Saturday 08 march 2025
Montreuil, France
โSince my operation, I feel liberated. It’s like a new life.โ Bintou learned by chance that she had been excised in her native Mali.
Now living in France for ten years, she has just undergone reconstructive surgery at the Montreuil hospital.
โIt was the first time I’d spoken about it. I spent an hour crying,โ recalls the 27-year-old banking employee as she leaves her post-operative consultation.
In a specialized unit at this hospital in Seine-Saint-Denis, victims of female genital mutilation can see a midwife, a psychologist, a sexologist and then, if they wish, a surgeon for an operation.
From March 8, International Women’s Rights Day, the entire procedure will be covered by Social Security, not just the operation.
The scheme could be rolled out across France, if the three-year trial is validated.
โMy family doesn’t know yet. I’m going to tell them about it this summer when I go back to Mali. I need to discuss it with my mom, so that she can apologize. I was very angry with her,โ says Bintou, a week after her operation. โI found out I’d been circumcised by overhearing a telephone conversation. I have no memory of it, I think I was a babyโ.
– โA revengeโ –
According to the French Ministry of Gender Equality, an estimated 125,000 women in France have undergone excision.
In Montreuil, the majority of patients have arrived in France after having been excised in their country of origin.
โOthers were excised in their parents’ country of origin during vacations, a few were excised in France in the 1980s,โ says Sarah Abramowicz, an obstetric gynecologist who set up the unit in 2017.
Another patient remembers being circumcised at the age of six in an apartment near Paris.
She remembers seeing children coming out of the building in tears, without her knowing why, and then the pain she felt.
Her excisor, Hawa Grรฉou, was sentenced in 1998 to eight years’ imprisonment for the mutilation of 48 girls.
โMy cousin had it done, and she told me it was like being given back what had been stolen from her. It made me want to do it, I’ve always felt that something was missing, that I was different from the others when I talked about sexuality with my friendsโ, says the 45-year-old Malian woman during her consultation. She will undergo surgery on March 11.
– Feminist struggle
โIt’s a fairly easy operation, based on the same techniques as gender-change surgeries,โ explains Emilie Orain, a surgeon trained by Sarah Abramowicz.
โI’m glad I decided on my own, without discussing it with my parents. It was revenge, because when I was excised, they didn’t ask me either,โ Bintou points out. โBeing able to have sex for the first time at 27, and reduce the risk of complications during childbirth, that’s what motivated me the most.โ
โI think it’s lovely, I’m very happy, it’s made me forget a lot of things,โ rejoices another patient, Djeni Coulibaly, an asylum seeker, between two bursts of laughter. A victim of excision at the age of 14 in Cรดte d’Ivoire, she was forcibly married and underwent surgery three weeks ago, after fleeing her country.
For many women, excision is just the beginning of a series of violent acts. Many of the women in the unit have suffered sexual violence, marital rape and forced marriage. Some have fled their country to avoid having their daughters excised too.
โI think it’s a feminist struggle,โ says Sarah Abramowicz.
โThe operation can trigger traumas, flashbacks and nightmares. That’s why we do it under general anaestheticโ, Emilie Orain points out to patients in consultation.
Generally, โthey hide it from their spouse, who doesn’t agree. In some cultures, they think that women are untenable if they don’t have their clitoris cut offโ, laments the surgeon.
Two hundred women follow this course of treatment every year. Half undergo surgery. Over the next three years, the unit hopes to welcome a thousand more.
Humaniterre with AFP
