By Michal Kubala
PARIS, France – Ramata Kapo was 16 when she went to the gynecologist for the first time and was told she was “excised.”
"He used the word “excised” without really explaining to me what excision means," Kapo says.
"It was like being told, 'You have a cold.' That is to say, I didn't grasp the information that was given to me and everything that lay behind it,” she said.
It wasn’t until five years later, at 21, when Kapo was pregnant with her first child, that she recalls hearing the word from her gynecologist again.
"He just said that because of my excision, I might have complications during childbirth," Kapo recalled.
But she was still not told what the word meant, so, Kapo took to the internet — something "absolutely not to be done" when unprepared and alone, she said.
Kapo found that behind the word excision lies the reality of female genital mutilation (FGM), or female genital cutting, also called female circumcision.
The practice involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. The practice is typically performed on young girls, often without anesthesia, and can lead to severe physical, psychological, and sexual health complications. FGM is widely recognized as a violation of human rights, as it has no health benefits and can cause long-lasting harm to women and girls.
The World Health Organisation estimates over 200 million girls worldwide have undergone FGM. Circumcision is most common in West Africa, Egypt, and East Africa to a slightly lesser extent. FGM also occurs in the Arab peninsula, particularly in Yemen and Oman, and Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Kapo, now 44, was subjected to the practice at around the age of one, shortly before her family left Mali for France.
"As a result, I have no, as we say, conscious memory of my mutilation,” Kapo said. “That is to say, I don't have this trauma of constantly remembering the mutilation, which is perhaps also lucky, I don't know."
When Kapo decided to find out more about what this all meant and if there were other victims in France, she called an association in France working on FGM who told her excision was a crime, that it was illegal, and that she could sue her parents.
“It was a shock,” Kapo said, adding she didn’t discuss the excision with her parents and kept a good relationship with them.
She hung up and started locating other women and girls who had experienced FGM. Through forums and blogs, where women shared stories similar to Kapo’s, she learned her story was not unique, including in France.
According to 2019 estimates, the latest data available, France is the home to over 125 000 victims of FGM. Most were victims before the age of 15 in their country of origin and, like Kapo, found out they were cut during their first visit to a gynecologist in France.
The term "excision" is often used in medical contexts to refer to the surgical aspect of FGM, but it carries profound implications for the lives of those affected, so much so that French experts and activists prefer the term Female “Sexual” Mutilation, to better reflect the range of consequences not only on women’s genitalia but their sexuality and sexual life, as well.
Excision on French soil
FGM was defined as a crime under French law in 1983, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison a fines of €150,000. But stricter penalties of up to 15 years of imprisonment apply if the victim is a minor under 15 years old.
Despite such measures women and girls present on French territory, originating from communities where FGM is practiced still run the risk of falling victim to it.
Until the 2000s, there were cases of FGM being practiced by migrant communities on French territory itself. Since, evidence has pointed both to victims from France would be sent abroad to undergo the cut.
The first conviction occurred in 1988, involving a man and his two wives; he received a three-year suspended sentence for causing unintentional death following the excision of their six-week-old daughter, Mantessa.
31 excision-related cases stood before a French court between 1979 and 2022.
Lawyer Linda Weil-Curiel, who was pivotal in condemning Awa Gréou, a cutter - or the person conducting excision - in 1999, wrote, “the African activists in Paris today acknowledge that these trials have been, if not decisive, at least essential, for the near disappearance of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis.”
“In the 1990s, the risk of a girl being excised on French soil was weakening. And it was very weak for arrivals after 2000. We saw fewer cases as people became aware that this was forbidden in France,” says Isabelle Gillette-Faye, sociologist and president of the GAMS association — the Groupe pour l'Abolition des Mutilations Sexuelles Féminines et les Mariages Forcés (Group for the Abolition of Female Genital Mutilation and Forced Marriages).
“The risk today is much lower,” says Ghada Hatem, a gynecologist and founder of the Maison des Femmes, the first facility in France providing both medical and psychological care to FGM victims.
“People have access to the internet, they know how harmful it is,” she adds.
Still, cracks exist. Some families with residence in France may send their daughters abroad, back to their country of origin, where — sometimes with, sometimes without the consent or even knowledge of their parents— they could be subject to cutting.
Sending abroad
According to research by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) on FGM among the diaspora in France originating from Guinea, Mali, Senegal, and The Gambia, social pressure from family, linked to beliefs surrounding marriage and virginity, and the desire to adhere to religious requirements, were the primary reasons for the continued practice.
“Pressure exists from older generations and the extended family to continue the practice to maintain cultural identity and beliefs around female virginity and marriageability,” explains Nafissatou Fall, president of the Normandy branch of the GAMS association.
“The pretext is to inhibit sexual desire in young girls,” says Fall. “Make them desirable for marriage, because in communities where it is practiced, we do not talk about mutilation, but about purification. By excising her, families guarantee a daughter’s virginity and, according to beliefs, make her less likely to cheat on her husband.”
These cultural norms may extend to families in France, where, despite major improvements, some girls may be sent abroad and be victims of FGM, Fall explained, recalling the latest high-profile case about FGM on French territory.
In March 2022, a court of Sarthe (Le Mans) found a woman of Djiboutian origin guilty of the excision of her three eldest daughters, aged 4, 5, and 7 at the time, during trips to Djibouti in 2007 and 2013. The woman was sentenced to 5 years of suspended prison and ordered to pay damages to her three daughters.
“People who do not conform to these expectations may be stigmatized: They are becoming ‘white’, they haven’t cut their daughters, they are abandoning their roots … all that,” says Fall.
Asylum
France's legal jurisdiction allows the prosecution of individuals who have sent their child abroad to be cut, provided the victim has French nationality or habitual residence.
There are about 21,000 minor children under the protection of the L’Office français de protection des réfugiés et apatrides Ofpra), the French organization overseeing asylum requests and protecting individuals recognized as refugees.
"The profiles we encounter are young girls, minors, born either in their country of origin, during their journey, or in France, and who seek asylum,” says Anna-Lou Kleinschmidt, head of the ‘violence against women’ referral group at Ofpra. “It's the parents who will seek asylum on behalf of their child and express fears of female sexual mutilation if they were to return to their country of origin.”
Applying for asylum for fear of falling victim to FGM is the only Ofpra case for which a medical certificate is mandatory to confirm whether there has been mutilation and, if so, what type.
“One may have been a victim of excision and fear another one, of a more severe, deeper kind,” says Kleinschmidt.
There are four types of FGM defined by the World Health Organization
TYPES OF FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION Type 1: This is the partial or total removal of the clitoral glans (the external and visible part of the clitoris, which is a sensitive part of the female genitals), and/or the prepuce/clitoral hood (the fold of skin surrounding the clitoral glans). Type 2: This is the partial or total removal of the clitoral glans and the labia minora (the inner folds of the vulva), with or without removal of the labia majora (the outer folds of skin of the vulva). Type 3: Also known as infibulation, this is the narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal. The seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the labia minora, or labia majora, sometimes through stitching, with or without removal of the clitoral prepuce/clitoral hood and glans. Type 4: This includes all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, e.g., pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterizing the genital area. Source: WHO |
A follow-up examination is then required for the protected child generally every five years until adulthood after obtaining asylum status. While a child’s asylum status is never revoked if they fall victim to FGM, Ofpra is obliged to report cases of excision of risks to a public prosecutor. Similarly, if a family wishes to revoke their child’s asylum status, Ofpra is obliged to make sure the risk of FGM to the child is no longer present.
“When one is recognized as a refugee and has fears regarding a country, they do not have the right to return to that country,” says Kleinschmidt. “They are under the protection of France.”
However, what could happen, she explained, is that a family might visit a neighboring country, where similar practices exist.
According to experts and activists, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the practice resurged.
“With Covid and the closing down of schools, came a decrease in revenue,” says Gillette-Faye. “Some households in Africa could not keep up. The solution was to marry their daughters off.”
Activists are confronted with the practice being established not by religion, or continent, but by a community tradition and belief that for a woman to get married, she ought to be cut.
Noel Agossa, who leads AFVF, an organization supporting families of femicide victims, notes that following FGM, some women may experience septicemia, infections, and childbirth complications linked to excision that could result in their death.
“Men are also to blame,” Agossa said. “If men stood up and said they do not want their wives to be excised, things would change.”
Out of love
In 2016, Ramata Kapo found a community of FGM victims in France, she realized that many women who had undergone mutilations had maintained good relationships with their families and weren't seeking legal action against them. But they wanted to share their experience among themselves.
Kapo joined the association Excision Parlons-en (Excision - Let’s Talk About it) and became president in 2020.
In this role, she wants to raise awareness about the harms of FGM among communities that practice it. It is an approach she favors over resorting to labels such as “barbarian or savage”. By making perpetrators understand, she hopes to erode the root causes of FGM. Causes, that she attributes, in part, to patriarchy.
“Throughout history, there has been this desire and need to place the honor of the family on the shoulders of women, and this honor is tied to one thing: the virginity of the woman. Regardless of culture, religion or otherwise,” she said.
The practice is ingrained in cultural practices, which differs from France, “where parental authority lies with the parents, and our communities, where parental authority belongs to the community.”
“The child belongs to the community, and the community can decide what's best for the child,” Kapo said.
In her case, it was her grandmother who decided that she and her older sister, born in Mali, must undergo female genital mutilation. Her mother had “little say” in the matter.
Often, cultural and traditional beliefs perpetuate the practice: if a woman does not get married, she would not have a social life.
“When families mutilate their daughters, they also do it out of love," she says, even though it is misplaced and even though “mothers, grandmothers, aunts”, who experienced the mutilation but perpetuate it, know “what suffering it brings.”
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