Saltar navegación

Activa JavaScript para disfrutar de los vídeos de la Mediateca.

Razor´s Edge: The controversy of female genital mutilation

Ajuste de pantalla

El ajuste de pantalla se aprecia al ver el vídeo en pantalla completa. Elige la presentación que más te guste:

Subido el 26 de junio de 2007 por EducaMadrid

1642 visualizaciones

It’s estimated that up to 140 million girls and women worldwide have undergone a coming-of-age ritual that is shrouded in secrecy and controversy. Now, for the first time, there are serious efforts to end this potentially dangerous practice.

Más información Transcripción

Descargar la transcripción

It's estimated that up to 140 million girls and women worldwide have undergone a coming-of-age 00:00:00
ritual that is shrouded in secrecy and controversy. Now, for the first time, 00:00:07
there are serious efforts to end this potentially dangerous practice. Here's our story. 00:00:13
There's a feeling in the air that something important is about to happen. 00:00:21
A celebration is underway for the girls who will soon become women 00:00:24
in the eyes of their people, the Kuria in southern Kenya. 00:00:29
It's a rite of passage rooted in at least 2,000 years of tradition. 00:00:34
Some call it circumcision, others female genital mutilation or FGM. 00:00:40
Whatever the name, the reality is the same. Later that day, girls under the age of 16 00:00:46
will have their clitorises cut out. 00:00:53
Every day, 6,000 girls, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa, 00:00:59
will endure procedures like this one. 00:01:04
Zainab Bangura is an activist and a politician from Sierra Leone, 00:01:06
where more than 90% of the women undergo FGM. 00:01:22
If you do not become a member of that ceremony, you can't have a husband. 00:01:26
You can't even have somebody to marry you. It's completely out of the question. 00:01:31
Because men don't marry women who have not gone through the ceremony. 00:01:34
16-year-old Rayal is about to undergo the ceremony. 00:01:40
Her uncle says girls must be cut for a very simple reason. 00:01:44
Kuria said that tradition is to tame women's sex drive, for them not to sleep around. 00:01:50
Even women who suffered the agony and lifelong consequences of FGM defend the practice. 00:01:57
Rayal's mother Boke. 00:02:06
I see people refusing circumcision and I'm surprised because I was circumcised. 00:02:10
I find it surprising since it's our culture and tradition. 00:02:15
But the fact is this tradition, common in more than two dozen African countries, 00:02:18
inflicts agony on nearly two million girls a year. 00:02:29
It also dooms many to a lifetime of pain, infertility and deadly infections, 00:02:35
especially for those who are forced to undergo an extreme form of FGM, 00:02:41
known as infibulation, in which the entire genitalia is removed and then sewn up. 00:02:45
Because I was the youngest and I was afraid, they grabbed me first. 00:02:53
After that, they all held me down and cut me. 00:02:58
It hurt so much and I screamed. I can still remember the lady who did it to me. 00:03:01
This simulation suggests the girls are often bound and blindfolded. 00:03:10
The blades are not sterile. The girls get no anesthesia. 00:03:14
A girl must be cut open a few days before her wedding night 00:03:24
or forcibly ripped open during intercourse. 00:03:27
The first time my husband came to have sex with me, I was asleep. 00:03:36
He came back very late and I didn't want to have sex with him. 00:03:41
But he forced me. I was very young and it was very painful. 00:03:44
A World Health Organization study shows that the trauma and reoccurring infections 00:03:56
from genital mutilation often lead to infertility. 00:04:01
What's worse, it increases up to 50% the likelihood 00:04:05
that the woman or her baby will die in childbirth. 00:04:09
The practice also leads to hemorrhage, shock and makes a woman 00:04:13
and therefore her children far more susceptible to HIV. 00:04:18
But you cannot stand out there and criticize it 00:04:22
because it means you're criticizing your very existence as a person. 00:04:26
And so your whole family, your whole community will abandon you. 00:04:30
So this is why the debate has never been open in Sierra Leone. 00:04:34
While more than a dozen countries in Africa 00:04:39
have enacted laws to criminalize the practice, 00:04:41
Sierra Leone is not one of them. 00:04:44
So activists like Rugi Atu Turei are attacking the problem on a more grassroots level. 00:04:49
She's reaching out to the poverty-stricken girls and women 00:04:56
who are trained and paid to perform the ritual. 00:04:59
Our problem now is the financial support 00:05:02
because when we ask them to drop, they need an alternative way of making income. 00:05:06
Some girls are as young as five years old when they begin training. 00:05:14
In just a few years, these girls will start using their blades 00:05:19
to cut other girls as a means of providing income for their families. 00:05:22
I started initiating girls when I was 13 00:05:32
and I've now circumcised 23 girls in total. 00:05:34
It is from this society that I earn my living. 00:05:39
My mother and father are dead, so there's no other way for me to get sustenance. 00:05:45
Rugi Atu Turei has single-handedly convinced over 400 practitioners 00:05:52
from 111 villages to stop circumcising girls 00:05:57
by offering them other ways to support themselves. 00:06:02
Unlike Sierra Leone, Ethiopia's government does have laws for those caught performing FGM. 00:06:06
And the government there supports classes like this one 00:06:15
which teaches girls and boys about the dangers of FGM. 00:06:18
There is evidence that these awareness campaigns and government laws are having an effect. 00:06:24
In Ethiopia's capital alone, there has been a nearly 20% reduction in the practice. 00:06:30
Kenya has also enacted laws against FGM. 00:06:36
Anyone caught practicing the ritual can be jailed or fined. 00:06:39
And a growing number of girls, like this 14-year-old in Rayal's village, 00:06:44
are choosing not to be cut. 00:06:49
When I was told the badness of being circumcised, I stopped it. 00:06:52
Not far away, Rayal has undergone her circumcision. 00:07:00
She chews a herb to stop the bleeding, 00:07:05
and she sings a song that to many will sound sadly ironic. 00:07:08
Now I am circumcised, she sings. 00:07:19
Now I can have my home. 00:07:22
Truly, I am a woman. 00:07:24
An estimated 430,000 girls a year could avoid FGM if efforts such as those in Ethiopia begin worldwide. 00:07:29
Valoración:
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Eres el primero. Inicia sesión para valorar el vídeo.
Idioma/s:
en
Niveles educativos:
▼ Mostrar / ocultar niveles
      • Nivel Intermedio
Autor/es:
United Nations (Naciones Unidas)
Subido por:
EducaMadrid
Licencia:
Reconocimiento - No comercial - Sin obra derivada
Visualizaciones:
1642
Fecha:
26 de junio de 2007 - 17:42
Visibilidad:
Público
Enlace Relacionado:
21st Century Television Series
Duración:
07′ 41″
Relación de aspecto:
4:3 Hasta 2009 fue el estándar utilizado en la televisión PAL; muchas pantallas de ordenador y televisores usan este estándar, erróneamente llamado cuadrado, cuando en la realidad es rectangular o wide.
Resolución:
320x240 píxeles
Tamaño:
44.53 MBytes

Del mismo autor…

Ver más del mismo autor

EducaMadrid, Plataforma Educativa de la Comunidad de Madrid

Plataforma Educativa EducaMadrid