Female Genital Mutilation

Abstract

The real argument lies not in the defence of the surgical operation or in its details but in the understanding of a very important fact in the tribal psychology of the Gikuyu – namely that this operation is still regarded as the very essence of an institution which has enormous educational, social, moral and religious implications, quite apart from the operation itself. For the present, it is impossible for a member of the tribe to imagine an initiation without clitoridectomy.