Picture yourself as a small child around the age of four. Your lying on a table, nude, with your family surrounding you. Minutes later you are feeling an excruciating pain between your legs. You try to move, try to run away, but your mom and dad are holding you down. Another member of your family has just begun to cut of pieces of your vagina off with a razor blade. There is blood all around you and now that member of your family has started to sew your vagina closed. Finally you lose consciousness because the pain is so unbearable. You have just been subjected to female circumcision.

Although female circumcision may be performed during infancy, during adolescence or even during a woman’s first pregnancy, â€

By cutting and removing the tissues around the vagina, female circumcision removes the ability to feel any sexual pleasure for the woman circumcised. The procedure is often used for social and cultural control of a woman’s sexuality. There are four main reasons for performing female circumcision. Reason one being “female circumcision meets a religious requirement, 2) preserves virginity and family honor, and prevents immorality, 3) helps to maintain cleanliness, 4) preserves group identity and furthers marriage goals, including greater sexual pleasure for men. (Kopelman 174). The circumcision itself is considered a religious requirement. By performing the circumcision on your own daughter and ensuring her virginity is believed to keep your family honor. Since most girls in their culture receive little education and are valued primarily for their future role as sources of labor and producers of children, prospective husbands pay a price to the family of the bride. A girls virginity may be considered essential to her family’s ability to arrange her marriage and receive money for the marriage. Therefore having the circumcision would ensure virginity and increase the price in which the potential husband would pay, protecting family honor.

There are many side effects and consequences of having females circumcised. The risks of female circumcision extend from infertility to perineum damage. Along with infertility the disfigurement and morbidity of circumcised women is also another prevalent side effect of female circumcision. In a study done by seven gynecologic doctors and research scientists, vulval tumors, cysts, and damaged perineum are proved to be consequences common in 65% of circumcised women. Various STD’s, anemia, and increased risk of contracting the HIV virus are another common consequence of female circumcision. ( A Community Based Survey 648) Despite these

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