The Truth about Circumcision of Female Genitals

How is it possible to permanently mutilate a woman’s body in the name of culture and tradition?

Girls undergo the procedure to retain the families’ honour.

The infamous ritual is performed in certain African and Arab countries. During the ritual, women are physically abused and mutilated in the name of tradition and customs. This is justified by religion and considered socially acceptable and logical. Despite the fact that the United Nations has been drawing attention to this problem for quite a while, the tradition and approval of this controversial practice are more powerful, while women who suffer the most are trapped in the middle.

Circumcision of female genitals 

Circumcision is carried out in an extremely inhumane and cruel way. It involves partial or total removal of external sexual organs of a woman, while unsterile instruments are used in the procedure, such as razor blades, scissors, kitchen knives and pieces of glass.  The instruments are sometimes used on more than one girl. The procedure is carried out immediately after the birth or at a very early age without using any anaesthesia. Suffering of girls after the procedure is unimaginable. There are three types of circumcision. In the first, the clitoris is partially or totally removed. In the second, labia minora are removed. In the third, a woman is so mutilated that only a small opening remains for urine and menstrual blood. The clitoris is removed, and labia minora and labia majora are sewn up by using thorns instead of a surgical needle.



Circumcision is carried out in an inhumane and brutal way.

Justification of cruelty 

In some regions of Africa people believe that a newborn baby has signs of both sexes, and the sex should therefore be determined by removing the foreskin from the penis and the clitoris from the vagina. If that is not performed at birth, a girl has to undergo the procedure in puberty, in the so-called initiation ritual. Naturally, such a massacre carried out on a woman’s body has to be justified. Here, the above societies rely on two cultural elements that play a very important role in an individual’s life, that is, tradition and religion. Female circumcision has it origins in Egypt where  the practice was banned in 2007. It is not just a custom of a Muslim society. The custom is also known and practised by Christians but to a much lesser extent. Such societies believe that circumcision makes genitals clean and it is good for health. Women thus retain virginity, are more fertile, avoid promiscuity, and their sexual organs look more aesthetic, and  once they are circumcised, they can be normally integrated  in a society without any problems. As  the procedure is performed in societies where men are generally dominant, that is, in patriarchal societies, we cannot overlook another reason for approving the procedure – more pleasure for men during sexual intercourse.

UN has been trying to ban the infamous ritual across the world.

Foreplay with knife

A lot of women and girls die during the ‘operation’ as a result of shock and too severe pains. Unsuitable surgical instruments cause numerous infections that do not only cover the external part of the genitals but also  the internal part. The flow of blood and urine may be blockage. Sexual intercourse is unbearably painful and foreplay is often  unpleasant as well as bloody. It looks like this: the man takes a knife and cuts the sewn up organ before he penetrates it. All that is imposed on girls by families to retain their own and the families’ respect in the society that degrades girls with this procedure to the level below men and  mutilates their bodies forever as well as causes psychological trauma of which they are reminded every time they look at their naked bodies.