“Four women visited our home during the December holidays. The next thing they started teaching me was about womanhood. Later that night the women took me into a separate room and my hands were tied with a rope and two strong women held my legs apart. Then an elderly woman sat straight facing me, with a sharp knife in her hands. In just two minutes, the elderly woman had cut off my entire clitoris,” a 16-year-old Sudanese migrant (Habiba) explains to writer,  Hassan Isilow.
“Blood was all over my legs and thighs. The elderly woman then put some herbs on my wound, while the others wiped off the blood. It was so painful, I felt like dying, I remember screaming loudly, but no one listened; not even my biological mother who was present in the room,” the traumatized teenager added.

Introducing the four types of FGM :

1.Clitoridectomy –  partial or total removal of the clitoris which are a small, sensitive and erectile part of the female genitals.
2. Excision – partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora (the labia are “the lips” that surround the vagina).
3. Infibulations – vaginal opening through the creation of a seal that acts as a covering. The seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the inner, or outer, labia, with or without removal of the clitoris

4.  And lastly, other procedures include pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterizing the genital area

Please allow me to bless you with the answer as to why this is religiously practised : TO INCULCATE PRE-MARITAL VIRGINITY, amongst other insipid reasoning. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) over 140 million young West, East, North Easten and now more prevalently (this is due to migrants entering the board of South Africa) in Vryboom village, Masia-Tshiphuseni village and Thohoyandou in Venda.

Virginity is a choice, so how can you have the audacity to infringe that choice and simultaneously mutilate a young innocent infant and/or teen by removing the one thing that stimulates the arousal of sexual pleasure after that lady is as per say “has not engaged in premarital sex”. How do you plead – she who does this? It really boggles my mind when an elderly woman can talk to a young teenager about womanhood and knowing quite well how much virginity is considered a price tag in the African culture, this in the ‘pure womanhood meter’ , then strip that part of her womanhood off and then expect respect for culture in return. I’m all for culture and a proud African at that, but this is unneccesary practise which is detrimental to the health of infants and young woman must be recognised in South Africa and stopped.

Please mama, you who is doing this – let the young lady’s virginity rest in peace, not in bloodshed and death.