Why Does Female Genital Mutilation Occur?

The passage below is an excerpt from my book, Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation: A UK Perspective, published by Ashgate / Taylor and Francis in 2015.  This was written as a textbook drawing particularly on the information available in the UK at that time – though it in fact covers the issues and what was known then of the history (some now almost forgotten) of FGM arising in many countries around the globe.  The chapter in which this extract can be found is Chapter 1: Demography and Epidemiology of FGM, pp.31-34.

Why does FGM occur?

Female genital mutilation is an age-old phenomenon.  It precedes all the major world religions and has been known, like other harmful traditional practices (HTPs) [26] , from the earliest times [27] .

The claim is regularly made that FGM is a ‘Muslim’ practice, but in fact it occurs amongst animists and in both Muslim and Judeo-Christian countries.  A large majority of spiritual leaders of global faiths – though certainly not all leaders in, especially, the Islamic tradition [28]  –  reject it as an inhumane transgression of basic rights to physical integrity and freedom from fear and oppression [29] [30] .  

Nonetheless there is a widespread belief that Islam and FGM are linked, because it is most often encountered in countries where that religion is in the ascendant.  The reality is that it is perceived in large numbers of traditional communities to be required.  The association of FGM and Islam is, however weak the evidence that the relevant scriptures deem it necessary, a significant aspect of the way that FGM is perceived by many, and must therefore be acknowledged in order that it can be challenged (not least by the large majority of adherents of that faith) [31]  .

The reality is that over millennia female genital mutilation has occurred principally as a way to ensure the ascendancy of patriarchy  [32] .  FGM therefore presents itself in different ways in different places and at different times.

In some instances FGM occurs very early in a girl child’s life, in others later, even perhaps in adulthood [33]  [34]  [35]  .

• Sometimes the preferred ‘procedure’ is relatively minor / non-invasive (though never risk-free); in others it is routinely life-threatening  [36].
• Some communities link FGM to large-scale festivities, with much ritual and celebration.  In others, especially since the introduction in many places of laws forbidding the practice, it is carried out without ceremony and in secret [37]  .

Similarly, the rationales of FGM are diverse  [38] [39]

• FGM may be an early marker of belonging to a particular group, perhaps carried out when the child is only a few days or weeks old. (Similarly, ex-pat groups may adopt it as a way of indicating difference from their host community.) [40]
• In some communities FGM is seen as a rite of passage, an initiation to adulthood during which pain must be endured, which occurs as the girl approaches puberty and thus ‘becomes a woman’ (Chad [41]) . FGM also often has religious and social significance. The shedding of blood may be seen as a symbolic stream connecting the woman to the rest of her close-knit community  [42].
• FGM is sometimes required to ‘preserve’ family ‘honour’ [43]  .
• It may be done in order to ‘cleanse’ a girl, in the belief that it is more hygienic and will stop unpleasant genital secretions and odours as the child develops to maturity  [44] [45]  .
• Another rationale is that the girl must be made ‘pure’ and chaste [46] , and virginity must be assured before she can be made available at a good bride price for marriage [47]  She may be sewn up almost completely as she approaches puberty, when she reaches marriageable age, or even after each birth, so that sexual intimacy is almost impossible unless the infibulation is reversed, on her husband’s say-so [48] .
• A corollary of bride price is that a girl for whom a good price can be secured (i.e. whose ‘purity’ is assured) is also a safety net for her parents in old age; pensions are not part of the experience of elders in traditional communities, but a good (i.e. economically sound) marriage offers a degree of assurance for parents as they become more frail   .
• FGM may be deemed a beautifying procedure, or to remove ‘masculine’ aspects of a girl’s or woman’s body [49] to reinforce gender ‘differences’.  The clitoris may be seen as ‘male’ and removed to ensure the girl doesn’t develop perceived ‘male’ traits, such as aggression or promiscuity.
• Excision of the clitoris may be believed to ensure women will not be like men in regard to sexual appetite or aggression, and that it will control the rampant sexual desires which adolescent girls are believed to harbour  [50]   .
• Fear of the clitoris may be a factor, with the belief that it must be excised because otherwise it will grow into a ‘third leg’ (c.f. a penis, only perhaps longer), and / or will cause the girl discomfort when she becomes a woman  [51]  .
• Fear of the clitoris, and its consequent excision, is also a rationale in communities which believe a man – or baby – will die if they come into contact with it during intercourse or labour [52]  (in a few communities such as the Samburu in Kenya a baby born to an uncircumcised woman is deemed impure, and may even be killed [53]  ).
• Excision of the clitoris is believed to reduce a woman’s sexual pleasure or desire, thus reducing the likelihood that she will become sexually active with anyone other than her husband  [54] .
• Some communities believe men’s sexual pleasure will be enhanced by FGM [55] .

Underlying all these rationales however is another factor, essential to understanding FGM.  It is a ritual, much more than just a mere customary action, which has continued unquestioned for millennia.  Those in traditional communities who perpetrate have known no other.  For large numbers of such people there is in a very real sense no alternative. As the anthropologist Gerry Mckee points out, the risks of neglecting to inflict FGM may be too high to take.  The practice is bound to a belief trap  [56]. Who knows what horrors might befall an individual or community where it ceased?

For more information about FGM please see:

“What we know about female genital mutilation – A summary (2025) of the many and complex aspects”

[26] http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/02/weekinreview/africa-s-culture-war-old-customs-new-values.html
[27] http://www.fgmnationalgroup.org/historical_and_cultural.htm
[28] http://www.meforum.org/1629/is-female-genital-mutilation-an-islamic-problem
[29] http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/06/23/fgm-is-not-a-religious-duty-says-dar-al-ifta-representative/
[30] http://www.economist.com/node/9444160/
[31] http://www.forwarduk.org.uk/key-issues/fgm/fgm-islam
[32] http://www.coexistkenya.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FGM-community-study.pdf
[33] http://www.trust.org/item/20130225174500-wh24c/
[34] http://www.prb.org/Publications/Datasheets/2010/fgm2010.aspx
[35] http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/fgm/fgm_trends/en/index.html
[36] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/
[37] http://www.afya-bora.com/fgm.htm
[38] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/
[39] http://www.fgm.co.nz/beliefs-and-issues
[40] http://www.nmhdu.org.uk/silo/files/fgm-psychiatric-considerations.pdf
[41] http://replacefgm.eu/sites/default/files/pressroom/REPLACE%20Toolkit.pdf
[42] http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/femalecircumcision/femalecirc_1.shtml
[43] http://www.fgm.co.nz/beliefs-and-issues
[44] http://www.patriciacrossley.com/FGM.htm
[45] http://www.patriciacrossley.com/Africa/Vignettes/2004-5/Oct%20104.htm
[46] http://www.african-women.org/documents/behind-FGM-tradition.pdf
[47] http://www.african-women.org/documents/other-face-of-FGM.pdf
[48] http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/fgm/fgm_reinfibulation_sudan/en/index.html
[49] http://www.african-women.org/FGM/myths.php
[50] http://www.irinnews.org/indepthmain.aspx?InDepthId=15&ReportId=62470
[51] http://www.fgmnetwork.org/gonews.php?subaction=showfull&id=1236961202&ucat=1&
[52] http://voices.yahoo.com/female-genital-mutilation-15953.html
[53] http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/ktn/video/watch/2000071089/-a-cursed-culture-samburu-kill-unclean-infants
[54] http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/frontiers/reports/Kenya_Somali_FGC.pdf
[55] http://www.path.org/files/FGM-The-Facts.htm
[56] http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2096305?uid=3738032&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21105174417523

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Books by Hilary Burrage on female genital mutilation

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6684-2740

Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation: A UK Perspective
Ashgate / Routledge (2015)  Reviews

A free internet version of the book Female Mutilation is available

here.

[It is hoped that putting all these global Female Mutilation narrations onto the internet will enable readers to consider them via Google Translate in whatever language they choose.]

Hilary has published widely and has also contributed two chapters to Routledge International Handbooks:

Female Genital Mutilation and Genital Surgeries: Chapter 33,
in Routledge International Handbook of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health (2019),
eds Jane M. Ussher, Joan C. Chrisler, Janette Perz
and
FGM Studies: Economics, Public Health, and Societal Well-Being: Chapter 12,
in The Routledge International Handbook on Harmful Cultural Practices (2023),
eds Maria Jaschok, U. H. Ruhina Jesmin, Tobe Levin von Gleichen, Comfort Momoh

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PLEASE NOTE:

The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children, which has a primary focus on FGM, is clear that in formal discourse any term other than ‘mutilation’ concedes damagingly to the cultural relativists. ‘FGM’ is therefore the term I use here  – though the terms employed may of necessity vary in informal discussion with those who by tradition use alternative vocabulary. See the Feminist Statement on the Naming and Abolition of Female Genital Mutilation,  The Bamako Declaration: Female Genital Mutilation Terminology and the debate about Anthr/Apologists on this website.

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This article concerns approaches to the eradication specifically of FGM.  I am also categorically opposed to MGM, but that is not the focus of this particular piece, except if in any specifics as discussed above.

Anyone wishing to offer additional comment on more general considerations around male infant and juvenile genital mutilation is asked please to do so via these relevant dedicated threads.

Discussion of the general issues re M/FGM will not be published unless they are posted on these dedicated pages. Thanks.