denim

So her sister didn't try to protect her. Wonderful. What a nice family.

gabshu

Please Mr. A, take her to a doctor. No person should be put through this, and I'm sure her troubles will be agravated when she is older and it finally hits that she has been terribly wronged. If you let her continue in this situation, she will probably never get out of that terrible religious world of hers, and this will happen all over again to her daughters.
This girl's well being is on your shoulders, or do you want to find out in a week from now that she died of an infection and you didn't do anything. It seems like she cannot help herself and you need to help her.


PS: people please stop comparing male cirmumcision with female genital mutilation, it is very irresponsible.

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Mr_A

Dont assume she didn't help her sister and dont try to assume others people lifes. I posted here not for people to critisize her but to help her. I am thankful for you all that helped, I just dont want any assumptions of what she did and what she should do with the family. I will help her. By the way she did try to help her.

Thank you all again. You are all a wonderful people here, I really do appreciate all of your help.


I have one question, what are the things (Diseases, infections that could be caused by this) If anyone knows by any chance, or the symptoms of any of them. This incident happened 9 years ago so I would have though something would have happened, which I think it did before and she was treated for it but I don't know if it was caused by that and neither does she. So if it was happened this many years ago, would a possibilty of any kind of disease or infection be possible at this time?

I told her that she has to go to a doctor, the places that you guys mentioned and she doesn't want her family to get in any kind of trouble, neither do I.

bermuDa

it's a tough situation where you have dependants who don't want their parents/caregivers to get in trouble for this practice... but I cannot tolerate this practice in any situation without a valid medical reason (ie: a life threatening situation). Her parents are also victims of this abhorrent tradition if they believe it is necessary, but that does NOT excuse them for subjecting their daughters to this...

Does anyone know what religious belief necessitates FGM? Not just the religion, but the specific REASON it's done... are there any others than removing sexual pleasure and trying to prevent adultery (thought it doesn't do anything to prevent the husband from committing adultery, does it?)

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denim

They also do versions of it to increase tightness in the female.

sillygirl

It seriously doesn't matter what her family thinks or feels. It's abuse. It's wrong. People go to jail and get their children taken away for less than this.

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LaughinMon

i think the most helpful website on information about female circumcision was this one: http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/fgm/fgm.htm

as to the question of whether she can still get sick from this, that website said this:
"A World Health Organization report on FGM says,
The immediate physical effects--acute infection, tetanus, bleeding of adjacent organs, shock resulting from violent pain, and hemorrhage--can even cause death. In fact, many such deaths have occurred and continue to occur as a result of this traditional practice. The lifelong physical and psychological debilities resulting from female genital mutilations are manifold: chronic pelvic infections, keloids, vulval abscesses, sterility, incontinence, depression, anxiety and even psychosis, sexual dysfunction and marital disharmony, and obstetric complications with risk to both the infant or fetus and the mother"

so yes, "chronic pelvic infections" means she can still get infections from this until the day she dies.

this is a crime. not reporting this is a crime. its like not reporting a rape or murder. if your best friend was being molested by his/her parents, you would report that, even if it meant breaking up the family. this is not a religious issue, its about abuse. if child molestation was a common practice of a certain religion, would you still leave it alone because you think it was about 'religious motivation?'

just because its hidden it under the curtain of religion doesn't make it right. its like saying the persecution of "witches," and then the torture and burning of victims alive to 'cleanse the soul,' by old christian authorities was ok because it was all religiously motivated.

Angel

Mr_A... I am saddened that your friend has undergone such a tragic abuse and fears retribution if she takes steps to assure her health is sound.

I find it highly unlikely that she would develop an infection / disease as a direct result nine years after this abuse (I refuse to call it a medical procedure) took place. However, that is not to say that she can't be susceptible to infections from various sources.

Is she experiencing any symptoms that give her cause to feel she may have some form of infection or disease? I don't see where you have mentioned if she is having symptoms or not but that is a crucial factor in what steps would be best for her to take.

I am having difficulty putting aside my personal feelings of the abuse she and her sister have suffered and what I think should take place with her parents. But I am doing my best to try to help in some form and keeping in mind that you have made it perfectly clear that she will do nothing to incriminate her parents.

So, perhaps you could at least call Planned Parenthood and inquire as to what you can do to help her? You CAN do that anonymously. Ask them point blank if she came in for an exam if they are required by law to report it to the authorities. They are your best option for confidentiality. If they say that they are required to report it, ask them where they would recommend she go to simply have a check up.

If it has been 9 years, she can't be very far from 18 and IF, I repeat IF she is NOT having any symptoms, then she may have to wait until she turns 18 to insure her parents undeserved safety.

I wish you and her the best and I will say a prayer for you both. And bravo to you for wanting to help her.

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denim

I just hope to God she doesn't go along with the arranged marriage.

motdakasha

1) FGM isn't part of any specific religion (Christians and Muslims do it, among others). It's a tradition thing.
2) There are reversal/correction surgeries but the scar tissue will never go away. This will affect her in the future if she wants to give birth.
3) She can get anonymous help from sliding scale health clinics.
4) (In response to something from above) It is completely possible she can get an infection after 9 yrs. I was told by an outreach person telling a personal story of a 17 year old who was hospitalized because she had blood poisoning from all the yrs. of build-up in her.
5) 6,000 females are circumsized each day.
6) Females aren't the only ones who undergo genital mutilation (re: intersexed babies who are reassigned genders by their doctors).

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isis

I understand everyone's outrage in this thread .. but you must realize - YOU ARE NOT IN THE CULTURE, AND THEREFORE PROBABLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND THEIR REASONS FOR DOING THIS.

I mean, sure, we've read all about it .. but who knows WHY her family is doing it. Judging these people "HORRIBLE" as based on their religious beliefs .. its just plain discrimination. I know these things aren't typical in North America, and are frowned upon. However, we do a lot of things in our own culture that would be frowned upon in other cultures/religions too. Before everyone flys off the wall (well, everyone already did, I'm a bit late) .. we must remember about the whole idea of religious tolerance.

I'm in no way condoning the practice at all - but we aren't in the situation, we know very little details about the true reasons for doing it, the culture, and the people. It may NOT be for the soul reason to "make sex bad so that a woman will stay faithful".

denim

It's well known why this is done. Some of us have been aware of it for decades. You're being fairly condescending in assuming we're clueless in our outrage.

I can, and I do judge them for their actions.

isis

I know, I don't mean to be condescending, I'm sorry you took it that way. However, I still think since we don't know the details, *SOME* of the people in this thread were pretty quick to judge.

I'm still saying its a disgusting practice, but .. yes. I don't know what I'm saying.

denim

The details aren't terribly important, really. If someone proposed to chop off my penis so they could control me better, I'd be murderous. I'd wait until I didn't need them any more, then they'd just disappear. Why these women don't do that, I can't say.

Many people's only pleasure is sex. These women are being denied that. I can't really come up with something more evil than that. That was the most horrible part of Orwell's 1984 for me as well.

Lebell

I agree.

For the most part I am a live-and-let-live kind of person, fairly tolerant of different cultures far and wide.

But child mutilation I will always speak out against, whether it be foot binding or genital mutilation.

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bermuDa

doing something simply because it is tradition isn't sufficient reason to do it if it means injuring a child (and I'm not talking about tribal tattoos or other such rites of passage; genital mutilation, foot binding and the like debilitates these children for the rest of their lives). it upsets [understatement] me that some of these parents believe that their daughters won't be able to marry if they don't have this done, and it outrages me even further that this is still true to some extent.

Changing traditions is a gradual process, education is a good start. If it meant preventing those children from going through that physical and psychological trauma, I'd support separating them from their parents before they can be mutilated.

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denim

Precisely. If people want to mutilate themselves, from piercings to tatoos to cutting off body parts, that's their choice, but for someone to do it to them, and ESPECIALLY these particular parts, is truly obscene. And I don't use that word nearly as lightly as most.

Men who won't marry women w/o this should stay single and virginal until they're dead. To hell with them.

(edit) Think of it as evolution in action.

stevie667

assinging a sex to an intersexed baby is not genital mutilation by any means.
you don't go in with a knife and start mix and matching ya know, hormone treatments along with plastic surgeries are used to give the child a gender based on usually which organs are most prevelant so that the child can grow up and lead a normal life.

enough

Actually it is genital mutilation for many, and what's more is that it is incredibly emotionally harmful for many. Rather than explain though, please go here and read the linked articles as a start and get educated. Here , here and here are all good sites.

A bit from one of the sites:

denim

That's all true, but it's a different topic from what we're talking about in this thread. And the attitude toward it is changing, as per the thread I started a few days ago here. Go there if you want to talk about gender assignment in unobvious situations.

We're talking about mutilation of girls here.

enough

Hey no need to jump all over me because two previous posters brought up the subject, and one in a way that was clearly out of touch with reality.

I hope if someone says something grossly out of touch in a thread that happens to be OT that we don't have to ignore it and are permitted to respond with some resources listed in a quick post as I did. If someone puts stuff out there that isn't true they need to be called on it. It's really part of the natural evolution of a healthy conversation/productive thread. I'm glad you started the thread on the Time article and will link the references from my earlier post there and encourage any further conversation on gender re-assignment surgery to go there.

But if others are going to link the topic of gender mutilation to gender re-assignment surgery than I would say the topic is very germane to this conversation (thus I made my comments in my last post since it was linked by previous posters).

And now, returning you to our regularly scheduled thread...

Mr. A,

I definitely think the girl in this case should be hooked up with care for both her physical and mental needs she surely has at this point and kudos to you for trying to help. I can understand the poster's reluctance to rip her family apart over this by bringing in the law, but you have to wonder if she is still at risk for something further awful happening to her. If she was my friend I would want her out of that house pronto!

denim

Sorry, didn't mean for that to come across that way.


Me too.