Female Circumcision Is Becoming More Popular in Malaysia

I meet 19 year-old Syahiera Atika at the mall. She spends most Sundays prowling Kuala Lumpur's mega malls like most women her age, but as she eagerly points out she's also different. Syahiera is a modern incarnation of Malay culture; happily embracing western-style capitalism, while at the same time strictly following the local interpretation of Islam. And as she proudly informs me, that also means she's circumcised.

"I'm circumcised because it is required by Islam," she says. The word she uses is wajib, meaning any religious duty commanded by Allah. Syahiera is aware of how female circumcision is perceived in the west, but rejects any notion that it's inhumane. "I don't think the way we do it here is harmful," she says. "It protects young girls from pre-marital sex as it is supposed to lower their sex drive. But I am not sure it always works." She giggles at this thought.

Female circumcision, as you may know, involves surgically removing part or all of a woman's clitoris, which according to the World Health Organisation is classed as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). They broadly define this as any operation that, "involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons."

Regardless of how cruel it might seem, 19 year-old Syahiera is certainly among the majority of Muslim women in Malaysia. According to a 2012 study conducted by Dr Maznah Dahlui, who is an associate professor at the University of Malaya's Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, over 93 percent of Muslim women surveyed had been circumcised. Dr Dahlui also discovered that the procedure is increasingly performed by trained medical professionals in private clinics, instead of by traditional circumcision practitioners, called Ma Bidans.

Although these finding are shocking to Western sensibilities, Dr. Maznah insists Malaysia's version is less invasive than in other parts of the world. There, she explains it involves a needle prick to the clitoral hood and is performed on girls between the ages of 12 months to six years old. However, as I discovered, more invasive procedures are also widespread.

Obstetrician and gynaecologist, Dr. Mighilia of the Global Ikhwan private clinic located in Rawang, north of Kuala Lumpur, admitted that she performs a more drastic version with a needle or scissors. "I just take a needle and slit off the top of the clitoris, but it is very little," she said. "Just one millimetre."

If you're reeling at this point, also take into consideration that the World Health Organization declares FGM has no medical benefits whatsoever. As they claim it simply "reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women." This is one of the main reasons why in 2012 the United Nations General Assembly unanimously passed a resolution calling it a "human rights violation" and urged states to ban the practice.

Genital mutilation isn't banned in Malaysia, although public hospitals are prevented from performing the surgery. More concerning however is that in 2009 the Fatwa Committee of Malaysia's National Council of Islamic Religious Affairs ruled that female circumcision was obligatory for all Muslim women, unless it was harmful.

That's not to say however, that all Malaysians support it. Syarifatul Adibah, who is the Senior Programme Officer at Sisters in Islam, a local women's rights group, insists that sunat (Malaysian for circumcision) isn't once mentioned in the Quran. Instead she points to its popularity as a stemming from an increasingly conservative interpretation of Islam. "Previously it was a cultural practice but now because of Islamisation, people just relate everything to Islam. And when you link something to religion, people here follow it blindly, they don't enquire," she explained.

According to Syarifatul, the social acceptance of FGM was further galvanised in 2012 when the Ministry of Health announced they were developing guidelines to reclassify the procedure as medical. To her, this misleads people into thinking mutilation is medically sound. "If you come up with the guidelines and you medicalise it this means you're ok with it, despite it having no medical benefit," she said.

Despite multiple requests for a comment, I wasn't provided with a response from the Ministry of Health.

Not that the 'medicalisation' of female genital mutilation is unique to Malaysia. Early this month, the practice was identified as a new "disturbing trend" by the UNFPA, UNICEF and by the International Confederation of Midwives and the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics.

But as is often the reaction to judgments from international organisations, Malaysians seem to believe their cultural values are being steamrolled by the West. Abdul Khan Rashid, a professor at the Penang Medical College, is such a person who feels international bodies have no business telling Malays how to go about their business. "The problem with the West is that it's just so judgmental," he says. "Who the hell are you to tell us what to practice and what not to practice? A lot of women now do it in private clinics in safe conditions, but if you're going to make it illegal, the practice will just go underground."

Interestingly, Malaysian medical practitioners also defend the practice by passing judgment onto other countries. "We are very much against what is going on in other countries like Sudan,"says Dr. Ariza Mohamed, a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist at KPJ Ampang Puteri Specialist Hospital in Kuala Lumpur. "That is very different from what we practice in Malaysia," she said. "And there is a big difference between circumcision and female genital mutilation."

Photos by Thomas Cristofoletti

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