1.1 The Christianisation of the FGM/C ritual during the reign of King Zär’ä Ya’əqob (1434–1468)

4At the end of the 15th century, King Zär’ä Ya’əqob, who was trying to reform Christianity, was faced with the question of female excision and circumcision. The debate is recorded in the Mäshäfä Bərḫan or “the book of light,” which was written on his order to be read every Saturday and Sunday. The study here focuses on the homily dedicated for the second Sunday of each month that is related to the position of women within the liturgy, taking into account their menstruation and the separation of men and women during Mass. The issue of female circumcision is also seen as a practice to be abolished. At the beginning, when he heard that the Christian Tigrean people practiced female circumcision, King Zär’ä Ya’əqob condemned the practice stating that it was a Muslim and a “pagan” custom of the people living in the eastern and western parts of the country.

5However, instead of fighting and eradicating it, the king found a way to Christianise the ritual. By looking forward and compiling various canonic texts of the Orthodox religion, the king succeeded in demonstrating that genital mutilation was an Orthodox ritual that has no gender, implying the idea that all Christians, male or female, had to be “circumcised.” If the debate implies that before his reign only the Tigreans practiced women’s excision, we can hypothesise that King Zär’ä Ya’əqob could have been the instigator for the generalisation of the practice of Christian female genital mutilation.

1.2 FGM/C and the question of Judaic influence in Ethiopian Christianity: A debate that started during the 16th century

6At the beginning of the 16th century, the Portuguese Alvares noted that circumcision of both men and women was practised on a religious basis, a fact that could confirm that the reform of King Zär’ä Ya’əqob had worked. However, he also mentions the fact that there was no specific ceremony.

7From the 16th century, with the arrival of the Jesuits in the country, the question of Jewish influences in the Ethiopian Orthodox faith increased. Faced with accusations of the Jesuits, in 1555, King Gälawdewos adopted a different position when addressing his opponents who saw circumcision as being a Judaic practice. He justified the ritual as a traditional ancestral rite that had nothing to do with religion.

8This debate continued in Ethiopian historiography until the 20th century, with two different camps opposing each other: the thesis of Jewish influences inherited from Egypt or Yemen and the thesis of a late interpretation of old canons during the 15th century, which justified the practice of an archaic Christianity.

2.1 Communities that practised excision (or not) at the end of the 18th century

10According to James Bruce, the Falaša practised female excision, although not all Ethiopian communities had adopted it. For example, the Agäw communities living between Lasta and Bägemdər and those of Damot were not circumcised, nor were the Gafat people. He states that the Amhara were also not circumcised before the 10th century. He also claims that the Oromo people did not practise circumcision. The last groups listed are the lowland populations living to the west or southwest of the Ethiopian highlands, who were regularly the victims of slave raids and whom Bruce refers to using the pejorative term “Shankallas” which was then in use in the Christian kingdom. The location of these communities, which did not practise feminine circumcision, helped the author to establish that the custom did not come from Egypt.

2.2 How FGM/C was performed in medieval and postmedieval Ethiopia (16th–19th centuries)

11At the end of the 15th century, according to King Zär’ä Ya’əqob, the Muslims and the “Pagans” who practised excision used the same methods. They performed the circumcision of young girls by cutting the genital organ (harafa) with a razor, leaving the blood to cover it, without even leaving a hole sufficient for urination. It was therefore a full ablation of the labia with total cauterisation (Type IV). During their future marriage, the husband had to open the hymen of his wife with his fingers, making it look like the practice of infibulation.

12In the Christian communities, even after Zär’ä Ya’əqob’s proclamation, it was still a ritual that was not performed in a church or by a member of the clergy. In the 17th century, Job Ludolf, a German orientalist, states that the circumciser was a woman, and that the operation was performed on the eighth day after birth. At the beginning of 19th century, the missionary Samuel Gobat stated that the very same practice was still in use. F. Caillaud, a French naturalist who travelled to Ethiopia in the 19th century, also describes that what was prescribed in Zär’ä Ya’əqob’s homily was almost similar to his own observations in Sennar. In the early 20th century, Enno Littmann, a German orientalist of the beginning of the 20th century, notes that in Tǝgre, the operation was performed between the ages of one and six years and that the excision of girls was a woman’s duty.

3.1 Overview of the practice of FGM/C in 21st century Ethiopia

14According to the Ethiopian Demographic Health Surveys, the prevalence of FGM/C in Ethiopia decreased from 80% in the 2000s, to 74% in 2005 and to 65% in 2016. The highest concentration of female circumcisions occurs in Somali (99%) and Tǝgre has the lowest prevalence (24%), followed by Gambella (33%). According to the 2013 UNICEF statistical overview report, FGM/C affected 23.8 million women and girls in Ethiopia.

15Estimates by focus-group discussants in 1997 in EGLDAM 2008 show that infibulation is the most prevalent among the Somalis and Afars. Excision and clitoridectomy are practiced among the Amhara, with lower prevalence among the Tigreans and to a certain degree in the Southern Nation and Nationalities (SNNP). According to Boyden et .al (2013), clitoridectomy is commonly practised among the Oromo. The age at which FGM/C is carried out varies across different ethnic groups. Female circumcision is done shortly after birth in northern parts of the country whereas it is associated with marriage in the southern part.

3.2 The practitioners

16According to UNICEF 2005, FGM/C is mainly carried out by traditional practitioners, which include local specialists, traditional birth attendants and older members of a community, particularly women. Pankhurst (2003) indicated that in the southern part of the country, female circumcision is performed by a caste group of specialist craft workers such as potters, smiths and tanners. The registered charity 28 Too Many 2013 country profile further showed that there is an indication of FGM/C being performed by health workers within a hospital/clinic setting, mainly in urban areas, which shows a trend towards the medicalisation of the practice in the country. Though medicalization decreases health risks associated with the procedure, it could result in misunderstandings surrounding the practice.

4.1 The medical and psychological impact of FGM/C on women

18FGM/C has no health benefits, but rather it has negative physical and mental health consequences. The WHO 2016 (p. 6–7) guidelines on the management of health complications from female genital mutilation specified the immediate, obstetric, sexual, psychological and long-term risks linked with FGM/C. Accordingly, the immediate risks include haemorrhage, pain, shock, genital tissue swelling, infections, urination and wound healing problems and death. Obstetric risks include caesarean section, postpartum haemorrhage, episiotomy, prolonged labour, obstetric tears/lacerations, instrumental delivery, difficult labour/dystocia, extended maternal hospital stay, stillbirth and early neonatal death and infant resuscitation at delivery. Sexual functioning risks include dyspareunia (pain during sexual intercourse), decreased sexual satisfaction, reduced sexual desire and arousal, decreased lubrication during sexual intercourse and reduced frequency of orgasm or anorgasmia. Psychological risks include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorder and depression. Long-term risks associated with FGM/C include genital tissue damage, vaginal discharge, vaginal itching, menstrual problems, reproductive tract infections, chronic genital infections, urinary tract infections and painful urination.

5.1 Type of actions to end FGM/C

19“The most successful community-based initiatives take human rights as the basis for action and incorporate the key elements for change.” (UNICEF, 2005: 23). According to UNICEF 2005, a number of community-based actions have been adopted to protect girls from FGM/C. The most successful community-based initiatives adopt human rights approaches and are participatory in nature and engage communities to define problems and come up with solutions by themselves through facilitating non-judgmental discussion/dialogue, creating awareness on the negative consequences of the practice, empowering groups to organise and undertake collective action and make public affirmation and diffuse the decision to other communities. Where the practice of FGM/C is linked to initiation, efforts have been made towards developing alternative rites of passage and creating alternative employment opportunities for traditional excisers. Other initiatives stipulated by WHO in 2008 include empowering girls and women through education and economic empowerment; enhancing the inclusion of boys; promoting culturally-sensitive education on FGM/C; addressing the health complications of FGM/C; conducting activities that promote public discussion and debate on FGM/C; taking legal measures in consultation with community and accompanied by information.

5.2 History of the government effort against FGM/C

20Ethiopia has taken a number of measures against FGM/C and is a signatory to international human rights conventions, which serve as a basis for the representation of FGM/C as a violation of international human rights. As indicated by Boyden et al. (2013: 20), these include the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the 1998 organisation of African Unity Addis Ababa Declaration on Violence Against Women and the 2008 United Nations Interagency Statement on Elimination of FGM.

21According to the organization 28 Too Many (2013), at a national level, since its inception in 1987, the National Committee on Traditional Practices of Ethiopia (NCTPE) has been creating awareness on the topic. The Ethiopian government has integrated anti Harmful Traditional Practices (HTPs) into all the major policy and legal plans. The first step in Ethiopia was therefore to confirm in the 1995 Constitution the human and citizenship rights for women. In 2000, the Family Law confirmed women’s rights and their equality with men. However, at that time, the banning of FGM/C was not clearly enshrined. FGM/C was criminalised in 2005 in Ethiopia and some communities have passed by-laws outlawing FGM/C. A National FGM Network was founded in 2002 and was officially launched in 2010. In 2013, FDRE Ministry of Women, Children and Youth developed a “National Strategy and Action Plan on Harmful Traditional Practices against Women and Children in Ethiopia.” The strategy stipulated three strategic pillars that specifically focus on prevention, protection and provision with the aim of ending child marriage and FGM/C. The ministry recently developed a National Costed Roadmap to End Child Marriage and FGM/C through a combination of strategies that enhance empowerment of girls and their families and engagement of communities and strengthen systems and enabling environments and promote production of data and evidence.

22Many governmental and non-governmental organisations, activists and the media have been conducting campaigns against FGM/C. Though the campaigns have been effective in raising awareness of communities, FGM/C is still prevalent in Ethiopia. According to 28 Too Many (2013), the challenges to end FGM/C is the changing patterns of FGM/C for example, from Type III infibulation to Sunna in Afar and Somali regions without change of social norms and eradicating the practice. According to Boyden et al. (2013), changing the timing of ceremonies associated with FGM/C and boys’ circumcision ceremonies were used as concealment to circumcise girls in Oromia and Hawassa, respectively. The lack of evidence and girls’ fear of stigmatisation by their communities for disclosing circumcision make it challenging to implement the law.