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"I heard my sisters scream": in France, the slow reconstruction of female victims of excision

2023-02-06T16:08:09.694Z


TESTIMONIALS - 125,000 women living in France have been victims of excision. Some of them are trying to rebuild themselves by getting involved in the fight against this barbaric practice.


Emotion mixed with regret hoarse the voice of Rhama *, when she remembers this afternoon.

I came home after being away for thirty minutes.

My daughter was on the table, she was bleeding, and my mother said to me “It's like that, she has to go there too”.

Rhama comes from Djibouti.

At the age of 5, she was circumcised by the women in her neighborhood.

So, when Rhama became a mother, she left her country for France, where she hoped to be able to avoid this fate for her own daughter.

In France, female genital mutilation is punishable by 10 years' imprisonment and a fine of 150,000 euros.

It was without counting this brief stay spent with her daughter in Djibouti at her mother's house, a relentless traditionalist, who brought in the circumcisers that afternoon.

Lauria was 6 months old.

She died of a generalized infection a few weeks later.

Excision, infibulation... This Monday, February 6, a day of struggle is devoted to these female genital mutilations (MSF), traditional practices very widespread in West Africa, which consist of the partial or total removal of the genitals of wife.

They currently concern 125,000 women in France*, and 200 million women worldwide**, mostly from this part of the African continent, where almost all countries prohibit the practice.

Today, their journey of reconstruction after the trauma of excision remains difficult and full of pitfalls.

“I was mutilated, alive”

Especially since excision remains a widely practiced reality today, despite the fact that almost all .

In Guinea, 97% of women aged 15 to 49 have undergone genital mutilation, in a country which nevertheless abolished it in 2001. An ordeal experienced by Anita Traoré.

Originally from Guinea, the 32-year-old young woman now lives in Tours.

She was circumcised when she was 8 years old.

In Conakry, the capital

”, she specifies, “

and not in a remote village, contrary to what we believe today.

»

My father was a professor of philosophy, and my mother a journalist: both were opposed to me and my sisters being circumcised.

“says Anita.

In his family, the most traditional members are not of this opinion.

Proof that the protection of parents, when they are opposed to the practice, is not sufficient, Anita and her sisters will still be circumcised.

We were at my grandparents during school holidays, and my aunts invited us to a birthday party which was taking place the next day.

The next day, Anita and her sisters had barely arrived at the party when the women hosting the reception pushed them into a dark room in the house.

I was the last

,” recalls Anita.

"

I heard my sisters screaming, then I saw them come out of that dark room, half passed out.

Then comes Anita's turn.

In the darkness of the house, the little girl is immobilized by four people, while a fifth approaches with a razor.

I was mutilated, raw.

In shock, the four sisters are then taken to a house where they will stay for forty days.

There, visitors come to offer them money and presents.

We had to be happy, because everyone was congratulating us

,” recalls Anita, upset.

Read alsoExcision, breast ironing, infibulation… The great import of female sexual mutilation in France

From this barbaric operation, carried out without anesthesia and under unhygienic conditions, women, once adults, retain many physical ailments.

During sexual intercourse but also during childbirth.

So, to overcome the pain and trauma, many of them engage in the fight against female circumcision.

“As a child, I was waiting for my excision as one waits for Christmas Day, seeing only the presents, without the operation.

»

Martha

Anita became president and founder of the association “

Chance et protection pour tous

”, which has, among other places, a branch in France and one in Guinea.

In France, it intervenes in schools to raise awareness among young girls.

Her efforts are intensified especially with the approach of the holidays,

"the moment when the little girls return to the country to see their families."

In France, more and more centers offer women who wish to listen, information, and surgical reconstruction for those who are considering it.

It is one of the most serious forms of sexual violence

,” laments Ghada Hatem, obstetrician-gynecologist at the Maison des Femmes in Saint-Denis, dedicated among other things to the reconstruction of women who have undergone female circumcision.

Enough dead, enough traumatized for life

”, abounds on her side Anita.

Originally from a village in the north of Côte d'Ivoire, Martha, 48, who descends from a long line of circumcisers, has also chosen to join the fight.

When I was little, I was waiting for my excision as one waits for Christmas

,” she recalls

.

"

It's a big party, at this time we receive the secrets of life from the

'

matrons

'".

These circumcisers, who pass on the practice from mother to daughter, are considered to be key figures in the village in the passage from young girl to adulthood.

Weight of tradition

Martha, who works in an association for the fight against excision based in Rennes, "Azca", emphasizes on the other hand the importance of understanding the weight of tradition in such a practice.

You cannot arrive in an African village by putting up the sign “Excision prohibited”, then leave.

It does not work like that !

".

And to hammer home: "

If we don't understand the community aspect, we can't fight

," she explains.

According to her, the fight against MSF must be adapted to each region, even to each village.

"

You have to take the matrons in the loop, show them the paths of reconversion

," she asserts, "

and highlight the fact that we can maintain these transition rites in adulthood while abolishing mutilation. .

".

His association, which has been working in Côte d'Ivoire for fifteen years, has obtained the retraining of thirty-five cutters.

"

It's already a great victory, given the thousand-year-old roots of female circumcision in our African practices,

" she rejoices.

Others choose to go into exile.

Rokhya, who comes from a village near Bamako, in Mali, arrived in France in 2019, her baby girl in her arms.

To stay in the country was to guarantee her excision

,” she says.

So, the young woman and her husband applied for asylum on the grounds of the threat of excision hanging over their children.

They obtained it and now live in Maisons-Alfort, without any contact with their family.

For them, cutting ties was the only solution.

It's difficult

,” says Rokhya, “

but when I left

,

a friend had just lost her child, who died of infection after being mutilated.

I couldn't accept this for my daughter.

»

*Estimation from the Weekly Epidemiological Bulletin dated February 15, 2019.

** UNICEF Balance Sheet 2022

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2023-02-06

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