SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Sep 14 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Multicultural Association of Mauritanian Women has demanded this Tuesday in the Parliament of the Canary Islands the creation of a multidisciplinary plan that helps prevent female genital mutilation in the archipelago and support and social care for the victims.
In an intervention before the parliamentary commission of Social Rights at the proposal of the Nationalist Group, the president, Hawa Touré, has warned that in the islands there are more than 500 girls at risk of suffering genital mutilation, 147 of them “imminently”.
Touré, who has lived in Fuerteventura for 17 years, has related his personal experience and recalled that he suffered mutilation when he was 10 years old and at the same time as his three sisters.
“It happened from one day to the next and no one explains anything to you, a neighbor did it, it was like a witch but you don’t know what it is, you are confused in your head, no one explains anything to you,” he indicated, underlining that they put it in the ground “and they began to cut, without anesthesia or anything.”
He has pointed out that one of his sisters “almost died” and when this happens, it is said that “it is the wish of Allah.”
It has indicated that women who suffer genital mutilation are stigmatized and in some cases, it is even practiced on women up to 20 years before marriage. “If you are a virgin, they cut you off again and if you are not a virgin, there is a problem,” he detailed.
Touré has indicated that it is a “deeply rooted cultural practice” in African countries and generates “tremendous pain” and leaves the girls “in shock”, in many cases unable to even urinate, and recovery takes more than a month.
In addition, he has indicated that he has a 22-year-old who is not mutilated and therefore “is not well seen” by the Mauritanian community.
It has influenced the creation of specific protocols on mutilation because “nobody understands” the victims in hospitals and in the event of restoration, you have to travel to Barcelona because this service is not performed in the Canary Islands.
A “TABOO” THEME IN AFRICAN FAMILIES
She has commented that more psychological therapy, physiotherapy treatments and education are needed in schools because many girls do not know it and in families it is a “taboo” subject that is not talked about.
Likewise, he has pointed out that many women get on boats and cayucos with their daughters to avoid mutilation.
Kadi, originally from the Gambia, has recounted that she suffered mutilation at the age of 4, a “brutal” culture shock because she was born in the archipelago. “This exists in the Canary Islands, they did not protect me when I was a child,” she added, recalling that she carried the situation “in silence” throughout her adolescence.
She has commented that it is necessary to “give a voice” to women who have undergone mutilation and prevent it from continuing. “Enough, it’s over, that they can decide on your body because you’re a woman, it’s not fair,” she said.
All parliamentary groups have committed to working to create these protocols and the Nationalist Group has announced the presentation of a Non-Law Proposition (NLP) in which it urges the regional government to implement a specific plan.
