So called female genital mutilation (FGM) – the continuing vuvuzela

Dr. Sama Banya – Puawui

The Sierra Leone Telegraph: 26 July 2014

Some years ago, I read a humorous story in a British newspaper about a New Zealander who had lived in Britain for many years, who then suddenly decided to return home.

When asked about his reason for leaving an adopted country that he confessed to have come to love, his answer was simple: “When I arrived here some years back, homosexual act was a criminal offense that carried a jail sentence. Then the government set up the Wolfenden Commission to look into prostitution and other social offenses. The government accepted the Commission’s recommendation that homosexual act between consenting adults must no longer be a crime.”

He said he was now leaving Britain, before a law came into force, which would make homosexual act compulsory.

We may laugh at the humour, but the West has gone a very long way in encouraging something which, even the Holy Bible condemns as an unnatural act.

Homosexual marriages have been legalized in both Europe and the United States of America. What is even more detestable is that, not only are gay couples eligible for social benefits – but are allowed to adopt children as well.

I wonder whether the legislators have bothered to reflect on the ultimate effect of that policy, on children.

A gay bishop has been ordained in an Episcopal Church in the United States.

The same “advanced” Western countries are putting undue pressure on African countries, through blackmail and threats to withhold development assistance, should such countries pass or fail to repeal laws which penalize homosexuality.

And now, they have again turned their attention on and begun a crusade against the alleged cruelty and backwardness of what they conveniently describe as ‘FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION’.

Sadly, some Sierra Leoneans for obvious reasons had earlier joined the chorus in the outcry against the traditional practice.

At the time, I took up the challenge of a young lady who went about preaching against what she called the evil practice of Female Genital Mutilation. She went on to describe over the then SLBS radio, how she had suffered mental depression and could not get employment because she had been compelled to undergo genital mutilation.

All that had actually happened was that she had had her clitoris removed.

Another Sierra Leonean woman – a Fatmata Karim, described what happened to her at age 9. But hasn’t shown any evidence of her genitalia being partially or totally removed, which as earlier stated is the definition of mutilation.

Several years ago, while we were listening to the ‘bla bla’ on female genital mutilation in the Miatta Conference Centre, the speaker’s voice was drowned by drumming, singing and dancing; it was “Sampa” and the Mende masked Bondo devil of the women’s ‘Sande’ society leading a crowd of joyful women on their way down to the Congo valley stream to do their thing.

I know that some Sierra Leoneans have joined the so called FGM campaign purely for money, while others are being granted refugee status in western countries for their alleged suffering.

On Wednesday July 23, the British Prime Minister David Cameron, opened a global conference in London to discuss strategies for putting an end to practices which he said “are standing rebukes to our world, in our generation.”

He was referring to early child marriages and female genital mutilation. But I can’t wait to read the communiqué that must have emanated from that conference.

In its 2013 report, UNICEF gives the figures for FGM for Guinea as 97%, Sierra Leone 90% and Liberia 66%.

So what is Female Genital Mutilation or FGM, to which term they now add ‘Cutting’, in an attempt to clumsily replace the meaningless expression – FGM.

According to their definition; it “includes the partial or total removal of the female genitalia.”

I have only one question for the self styled do-gooder campaigners against our legitimate cultural and social practice: Is this what prevails in Sierra Leone?

A few weeks ago, I challenged one of my own professional colleagues on the promise of joining their crusade, to provide a single evidence of female genital mutilation of an initiate into our women’s secret society.

Some of these people would be well advised to seek other avenues of getting international funding, or regularising their immigration status in western countries, rather than using our long traditional practice as a source of satisfying their greed and self-interest.