'My grandmother subjected my baby to female genital mutilation behind my back'

ByJosé Carlos Cueto

BBC News Mundo reporting from Colombia

Warning: This communicative contains descriptions of the practices progressive successful pistillate genital mutilation

In what activists are calling a milestone, Colombia past week became the archetypal state successful Latin America wherever pistillate genital mutilation (FGM) is present illegal.

As José Carlos Cueto reports, portion the measure was passed unanimously successful Colombia's Congress, it follows a agelong conflict to eradicate the unsafe and often secretive procedure.

Carla Quiñonez's girl was conscionable six months aged erstwhile the baby's great-grandmother subjected her to pistillate genital mutilation (FGM).

Quiñonez (not her existent name) says erstwhile her grandma returned the babe to her, she had a fever and was swollen and bleeding. She cried constantly.

"I confronted my grandmother, but she said it was mean and that I could not archer anyone."

The nearest wellness centre was a agelong travel away, truthful Quiñonez's mother, a midwife, tried to easiness the baby's symptom with medicinal plants. She besides challenged Quiñonez's grandmother. But the older pistillate would not listen.

"She said that men marque amusive of women who person a clitoris."

FGM involves the partial oregon full removal of the outer pistillate genitalia, arsenic good arsenic different injuries inflicted connected those organs for non-medical reasons.

It tin origin aesculapian complications, including haemorrhaging and infection, arsenic good arsenic complications aboriginal successful beingness with periods and during childbirth. It tin besides marque it hard for a pistillate to acquisition intersexual pleasure.

The World Health Organization says that astir the satellite much than 230 cardinal girls and women live contiguous person been cut, predominantly successful Africa.

Quiñonez, 30, has been campaigning to eradicate the signifier successful Colombia - wherever it is inactive practised by members of her Emberá Indigenous community.

Along with chap activists and members of Colombia's Congress, she played a cardinal relation successful the run which led to the ban.

She says it was lone arsenic she grew up that she realised what was secretly happening wrong her community.

"I ever wondered wherefore much girls than boys seemed to dice soon aft birth.

"I retrieve a young relative of excavation whose commencement was attended by my mother. She was calved healthy, but died 3 days later.

"I asked my parent astir it, and she told maine the babe had died from 'jai', an ancestral illness."

Quiñonez present believes that girls who supposedly died from "jai" really died from complications related to FGM.

Between 2020 and June 2026, 240 cases of FGM were recorded successful Colombia. In the immense bulk of instances, the girls were younger than six years old. But paediatrician Diana Ramos Mosquera says she believes this is conscionable "the extremity of the iceberg".

Working astatine San Jorge University Hospital successful Pereira, a metropolis successful Colombia's north-west coffee-growing region, she says she's seen signs of scarring, burning and mutilation erstwhile examining girls who person travel successful with different aesculapian conditions.

She recalls 1 miss who arrived with her vaginal opening sealed shut, meaning she astir apt would not person been capable to menstruate oregon person intersexual intercourse erstwhile she reached adulthood.

"She had to acquisition reconstructive surgery," Dr Ramos says.

She regards FGM arsenic a signifier of intersexual and gender-based unit with lifelong consequences, but says this indispensable beryllium addressed done education, and not conscionable punishment.

"Some members of these communities genuinely judge they are doing nary harm," she says.

With astir 300,000 members, the Great Emberá Nation is 1 of Colombia's largest Indigenous communities, with populations besides surviving successful Ecuador and Panama.

One mentation astir wherefore members of the assemblage practise FGM, erstwhile it's seldom seen elsewhere successful Latin America, is that the signifier arrived with enslaved radical from African countries.

This could assistance explicate its prevalence successful Risaralda, Chocó and Valle del Cauca, neighbouring departments that either are location to, oregon border, ample Afro-Colombian populations.

Another mentation is that the commencement of an intersex child, hundreds of years ago, near the assemblage with a fearfulness of the clitoris - with galore older women believing that it volition turn into a penis if not cut.

Others deliberation that it stems from the patriarchal content that a pistillate with an organ associated with intersexual pleasance is much apt to beryllium promiscuous.

Whatever its origin, Juliana Domico, the ineligible typical and main Indigenous councillor to the National Confederation of the Peoples of the Great Emberá Nation of Colombia, rejects the thought that the signifier is cultural.

"Our civilization is our clothing, our crafts, our dances and our language, not a signifier that kills. Culture does not kill."

She says the caller instrumentality follows years of advocacy enactment wrong the community: "We anticipation the instrumentality is translated into nationalist policy, with capable resources to instrumentality it."

Quiñonez is 1 of those who person advocated for change, but says she has received threats due to the fact that of this - particularly from men.

While, traditionally, men are not meant to cognize astir the ritual, conversations astir abolishing the signifier often lone instrumentality spot with antheral leaders due to the fact that galore Emberá women talk an indigenous connection - besides called Emberá - and person not needfully learned Spanish.

This tin besides forestall women from accessing assistance from doctors for their babies, a occupation which Quiñonez says is compounded erstwhile they're faced by sometimes ill-informed and judgmental wellness staff.

She says erstwhile she took her girl to infirmary with a fever caused by a urinary tract infection, the caregiver berated her for "being a savage" and told her that she had got what she deserved.

"I was adjacent threatened with having my girl taken distant and placed successful the attraction of the kid payment authorities.

"Since then, I similar not to instrumentality my girl to hospital. I dainty her with medicinal plants and medication. I ne'er permission her side."

Quiñonez says that determination is alteration nether mode wrong the Emberá community, with women present discussing among themselves whether FGM should happen.

She says she was moved erstwhile 1 grandma reflected connected carrying retired FGM connected her granddaughters. "She said she had ne'er acted retired of malice and had lone wanted to forestall men from criticising her granddaughters."

Having conversations astir a antithetic mode of beingness tin beryllium painful, she says. "Women who person grown up without a clitoris cannot ideate a antithetic body."

It volition besides beryllium hard to talk to her ain girl astir it, 1 time successful the future, "but it is simply a speech that cannot beryllium avoided," she says.

"All of america merit to recognize our bodies and to speech astir them without shame."

Illustrations by Daniel Arce, from BBC Mundo's Visual Journalism Team.

If you've been affected by issues raised successful this story, sources of enactment are disposable via the BBC Action Line