EGYPT: Gynecologist & Cairo woman discuss female mutilation

Circumcision is known to cause psychological blockings due to the physical pain and unease that is connected to the genital area by memory.

Mona Omar, a social worker, holds an FGM-awareness poster at a village meeting. Image: Giacomo Pirozzi/UNICEF

(CAIRO WNN) - Myself I never performed a circumcision, but my colleagues tell me that it was a fairly ordinary practice here until the 1997s,” he says ”but in the years from then and until 2008, where it was made illegal, it became less ordinary.”

“I have only been repairing,” he says, referring to those one or two times a week, when a young woman will be brought in with a ‘traumatic case,’ as he calls it. This is a circumcision performed in an illegal, unauthorized clinic or in the home. The woman is often bleeding heavily and needs stitching.

Amr is obliged to report these cases to the police. But he does not always do so.

“They made a law, but I didn’t see anything change. People are doing it, and they always will. So I hesitate to report – it might put the families in great trouble,” he says.

In Hebas family, they did it as well.

“We went upstairs, and I was sat down,” she recounts, “My mother left me to my aunt and my grandmother. My grandmother sat behind me and put her feet down between my legs, pushing my thighs open with her ankles. My hands were held back.”

It seems very harsh to hold her like that. “But I might have done something stupid when I realized what they were doing. I might have injured myself.”

Heba was 12 at the time.

Most of her youth, Heba did not feel anything missing from her body. Like most women in Egypt, she had a circumcision of a ‘mild’ degree, and most of her genitalia are intact.

But in her early twenties, she started cramping up completely during sex and could not go through with the intercourse.

“It would hurt so bad. In Dubai, I went to a gynecologist to understand why this was suddenly a problem. But it wasn’t until his secretary asked me if I was circumcised, that I understood.”

Circumcision is known to cause psychological blockings due to the physical pain and unease that is connected to the genital area by memory.

The trauma causes the musculature to cramp up in a reflex to avoid further pain, and makes intercourse quite difficult. These are one of the very common long-term effects of the mild levels of FGM.

Extensive cutting to the genitalia is rarely done in Egypt. But the further you get away from Cairo, the more far-reaching is the norm of circumcision.

“We are dealing with two different Egypts, if not more than that. There is one Egypt, which belongs to Amr Diab’s songs and the lovely ladies on TV, politicians and revolutionary youth in Tahrir square,” he says, “but the majority of Egyptians are living in a very different reality.”

Heba is from one of these places that Amr is referring to, a village in Upper Egypt. She had a circumcision of a ‘mild’ degree, and most of her genitalia are intact.

Special thanks to Women's News Network

Originally published here: http://womennewsnetwork.net/2011/11/17/egypt-gynecologist-discuss-female-mutilation/

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