Patterns of Female Genital Cutting in Sierra Leone - Unicef

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UNICEF: Patterns of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting in Sierra Leone
Lukneh—The girls are smeared with charcoal the night before graduation. The
girls stay that way all night, and they sing that “We are packing out, going back to
our families as graduates” (shama, Temne).
Pul—graduation at the end, which includes bathing in a river or other bath, when
girls return to normal life. Celebrated with new dresses and other gifts for the
initiates.
4.1.5. Perceived advantages.
Girls usually receive gifts (clothing and accessories, etc.) at the end of the period of
healing from the cutting and also at their graduation from the period of seclusion. Young
girls, generally unaware of the cutting part of initiation, are attracted by these positive
aspects of attention, celebration, and gifts. As one uninitiated girl in class 5 Yagala,
Koinadugu, told us when asked what she has been told, “They normally tell me about the
dancing and I like the way girls dress after initiation.”
The initiation of one’s daughter is an occasion when the parents and/or would-be husband
or other sponsors display their ability to provide for generous expenditures on food,
drink, payments to circumcisers and chiefs, and new clothes.
For women, gaining enhanced social status—at initiation and when moving into
leadership roles—as well as having a period of retreat during the ceremonies and
celebrations, are considered advantages of society membership. Further, those who do
not go through initiation to become society members are looked down on, so society
membership avoids becoming stigmatized. The weeks when the girls are in the bush the
members of the society feast, sing, dance, and remain outside the control of men. Here
are some quotations from members of the society:
“It gives us liberty to move about the community.”
“People listen you in meetings.”
“You are not disregarded.”
“We educated women have the opportunity to read novels or see films, but for
rural women, this is a major source of entertainment: it is stress relief.”
Other contributing factors to people’s commitment to continuing the practice are the past
expectation that a girl would have to be initiated to be able to have sex with a man, that
no man would marry an uninitiated woman, and that lack of circumcision caused itchy
genitals and risks in childbirth. Circumcision was considered a solution to these
problems.
Although our findings suggest that initiation no longer functions as a pre-requisite for
sexual activity or marriage, it was clear that some people are neither comfortable with nor
fully accepting of the loss of this pre-requisite. Some people continue to expect initiation
to have taken place prior to sexual activity or marriage. An unmarried Kono man, 35,
from Motema, underscored his expectation of initiation before marriage. He said,
“I have spelled it out that I would never marry an uninitiated girl because it is my
tradition and nothing can make me desist from it.”