"" (FGM Network) Women who are stitched up have to be unstitched before labor and then soon after re-stitched. According to the FGM Network statistics, in Africa alone, since the year 1992, a total of 114,296,900 men and women have undergone this process. (See Table 1, pg. 10).
After reading this, one is probably thinking, "Somebody should do something. Why is this allowed? What parents would allow their child to go through this?- The answer is quite simple. FGM and MGM are primarily cultural practices. It defines members of these cultures, which have many justifications. In these societies, a girl cannot be considered to be an adult or woman until she ahs undergone this procedure. She cannot marry without it and is referred to as "unclean-. She is considered a danger and " ultimately fatal to a man if her clitoris touches her penis - (FGM Network) It is a common belief that a woman's clitoris is deadly to touch and if it is touched by a man during intercourse or by the baby during birth, it will prove immediately fatal to them. More justifications are " [It brings] family honor, cleanliness, insurance of virginity and faithfulness to the husband."" (Schroeder, 1994, p. 739-740) A boy is not considered a man until he is circumcised. During the 19th Century, their rationalization for these types of mutilations is that it is the cure for masturbation. (Lightfoot-Klein, 1998, p. 289) In the case of males, " apprehensions about masturbation were endangered by a widespread assumption that the loss of semen endangered the brain and nervous system Since loss of semen was considered a real danger to males, then it followed that nocturnal emissions were equally hazardous. To solve both of these problems, a whole array of mechanical and medical advances were constructed."" (Lightfoot-Klein, 1998, p. 291) Circumcision was one of the advances. They believed that masturbation was very injudicious to the health of both males and females.