What Can Be Done?
When most people in the United States hear about female circumcision in Africa they label it an atrocity. It must be done away with. Coming from a culture that is entirely different from the culture that performs FC how can Westerners understand well enough to be able to stop this practice?
There have been many criticisms from the nations (28 nations world wide practice female circumcision) that perform FC that there is a cultural divide. People from outside their culture can not understand the practice. Politician Hilary Clinton has been in the news recently fighting for the ending of FC. Many Africans say that she is a propagandist spreading untrue facts about the practice.
Despite this apparent rejection of the negative moral implication of FC the numbers of countries where people circumcise their daughters is dropping. This may be from the pressure of outside influences, but seems to be coming from within communities.
More and more mothers are deciding not to circumcise their daughters. This decision is not without its own perils. In June of 2006 15 year-old Pamela Kathambi of Kenya died when she attempted to circumcise herself. Her mother, Julia Kanuu (to the right, picture from BBC: "Kenya shock at mutilation death"), decided not to have her daughter circumcised because she saw that women who were not, persued more education and had better lives than those who were circumcised. A year earlier Kathambi asked her mother if she could undergo FC because other girls in the community were taunting her, calling her unclean and saying she would never find a husband. This is the first reported death of an attempted self circumcision in Kenya.
There is also a fear in the international community that making FC illegal will only drive it underground, similar to countries in which abortion is illegal. The US, Canada, and most of Europe have strict bans on FC and some African countries are following suit.
On November 24, 2006 there was a breakthrough. In an international conference at Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt many predominant Muslim scholars and international physicians spoke about the risks of FC and its presence in the Qur’an. In an astounding decision it was decided that female circumcision was not an Islamic practice. Islam outlawed female circumcision.
It will take years to realize the full impact of this decision. It is not yet clear whether this will be a negative or a positive step in abolishing female circumcision worldwide.