Interpreting female genital cutting: Moving beyond the impasse

The gor disappeared after us. A Sara girl doesn't even know what the gor is.

We like the gor because it is our tradition. The new generation focuses on koy-that's why they all do it. They got excision from the Nar and then the No from around Koumra.

Opposition to genital cutting has mellowed over time in Bakum-- some would argue of necessity-and female genital cutting has, in many respects, become institutionalized and almost bureaucratized in the village.

The chief of the land, parents, none of them were happy because it wasn't our custom. Because now it's all the girls who do it. The mbang did everything to stop it, but now he is obligated to accept it because everyone does it.

Where once the mbang, the chiefs, and girls' parents strove to prevent it, now they participate in virtually every step of its organization and execution. Parents ask permission of the chief of the village to organize the cutting ceremony; their request is transmitted to the chief of the canton (county), who, in turn, seeks the approval of the mbang. The mbang requires that both the excisor and the parents of participants obtain permission to hold the circumcision ceremonies, and failure to obtain official sanction is punished by a fine. In fact, one excisor produced a typed and stamped letter of authorization delivered to her by the chief of the canton to carry out her work in the area.

Making Sense of Female Genital Cutting in Myabe and in Bakum

How do we understand the practice of female genital cutting in Myabe and in Bakum, particularly in light of current narratives that so dominate our thinking about these types of procedures and in relation to the absolutist-relativist impasse to which these narratives have led? The Sara's experience of female genital cutting presents a clear challenge to the scientific literature on the topic and to popular ideas of what the practice means. The frameworks-from psychoanalytic models to human rights approaches-that have been widely used to make sense of female genital cutting seem misplaced when considering the scenarios unfolding in these villages and offer explanations that are simply less than compelling when held up to the evidence.

The ways in which female genital cutting is practiced by the Sara in at least some parts of the Moyen-Chari region not only represent a clear break from the existing narratives, they flatly contradict them. For the Sara, the cutting of women's genitals is not a "traditional practice," an "ancient rite" or a "cultural relic" (Dugger, 1996; Ebong, 1997; Gallo, 1985; Ogiamien, 1988; Ruminjo, 1992; World Health Organization, 1992). Rather, it is a recent innovation-an example of "modernism" according to more than one village resident. In some villages, like Myabe, it is a first-generation event, and in many more, like Bakum, first-hand accounts of the introduction and adoption of female genital cutting can still be obtained.

These accounts also suggest that in Myabe and Bakum female genital cutting was not imposed on young girls by their parents, mothers, grandmothers, or village authorities. In fact, in both of these settings those typically assumed to be responsible for the practice were those who fought hardest to prevent young girls from being cut. Parents and village authorities got angry, fined the girls, banned them from participating in other ceremonies, punished their excisors, forbid them to return to the village until fully healed, prohibited them from celebrating in the village, and "disowned" them. Young girls, described both by themselves and others as "hard-headed," stubborn, rebellious, and disobedient, were the driving force behind the adoption of female genital cutting. They were its instigators and organizers; they acquired the needed resources, engaged an excisor, and, in some cases, ran away from home to be cut.