FGM Victims Made
This picturesque southern Colorado town known for decades as the sex-change capital of the world — thousands of gender-reassignment operations have been performed here — is becoming a beacon for victims of female genital mutilation.Dr. Marci Bowers has performed about two dozen reconstructive surgeries on mostly African born women victimized as children by the culturally driven practice of female circumcision. Bowers is believed to be one of the few U.S. doctors performing the operation.
Bowers, who underwent a gender reassignment operation in the 1990s at age 40, said she relates to what her mutilation patients describe as a loss of identity, of not feeling whole.
"It took me so long to get there in my own life. I know what the feeling is like, seeking my own identity," she said.
Massah, a patient who grew up in a village in Sierra Leone and now lives
in Australia, said the surgery "is like giving us a second life.
Actually it's starting to live."
Wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt, dark blue pants and sneakers to her pre-surgery exam, Massah asked that her full name not be used because she hasn't told most friends and even family that she was having the surgery, or that she was circumcised as a girl in Africa.
She paid a $1,700 hospital fee, plus lodging and travel expenses for the surgery last month.
"I will spend my whole life savings," she said, "even if it's for one minute of feeling complete."
The World Health Organization estimates 100 million to 140 million girls and women worldwide have been circumcised.
Cultural, religious and social factors have helped keep the practice alive among those who believe it will reduce promiscuity and take away sexual pleasure or desire. The World Health Assembly passed a resolution in 2008 urging an end to the custom.
The restorative surgery practice in this town of 9,500 people near the New Mexico border began in early 2009.
Last month, at a guest house a short drive from Bowers' office, Massah and six other patients talked late into the night, sharing stories that they'd found difficult to voice even with best friends. All requested not to be identified.
One 37-year-old woman from Richmond, Va., was circumcised as an infant in Nigeria and realized in college during a biology class that she didn't look like her textbook diagrams. She said she would still like to ask her mother why.
"Why did you allow it to happen? What were you trying to prevent?"
Click here to read the full story:
By Catherine Tsai
Associated Press
Photo Credit:
AP Photo/Ed Andrieski
Related links:
More About FGM on AWR
Wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt, dark blue pants and sneakers to her pre-surgery exam, Massah asked that her full name not be used because she hasn't told most friends and even family that she was having the surgery, or that she was circumcised as a girl in Africa.
She paid a $1,700 hospital fee, plus lodging and travel expenses for the surgery last month.
"I will spend my whole life savings," she said, "even if it's for one minute of feeling complete."
The World Health Organization estimates 100 million to 140 million girls and women worldwide have been circumcised.
Cultural, religious and social factors have helped keep the practice alive among those who believe it will reduce promiscuity and take away sexual pleasure or desire. The World Health Assembly passed a resolution in 2008 urging an end to the custom.
The restorative surgery practice in this town of 9,500 people near the New Mexico border began in early 2009.
Last month, at a guest house a short drive from Bowers' office, Massah and six other patients talked late into the night, sharing stories that they'd found difficult to voice even with best friends. All requested not to be identified.
One 37-year-old woman from Richmond, Va., was circumcised as an infant in Nigeria and realized in college during a biology class that she didn't look like her textbook diagrams. She said she would still like to ask her mother why.
"Why did you allow it to happen? What were you trying to prevent?"
Click here to read the full story:
By Catherine Tsai
Associated Press
Photo Credit:
AP Photo/Ed Andrieski
Related links:
More About FGM on AWR