As we present to you our final project, it is believed that there are between eight and ten million women and girls in the Middle East and in Africa are at risk of undergoing one form or another of female genital mutilation. The origin of these practices is difficult to trace, however, it is believed that it was once an attempt to ensure chaste or monogamous behavior by supppressing female sexuality and also to protect young girls from rape. Girls undergo FGM typically around three years old, though age varies depending on the customs of the local village or region. As the three year old faces these forms of genital mutilation, it is often under the most unsanitory conditions. A midwife uses unclean sharp instruments such as razor blades, kitchen knives and pieces of glass.
Antiseptic techniques are usually neither used nor even heard of.
Often these instruments are used on several girls in succession. Under these conditions, it is understandable that there are severe medical consequences. I recall the stories from women of my village who spoke of this operation as if their whole life has stopped there and then. The atrocity of their descriptions and at the same time a feeling of inescapable doom had triggered such a panic in me that when the terror-laden day came, I began to vomit. What happened then is still excruiatingly burning my flesh, so much so that I often wake up in the middle of the night screaming and calling for my mother.