FGM continues to be practised in many countries. I read the Novel; DESERT FLOWER and this book inspired me to write this poem. How many of our sisters are suffering quietly in the hands of this merciless act? God apparently created the clitoris for the sole purpose of generating pleasure. It has no other purpose. There is no instruction in the Bible or in the writings of the Qur'an which require that the clitoris be surgically modified. Thus God must approve of its presence. And so, it should not be removed or reduced in size or function.
Mutilated genitalia reduce or eliminate a woman's pleasure during the act. Besides its in-human to subject a woman to this suffering that continues to haunt many.
A WOMAN’S MEAT
Early in the morning
Before the birth of the sunlight
And the death of the moonlight
The old gypsy woman appeared
Her motive open
Clad in the humor of guilt
For a woman’s meat
Was all her target
In the name of cleanliness
Grinning, she closed in
Ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha........
“It is not painful granddaughter”
In her
kiondo, gawky instruments
A near rust knife
Stained with dry blood-from yesterday’s cut
“Part your legs child, culture does not hurt”
She spit
With no opium she knelt between
And the slaughtering started
“This knife is blunt”
She knelt again between the tender thighs
And searched for the bottom of
Her womanhood with the finely filed teeth
Within no time she spat out the ‘meat’
A woman’s only meat
Ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha........
“You have graduated daughter
You are clean; you will now get a man
You are a woman; the dirt is now gone......
Ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha........”
She laughed, her lips red in fresh warm blood
From yet another cut, or munch-amid ‘her’ yells and screams
“You are not dirty anymore”
Wearing a grin of terror,
She picked a long sharp
keiapple thorn
Teared across the fabric
Of her wounded womanhood
Amid the young girls wails and screams
The gawky woman makes the stitch
In the name of cleanness
Besides the ailing girl
Stood the mother
And a dozen of smiling aunts, all
Celebrating the cut
Of a woman’s only ‘meat’
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. SIMON MWANGI MUTHIORA(O) 2009 2HRS B4
"The importance given to virginity and an intact hymen in these societies is the reason why female circumcision still remains a very widespread practice despite a growing tendency, especially in many urban settings, to do away with it as something outdated and harmful. Behind circumcision lies the belief that, by removing parts of girls' external genitals organs, sexual desire is minimized. 
This permits a female who has reached the dangerous age of puberty and adolescence to protect her virginity, and therefore her honor, with greater ease. Chastity was imposed on male attendants in the female harem by castration which turned them into inoffensive eunuchs. Similarly female circumcision is meant to preserve the chastity of young girls by reducing their desire for sexual intercourse."IMAGES ON FGM
SOURCEFGM HAS VARYING COMPLICATIONS; THEY INCLUDES BOTH PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICALThe physical complications associated with FGM may be acute or chronic. Early, life-threatening risks include hemorrhage, shock secondary to blood loss or pain, local infection and failure to heal, septicemia, tetanus, trauma to adjacent structures, and urinary retention.13,14 Infibulation (Type III) is often associated with long-term gynecologic or urinary tract difficulties. Common gynecologic problems involve the development of painful subcutaneous dermoid cysts and keloid formation along excised tissue edges. More serious complications include pelvic infection, dysmenorrhea, hematocolpos, painful intercourse, infertility, recurrent urinary tract infection, and urinary calculus formation. Pelvic examination is difficult or impossible for women who have been infibulated, and vaginal childbirth requires an episiotomy to avoid serious vulvar lacerations.
Less well-understood are the psychological, sexual, and social consequences of FGM, because little research has been conducted in countries where the practice is endemic. However, personal accounts by women who have had a ritual genital procedure recount anxiety before the event, terror at being seized and forcibly held during the event, great difficulty during childbirth, and lack of sexual pleasure during intercourse."
