Female genital mutilation: an embedded custom

“A tall tribe caught short by change” is the title of a Baltimore Sun article published yesterday. It is an unususally good description of the conflict between tradition and modernity among the Masai, a primitive African people. It does not romanticize the Masai’s customs, which include wife beating, female genital mutilation and polygamy, but treats the people sympathetically.

The article opens with the story of a girl, Neema Laizer, who ran away at age 14 when she learned she would be married the next day to a man with two wives. She found help in the city at a Catholic girls’ school, just graduated high school, and plans to study medicine so she can help her people, especially the women.

Neema is a member of the Masai, a proud people from northern Tanzania and Kenya known worldwide for the lanky, spear-clutching male warriors in red garb. For ages, their semi-nomadic ways have centered on cattle, simple living – and deeply chauvinistic traditions.

But some Masai say it is time to end certain gender-based practices. Ritual female genital mutilation is common despite laws against it. Culturally sanctioned promiscuity raises fears that AIDS could ricochet nightmarishly through Masai communities. And girls as young as 12 are forced into polygamous marriage.

The reporter, Scott Calvert, goes on to discuss female genital mutilation.

“A woman does not recognize herself as a woman without circumcision,” said Edward Porokwa, a college-educated Masai who runs a nonprofit agency that lobbies for pastoralists such as the Masai. “A man will not marry a woman who is not circumcised.”

Porokwa agrees with the government’s ban of the practice, in which the clitoris is excised in pubescent girls. The challenge, he said, is to persuade Masai to make the coming-of-age rite symbolic and to keep the useful aspects, such as guidance on how to take care of one’s family. Otherwise it will continue indefinitely, he predicted, law or no law.

The Masai are gradually coming to accept education, even for their girls. Neena’s father beat her mother so badly for helping her escape that she needed medical care. But four years later he came to her graduation.

We’ve associated the practice of female genital mutilation with Islam (although it is not in the Koran), but the Masai are not Muslim. One expert I found says this:

In sub-Saharan Africa, female genital mutilation rituals have been customary for millennia, and tenaciously continue to hold sway on all social levels, even now….

This tenacity of the custom is what we’ve repeatedly brought up in connection with refugees who come from societies where female genital mutilation is practiced, such as Somalia. Those who are close to the people who practice it in Africa are realistic about the difficulty of stopping it. They see it as a long-term educational project, and say that while laws are helpful they will not be effective without education. Contrast that with the breezy way refugee resettlement officials dealt with it during the Hagerstown meeting on refugees. (See our September forum category, here.)  One official said “We tell them it’s against the law and they will be deported if they do it,” and that was his entire answer. In later questioning officials said there are educational efforts underway. I do not doubt that, but I have not been able to find out what they are and how extensive. Perhaps we should bring over some of the people from Africa who have a better understanding of what needs to be done.