ONE WOMAN’S COURAGEOUS CAMPAIGN FOR GIRLS OF IRAQI KURDISTAN
▶ Female circumcision is a backwards, hazardous, tradition but Florian Neuhof sees a fightback taking shape, one village at a time
In the home of a village elder in northern Iraq, Kurdistan Rasul is quickly making her presence felt.
Moments earlier, Said Abdulwahid welcomed Mrs Rasul into his living room, where she was scheduled to talk to the women of Gomasheen village about the hazards of female circumcision, a tradition she has been fighting for years.
But after driving for hours from the Kurdish capital, Erbil, Mrs Rasul arrived at the village at the foot of the Zagros Mountains to find that only four women turned up to hear her talk.
But she intends to reach a wider audience. Careful to show respect, she launches into rapid-fire chatter with Mr Abdulwahid, 50, quick with smiles and jokes, gesturing energetically as she asks him to gather a larger crowd and harangues the women to call their friends to join.
Gomasheen is just one small battleground in Mrs Rasul’s greater war against female genital mutilation in the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The practice is almost non-existent elsewhere in the country but many women in Kurdistan are still subjected to it.
That young girls are now less likely to be circumcised than their mothers is due in no small part to activists such as Mrs Rasul, who is tireless in driving home her message.
Finally more women show up and she starts her lecture. Her first key point is that female circumcision is not mandated by Islam. Subjecting young girls to the procedure is the result of a backwards tradition, not the teaching of the Quran, she says.
Mrs Rasul is a faithful Muslim who makes a strong case. But she knows her listeners have concerns beyond the religious and she does not shy away from talking about marital tensions.
“Would you want your husband to take another wife?” she asks the women.
Then she explains the health risks posed by circumcision. Usually performed on girls at the age of 5, it is extremely painful. It can lead to uncontrolled bleeding and infection that can result in death.
Infection and problems during menstruation and sexual intercourse can plague the victims throughout adult life. Psychological effects such as depression are not uncommon.
Women need to stand up for themselves, Mrs Rasul tells her audience. “If a woman accepts being circumcised she will accept any form of violence against her.”
By the end, Mrs Rasul, 34, sounds more like a feminist in a Manhattan cafe than a campaigner in northern Iraq.
“Women are always told what to do. That is a form of violence,” she says.
Mrs Rasul’s mission to put an end to the practice of mutilating women in Iraqi Kurdistan is deeply personal. As a young girl she was mutilated, like many women in her age group.
She admits that the experience left her traumatised. It also made her a determined campaigner.
A 2016 study by the UN refugee agency, the Heartland Alliance in Chicago and the Kurdistan Regional Government found that 44.6 per cent of women surveyed in the region had been subject to circumcision. Earlier studies suggested figures up to 73 per cent.
The 2016 study found 63.4 per cent of mothers who had their daughters circumcised did so in the belief that it was a religious requirement, while 61.8 per cent thought it was tradition.
Traditions differ in the Kurdish region, which is linguistically and culturally divided. The practice is prevalent in the centre of the region, where the Sorani dialect is spoken.
It is uncommon in the northwest, where the Badini dialect predominates.
Today the work of nongovernment organisations, with efforts by the regional government, is gradually changing attitudes.
Mrs Rasul has been touring villages and Erbil neighbourhoods for the past four years in her capacity as a field worker for the small German organisation Wadi.
The regional government outlawed female circumcision in 2011 and launched an awareness campaign warning against it and the consequences of breaking the law.
The efforts have borne fruit. Only 10.7 per cent of girls surveyed in 2016 were subjected to the procedure, a drastic change from one generation to the next.
Mrs Rasul treats this cultural shift as a personal victory, flashing a proud smile as she describes how daughter, 7, was spared.
Gomasheen, in the Sorani-speaking part of the region, also reflects this generational shift. Most of the older women say they have been circumcised, whereas their daughters have not.
Women may be at the forefront of the fight to eradicate circumcision in Iraqi Kurdistan, but they have also perpetuated the practice. The procedure is usually carried out in a small circle of female family members, often by a midwife as a way to earn extra money.
Men take a back seat in the decision-making and no part in the operation. But the men of Gomasheen are not spared during Mrs Rasul’s whirlwind tour of the village.
After finishing with the women, she is given a lift to the local mosque. Mr Abdulwahid has called in the men for a meeting with the activist, and most have showed up.
Some enter the mosque willingly, others loiter outside, uncertain. They are no match for Mrs Rasul.
A short and squat figure, she approaches them resolutely, waving her arms and directing a salvo of Kurdish at the reluctant men. With a mischievous grin, she coerces them into the mosque.
Once inside, the men are boisterous and unruly, like teenagers trying to hide their awkwardness during school sex-education classes. But they quieten down when Mrs Rasul takes a seat and begins to talk.
She tones down the feminist talk when addressing the men.
“In your family, you have the right to say that your daughter will not be circumcised. You are the head of the family,” she tells them.
The men nod as they listen, running prayer beads through their fingers. But their polite silence does not last long.
“It’s better for us if the women aren’t circumcised,” bellows a rotund elderly man. “It’s better for our sex life.”