SIERRA LEONE-HUMAN RIGHTS: Bondo Stand Firm On Circumcision

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Jan 17 1997 (IPS) - The circumcision of some 700 displaced women and girls at a camp near here has sparked off another round of acrimonious debate over the continued practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Sierra Leone.

The ceremony which came to light this week through media reports, also highlights the determination of the powerful secret Bondo Society to protect the practice, which activists equate with gender violence and the violation of women’s human rights.

According to media reports, members of the secret women’s society lured the women and girls into a FGM ceremony which resulted in many of them being admitted to hospital.

“I think this act was cruel, unprogressive and a total abuse of the children’s rights,” says Josephine Macauley, an active campaigner here against FGM.

“A commission of inquiry needs to be set up by the government to investigate the matter,” she adds, vowing that, “no matter how stubborn the believers in FGM get, we (opponents) will continue pressing for its total ban, because we think it’s not in the best interest of the girls.”

The FGM ceremony took place at the Clay Factory camp for displaced persons in Kissy, east Freetown. The camp was set up to house people fleeing the fighting in the country between government and rebel forces.

The media reported that the ceremony was conducted for free, which enticed many women to take their daughters.

Isata Mansaray took her three daughters for the ceremony, which she says came as a “gift. “I simply seized the opportunity,” Mansaray says, pointing out that it would have cost her over 300 u.s. dollars to have had her three daughters circumcised.

Although some media reports have implicated the government, specifically the First Lady Patricia Kabbah in the ceremony, government officials Monday denied any knowledge of the event.

Kabbah, who says she has no opinion one way or the other on FGM told the press: “I don’t know anything about the circumcisions. I never contributed a thing to it (ceremony) and I only heard the rumours.” The press alleged that the First Lady had discreetly provided food and other supplies to the Bondo Society for the ceremony.

Some 100 young girls are reportedly in hospital, but doctors and nurses have refused to comment openly on their condition. “Some of the girls were badly mutilated and I think it may take them a considerable period to heal,” says one nurse who declined to be named.

Public discussion of FGM in Sierra Leone is almost taboo. But over 75 percent of the women are proponents of the practice and are grouped in a secret organisation, known as the Bondo Society.

“I don’t see anything akward about FGM. If anything, it is a tradition we must keep,” says Marie Sesay.

A leading defender of the practice Haja Isha Sasso argues that “the rite of female circumcision is sacred, feared and respected. It is a religion to us”.

Sasso heads the National Council of Muslim Women Organisation here which recently organised with the Soweis (leaders) of the Bondo Society a seminar to defend the practice.

Seminars have also been organised by opponents of FGM. The Bondo however have promised to wage war against its opponents. One local newspaper here has experienced the wrath of the secret society.

The office of Sierra Leone’s independent newspaper ‘For Di People’, whose reporter stumbled upon the ceremony at Clay Factory camp, was recently thronged by angry Soweis.

“At least a dozen Bondo Soweis breezed into our office insulting our staff members and warned that the paper should immediately stop writing stories about FGM,” says editor, Sallieu Kamara.

The debate over FGM also has become political. Elders of the Bondo Society recently led a delegation to meet President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. They protested against the media’s spotlight on FGM and the ongoing campaign by the practice’s opponents.

President Kabbah responded by pleading with the media to not “expose the Bondo Secret Society and to respect the women”.