interviews with representatives of international and
local agencies in Eritrea during the summer of 1997. Some of the
technical information concerning the operation has come from a
variety of sources; below is a brief bibliography of references I have
used in my research.