Kvinnelig Omskjaering: Female Circumcision in Norway (Part I of II)

With the rise of immigration to Norway from African countries in recent years, Norway has found itself confronted with the debate over female circumcision (kvinnelig omskjæring). Female circumcision, often referred to as female genital mutilation, has been prohibited by Norwegian law since 1995 and is treated as a violation of basic human rights to health, privacy, and non-discrimination. Critics of this blanket policy against female circumcision, however, argue that the risks associated with this practice have been exaggerated and misunderstood at the expense of traditional practices and cultural notions of beauty and selfhood.

When Safia Yusef Abdi left her native Somalia for Norway in 1992, she was proud of being circumcised, reports the Aftenposten. She explains,

Mother is proud that her daughter has been purified. The daughter is also proud, the whole family is proud. When the last bandage is removed, you receive a pretty new dress to wear. You get so many notable things! From the whole family! You can’t run, you have to go slow so the wound doesn’t rupture. Maybe they’ll butcher a cow and invite the whole family…it’s a very good experience. If you haven’t had that experience, you’re not really a part of the family. The same thing happens to the boys, before and after circumcision.

Now a nurse who has worked to foster mutual understanding between Norwegian health personnel and other circumcised women, Safia elected not to have her own daughters circumcised. What had once been a source of pride for her in Somalia had turned into a raging area of debate over shame, coercion, and pain.

In Norway, many immigrant women from Africa are now shamed by the frank questioning of Nordic men who ask them outright if they have been circumcised. At the same time, they are worried that their daughters will suffer the embarrassment of not being purified in the eyes of other immigrants and those back home. They are also concerned that, if they circumcise their daughters, the girls will have to endure the pain of having sex for the first time, the torment of giving birth in a society that has little experience with delivering circumcised women, and the fear that her parents will be arrested for advocating circumcision.

Norway’s Ministry of Children and Family Affairs has adopted the term “female genital mutilation” (FGM) to mark their opposition to the practice, defining it as

all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural or other non-therapeutic reasons.

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