Female circumcision and the patriarchy

In 2006, prominent Muslim scholars from Germany, Egypt and the Middle East gathered in Cairo for a conference to discuss the issue of female circumcision or female genital mutilation (FGM).

Among the attendees were then Egyptian minister for religious charities, Mahmoud Hamdi Saksuk; the grand sheikh of Al-Azhar University Mohammed Sayyid Tantawi; Egyptian religious scholar and journalist Yusuf al-Qaradawi; Egyptian first lady's special ambassador and chairperson of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood Mushira Chattab; and physician-in-chief of the women's clinic at the DRK Hospital in Berlin, Heribert Kentenich.

The conference, which was held at the Al-Azhar University under the patronage of Egyptian grand mufti Ali Gomaa, derived the following conclusion: "Female genital circumcision is a deplorable, inherited custom, which is practised in some societies and is copied by some Muslims in several countries. 

"There are no written grounds for this custom in the Quran with regard to an authentic tradition of the Prophet."

The conference went on to call on legislative authorities to pass laws, which bans the practice of this "gruesome" custom and declared it a crime, irrespective of whether this concerns the perpetrator or the initiator.

Among Muslim-majority countries that have gone on to ban all forms of female circumcision are Bangladesh, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Algeria, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Angola, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (representing 53 Muslim-majority nations) has also declared FGM to be unacceptable.

In Malaysia, no government or private medical school, university or institution here teach future medical practitioners how to perform female circumcision.

And yet, also in Malaysia, a university study found that a shocking number of over 90 percent of Malaysian Muslim girls surveyed said that they have experienced circumcision. 

A separate study conducted in the maternity labour ward in Kelantan in 1999 found that 100 percent of the women in the ward had experienced female circumcision.

As recent as 2018, at the 69th Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw) session, a representative from Malaysia’s Health Ministry reported to the Cedaw committee that 83 to 85 percent of Muslim baby girls have been circumcised by medical professionals at private clinics with absolutely no complication at all (therefore justifying the practice as "harmless" in Malaysia).

What the representative did not report was that 15 to 17 percent did experience complications, ranging from mild pain to infections to severe and prolonged bleeding.

If no medical school in Malaysia teaches how to do this procedure, where did these "medical professionals" learn to do it? Answer: They learnt it from the clinic's seniors who passed the "practice" on from one to another - which explains why the "tools of the trade" range limitlessly from knives, scalpels, scissors, razor blades, paper cutters, needles, and the list goes on.

So, the question is why? Why, given that the Islamic world has rejected all forms of the practice, and that there is a clear presence of harm related directly to the practice, does female circumcision remain a helpless reality to girls in Malaysia?

It is because we think that female circumcision is the problem that we have to solve. Female circumcision is a practice that we must stop immediately, but it is actually among the many side effects of a much more deeply rooted problem - the patriarchy.

Patriarchy, in its most simplistic understanding, refers to a system of society which favours men.

In a patriarchal society, not only are men regarded with greater value and worthy of greater power compared to women, a system of beliefs is also embedded within its cultural practices in order to perpetuate this regard. 

This includes the stark devaluing of women, the obsessive need to "tame" and "control" women, and the irrational thought that women are the cause of chaos in the world, to a point that would even justify gender-based violence.

Any and all discussion on female circumcision must, therefore, include an exploration into the role of patriarchy, and how it perpetuates this and other cruel practices onto women.

In the year 2020, religion, medicine and psychology are no longer valid arguments to justify female circumcision. By deconstructing and defeating the patriarchy, this barbaric practice can be completely eliminated entirely.

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MAJIDAH HASHIM is a human rights defender. She can be reached via Twitter at @majidahhashim - Mkini