Nesto se mijenja i na bolje za ovaj narod. Za one kojima engleski malo teze ide ukratko, Obrezivanje zena u Eritreji je zabranjeno od prije nekih mjesec dana, tko se ne bude pridrzavao zakona sljedi kazna i do deset godina zatvora.
AGAZ, Eritrea (Reuters) -- For 3-year-old Amira, a law banning female genital mutilation in Eritrea came too late.
Wrapped in an orange traditional dress, Amira's mother, who gives her name only as Gerejet, says she circumcised the child to please her future husband.
"It was the culture that we have taken from our grandmothers, but we also do it for the pleasure of the men," the 30-year-old told Reuters in a small village 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of the Eritrean capital, Asmara.
Like Gerejet and Amira, some 100 million women worldwide have been circumcised, a procedure that at its most extreme involves cutting off the clitoris and external genitalia then stitching the vagina to reduce a woman's sexual desire.
Eritrea banned female genital mutilation in April. The government has warned anyone taking part in or promoting the practice faces a fine of several hundred dollars or up to 10 years in jail.
Government officials are optimistic the law will force a change in attitudes, but others worry the practice is too ingrained for legal threats to have much impact. About 90 percent of Eritrean woman have undergone the ordeal.
"FGM is a deep-rooted culture and it needs a persistent continuous effort (to halt it)," Luul Ghebreab, president of the National Union of Eritrean Women, said.
The U.N. Children's Fund, UNICEF, says Eritrea ranks among the worst in the world for female genital mutilation and a survey by Eritrea's government in 2002 found less than one percent of circumcisions were performed by trained health professionals.
Pirkko Heinonen, the UNICEF representative in Eritrea, says the practice spans Christian and Muslim communities as well as all nine of Eritrea's ethnic groups.
Sitting inside her thatched-roof house, Gerejet believes Eritrean women will welcome the new law. She had circumcised her daughter because no man would marry a girl unless she was cut.
"But nothing will happen to another daughter if she is not cut," Gerejet says. "We thank God the law was issued. At least the pain will stop."
The circumciser
Government officials say the law banning the practice is only part of a long process of public education dating since Eritrea's 30-year independence struggle from Ethiopia.
"By the year 1999, it was 95 percent and then 2003, it was 89 percent. Nowadays we hope it will be less that this," Tesfay Misgna, a health ministry campaigner.
Meriam Mohamed Omar, a former circumciser, pulls the fabric of her purple dress to mimic external genitalia and sticks a small needle through it.
"I used to use a thin stick from a palm tree. You hold the genitalia in two then cut it," she says.
The United Nations says circumcised women are up to 70 percent more vulnerable to potentially fatal bleeding after delivery. Up to 20 out of every 1,000 babies born in Africa die because their mothers were circumcised.
Aid workers say cultural traditions will be the biggest barrier to eradicating female circumcision. Across the riverbed from Hagaz in the village of Glass, residents say the practice still goes on.
"It is based on a real fear that if I do not let my daughter to be cut, is she going to be seen as a prostitute?" Heinonen says.
Post je objavljen 12.06.2007. u 11:43 sati.