Standing outside a Ramadan Bazaar, in the crowded humidity of Singapore, Saza Faradilla hands out pamphlets explaining the practice of female genital cutting in Singapore. She says she is trying to educate younger people on the practice, with the goal of ending FGC, also known as female genital mutilation FGM, in Singapore in the next generation.
These booklets are given to people in the Muslim community to educate them on FGC. Photo: Ava Rawlings.
FGC is openly practised in Singapore despite being illegal in many other places around the world. But there is a growing movement to try to change the practice and attitudes towards it.
“People do think a little more about FGM,” Faradilla aged 29, says.
She sees this critical thinking when parents question the merits of FGC and direct message End FGC Singapore on Instagram seeking advice on how to tell their families their daughter won’t be cut.
Faradilla is an activist and co-founder of End FGC Singapore. Photo: Ava Rawlings.
End FGC Singapore is a volunteer-based organisation seeking to spread awareness of FGC and encourage action. The members are focused on lobbying those with influence to take public stances on FGC.
“We are regularly lobbying our Ministry of Health and Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) to come out with policies and guidelines which will eventually end the practice,” Faradilla says.
End FGC Singapore isn’t pushing for FGC to be made illegal just yet, believing it will backfire if the community isn’t ready for the change. The group’s first priority is to change attitudes around the practice through education.
Female genital cutting or mutilation is a practice performed on young girls and women across the globe. The World Health Organization states across 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, more than 230 million girls and women have undergone FGM/C.
The United Nations defines female genital mutilation as “procedures that involve altering or injuring the female genitalia for non-medical reasons and is recognised internationally as a violation of the human rights, the health and integrity of girls and women”.
In Singapore, a country perceived as contemporary and modern in its attitudes, FGC is legal.
“Our vision is to end FGM within the next generation,” Faradilla says.
“Why the next generation? Because we believe that FGM is a cultural, traditional practice that when one generation stops doing it, the next generation will forget about it, and it will stop.”
She clashed with her Singaporean Malay Muslim family after discovering they had organised her to be cut as a baby.
Faradilla’s father picked her up from university to attend her niece’s second birthday party. Celebrating with her family, Faradilla carried the birthday girl, clad in red and blue. A relative approached and mentioned her niece was cut last week. Faradilla, then 20, says she was outraged for her niece. Her sister then explained that she had also been cut as a baby.
“I was shocked, I didn’t know it happened in Singapore,” Faradilla says.
Her relationship with her parents hasn’t been the same since.
“They can’t understand why I am so hung up on this,” she says.
Survivors report that FGC affects their relationship with their parents. Faradilla says there is research on how children’s attachment with their caregiver can be negatively impacted due to the caregiver putting the baby in harm’s way.
She has since studied the incidence of FGC in Singapore in the Malaysian community, completing her doctorate on the practice. In her 2020 study on FGM/C in the Malay Muslim community in Singapore, she found 70 per cent of women had been cut.
“I think there is definitely more conversation about it,” she says.
“Whether or not it has led to people not doing the practice I think is something that we need to do another survey in 15 years’ time to find out.”
Understanding female genital mutilation or cutting
The World Health Organisation interagency statement estimates 140 million girls and women across the world have experienced type 1, 2 or 3 of FGC.
The age girls are when the practice is performed varies from infancy up to 15 years old, depending on the region and local traditions. Adult and married women occasionally are cut.
There are four commonly recognised categories of FGC.
The type of FGC performed varies predominately based on ethnicity. Type 1, 2 and 3 FGC have been recorded in some countries in Asia and the Middle East and 28 African countries.
Religious ideologies
The United Nations Population Fund confirms FGC is practiced in Muslim groups, Christians, Ethiopian Jews and some traditional African religions.
FGC is performed across the globe and is known as being passed down through the matriarchal line.
Faradilla says in the Malay Muslim community in Singapore “people truly believe in the tradition…and think it’s better for their child to be cut over not being cut”.
When Faradilla first questioned her mother on why she was cut, she was given three reasons: for health, religion and to stop her from being adulterous.
“I couldn’t accept those reasons,” she says.
“They expect me to be a very good Muslim, but this is not Islamic.”
Hannah Nazri is a doctor, academic and the director of Malaysian doctors for women and children. She advocates against FGC in Malaysia and attends panels, events and educates people on the medical implications of the practice. In Malaysia there isn’t a law against FGC. Nazri says caregivers who have their daughter cut often believe it will spiritually enhance the child.
Nazri was born in Malaysia and is passionate about ending practices that disadvantage youth and women. Photo: supplied.
She has seen some Muslim women in Malaysia who haven’t been cut and blame that for the decline in their marriage. She has seen the opposite where women were cut and blame FGC for their sexual dysfunction. She says some women don’t call themselves survivors as they don’t feel harmed by FGC.
Sisters in Islam is an organisation aimed at furthering rights of Muslim women in Malaysia. The members produce educational videos, raise awareness and provide legal services. Ms Adibah is a senior program officer and has been working with the organisation on FGC since 2014.
Adibah hopes FGC will eventually stop happening. Photo: Supplied.
In 2009 the National Council of Islamic Religious affairs in Malaysia (women studies international forum) introduced a Fatwa proclaiming female circumcision compulsory for Muslim women. Adibah says the practice was performed prior to this Fatwa; however, prevalence of FGC in Malaysia has increased from 93 per cent in 2011 to 99 per cent in 2023 based on Dr Rashid’s research.
“Parents and doctors believe God asked them to perform cutting on babies, but this is completely not true,” she says.
“They view themselves as a Muslim first and a doctor second.”
Health implications of FGM/C
The United Nations and World Health Organization classify the practice of FGC as a violation of human rights that can result in short and long term complications. The more severe the FGC, the greater the risks.
Dr Maznah Dahlui is a public health physician, working with the University of Singapore. Dahlui has researched the incidence of FGM/C in Malaysia and wants people to know cutting girls is a waste of money and stress.
“It has no health benefits,” she says.
Girls who were cut may face lifelong consequences.
Nazri says there are physical and sexual consequences of FGC but you can’t visibly see these on people. Being cut isn’t a prerequisite for marriage. It isn’t a question people tend to ask, she says.
“It’s tricky to stop a practice where people don’t see any physical complications.”
Faradilla has lived with the implications of FGC. She gathered the courage to see a gynaecologist to learn what happened to her. The doctor said her clitoral hood was retracted but that could be natural as every vulva is different. The biggest issue for Saza is not knowing.
She says “The fact I will never know is disempowering. If I don’t know my own body, how do I have autonomy over it?”
Faradilla says she hears from FGC survivors about the mental health effects of FGC. She has noticed a shift in attitudes, with young parents not wanting their baby to be cut.
“Survivors contact me and say they’re affected sexually,” she said.
“The mind might forget about the trauma, but the body remembers the trauma.”
“If as a baby your body remembers that when you opened your legs and then something panful happened, that when you open your legs as an adult it might bring back the trauma.”
Medicalization of FGM/C
The practice among the Malay Muslim community in Singapore was traditionally performed by midwives at homes but has shifted to happen at doctors’ surgeries in the last 20 years. Faradilla says it’s now predominantly conducted by female Malay doctors in private clinics.
“One cut is like 5 minutes in and out and it’s $50-70 Singapore dollars,” she says.
“If you do one every week you can earn a lot of money.
“They feel it is their medical obligation to do it to ensure it doesn’t go underground.
“The doctors are the biggest resistance to ending the practice.”
Faradilla believes medicalisation gives the practice legitimacy as people view doctors as authority figures in society. She observes with medicalisation the practice can shift from type 4, to type 1 and 2, which is more severe.
“Medicalisation isn’t harm reduction,” she says.
Adibah shares this sentiment saying the doctors’ methods of FGC in Malaysia can be more abrasive compared with what a traditional midwife would have done.
Nazri focuses on re-educating doctors and medical staff about the practice and says she believes no doctor should perform FGM/C. She has seen a shift in the type of FGC practiced in Malaysia to be more harmful, parallel to the shift in Singapore since medicalisation.
Nazri says the parents, doctors, and other family members who have this practice performed truly believe it will spiritually enhance the child. However, when parents are presented with facts on the health implications of the practice, they are receptive to the information and hearing more, she says.
Advocacy to end FGC/FGM
End FGC Singapore doesn’t want the practice to be banned just yet. This stance often leads to global criticism of the organisation Faradilla says.
The organisation is concerned if the practice is criminalised it will go underground and lead people to travel to have their daughters cut, where the cutting could be more severe. She says Egypt banned FGM and the practice has gone underground.
“If the community isn’t ready for the change, criminalising FGC won’t work,” she says.
“We don’t want to use the penal justice system on an already minority and disenfranchised community.
“The Muslim community is the poorest community in Singapore.”
Faradilla says herself and volunteers at End FGC advocate for more regulations around the practice.
The United Nations is calling for and end FGM/C by 2030, whereas End FGC believe it’s an 80-year process.
“The movement will take 80 years…to change social mindsets its always a very long fight,” Faradilla says.
Nazri believes criminalisation is not appropriate in Malaysia and education, like Faradilla believes is a priority for the Malay Muslim community in Singapore.
“I get frustrated with international FGM advocacy because of how some people view women,” Nazri says.
Nazri says some woman who seek help for issues related to FGC, fear the medical staff will see them as from a barbaric tradition.
“Women don’t want to be seen and to be reduced to just their clitorises,” she says.
“I don’t want anyone to see Malaysian Muslim women and think like oh she’s got her clitoris cut.
“She’s not just that, she’s a woman, she’s an individual. She has her dreams and ambitions.”
This story was produced as part of the Curtin Journalism 2024 Singapore Study Tour and supported by funding from the federal government’s New Colombo Plan.