' FGM, Or Female Genital Mutilation?

Decent Essays
Every year an estimated 30 million girls experience a horror that will affect them for the rest of their lives. Members of their community, and often times their own mothers, forcefully pin them down on a cold slab of stone and watch as another person mutilates them. Practiced in 29 different countries across the continents of Africa and Asia, FGM, or Female Genital Mutilation, is a procedure commonly performed on girls starting at infancy and continuing to the age of 15. While the exact date of this procedure emerging is unknown, Greek records show that it began as early as 163 B.C. when Egyptians circumcised young women as a means of initiation before marriage. Regardless of the history behind this practice, FGM is an unforgivable act that …show more content…
What Tashi fails to realize before she makes this decision is what it will truly do to her body; however, over the course of the rest of her life she cruelly learns through the horrible effects she endures. For example, once she moves to America and marries her husband, sexual intercourse proves to be excruciating for her. It was years before she was able to successfully conceive a child, but her agony was still not over. While giving birth, her son became stuck in her birth canal due to the obstruction that was her narrowly sewn together vagina, resulting in a near fatal loss of blood and her son’s lifelong developmental delays. She was never able to conceive another child, continued to struggle with the physical side of her relationship with her husband, faced painful periods due to a tiny opening that barely allowed blood to pass, and much more. Should Tashi have avoided this procedure, her life would have been filled with significantly less pain, leading to the idea that this practice needs to stop. It has absolutely no medical benefits, but is brimming with health consequences, most of which are long term. Overall, the physical effects this practice has on women contribute to the argument that it is an inhumane tradition that needs to end, for it only causes tremendous agony and lifelong health

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