Ancient practices till a threat to Iraqi women

GERMIAN, Iraq - Set on the arid, pebble-strewn plain southeast of Kirkuk, Hasira looks like a place forsaken by time.

Fat-tailed sheep amble past mud-brick houses and brushwood pens. The odd sickly palm tree provides shade for children’s games. There is no electricity.

Germian and 39 other villages in this region of Iraqi Kurds have made their small place in history.

Surveyed by WADI, a German nongovernmental organization (NGO) based in Iraq for more than a decade, the region has provided the first statistical proof of the existence of female genital mutilation in the Middle East.

“We knew Germian was one of the areas most affected by the practice,” said WADI director Thomas von der Osten-Sacken. “But the results were a shock.”

Of 1,554 women and girls aged 10 or older interviewed by WADI’s local medical team, 907 — more than 60 percent — said they had undergone the operation.

WADI is raising funds for a survey of the entire Iraqi Kurdish region.

Look up female genital mutilation on the Web, and you’ll almost certainly find yourself reading about Africa. In countries such as Egypt, Sudan and Somalia, almost all women have undergone the procedure.

Less well-known is that the practice exists throughout the Middle East, particularly in northern Saudi Arabia, southern Jordan and Iraq. There is circumstantial evidence to suggest it is present in Syria, western Iran and southern Turkey.

The problem, as one United Nations official in Egypt puts it, “is the attitude of the region’s governments.”

Mr. Osten-Sacken agreed. When WADI presented the results of its survey in Vienna, Austria, this spring, he said various Iraqi groups accused the NGO of being an agent of the Israelis.

Even the Iraqi Kurdish authorities, who have backed efforts to combat the practice since the late 1990s, were rattled.

“The [Kurdish] Ministry of Human Rights hauled us in for questioning,” said Assi Frooz Aziz, coordinator of WADI’s Germian medical team. “They accused us of publicizing the country’s secrets.”

But it’s not just official obstructionism that has held up awareness of the phenomenon. Unlike parts of Africa, where mutilation is practiced openly, in the Middle East, it is hidden.

“You can’t just walk into a village and ask people if they circumcise their daughters or not,” said Hero Umar, a Germian social worker. “These people only talked because we’ve been bringing them medical help for over a year.”

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