A Nigerian woman living in Cork has spoken of how her daughter was taken from her, writes KITTY HOLLAND
A NIGERIAN woman living in Cork who was the victim of female genital mutilation (FGM) when a baby, has spoken of how her daughter was taken from her and mutilated against her wishes.
The woman, who does not wish to be named for fear of jeopardising her asylum application in Ireland, says female genital mutilation is “very common” in Nigeria, a country where, she says, “women have no voice”.
The woman has been living in Cork for the past three years, with her five-year-old daughter and three-year old son.
She tells how she lived in a city in the western Nigerian state of Kuwara, with her husband and his family. They lived a comfortable middle-class life, and she had told her husband she did not want her daughter to be mutilated.
But when she was at work one day, her mother-in-law had a family friend perform FGM on her then 20-month-old daughter.
“I came home and I noticed my daughter wasn’t walking properly. She was crying and saying “Mummy, mummy, my bum.” Then I went to change her nappy and it was full of blood.
“I was shocked. She was bleeding seriously. My husband had promised it wouldn’t happen.
“His mother told me there were herbs that would make it heal, but I brought her straight to hospital. I was there for two weeks with her. They did tetanus test, HIV test. I was so, so scared. They saved her life, I am sure.”
Her daughter appears today bright and healthy – a sweet little girl with her hair in colourful ribbons and wearing green trousers and a white T-shirt.
An Irish GP, Dr Mary Favier, has examined her. “In plain language, she has no clitoris. There is some visible scarring and it is a little swollen. If there is a nucleus of infection, that can flare up. It is barbaric,” said Dr Favier.
Asked about the impact on the girl, she said: “Well, sex will be very boring. There will be no pleasure in it.
“A particular issue if she grows up in a western culture, where there is such a preoccupation with the genitalia – with the G-spot and achieving orgasm – well there are going to be issues for her; a sense of lost opportunity, of being ‘different’, isolation. She may well need counselling.”
The girl’s mother says it was when she became pregnant with her second child, and fearing it would be a girl, that she decided to leave Nigeria. It is “one of the reasons” she is seeking asylum here.
She disputes claims by the Nigerian ambassador to Ireland, Kemafo Nonyerem Chikwe, that FGM is uncommon in Nigeria. “I don’t know why she would say that.”
She adds that the procedure has had a profound impact on her, psychologically and physically. She was teased by boyfriends at university, and found it hard staying in relationships. Sex is painful and boring, labour difficult, and she is “sad” for her daughter.
Nigerian women fear speaking out about the issue “because women are ashamed, and in Nigeria we are not heard”.
“I did not come to Ireland for a ‘good life’. I had a good life in Nigeria. I was a professional woman.
“We [women] don’t have a voice in Nigeria. A lot of women and girls die because of this. We all know children, sisters, cousins and friends who have died. We tell the world this is happening to us, and no one listens. I want people to know there are women and children who are here in Ireland [who] this torture has been done to.”
The World Health Organisation says FGM is “common” in Nigeria and defines FGM as the “partial or total removal of the external female genitalia” and “a violation of the human rights of girls and women. It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women”.