Welcome to Womanhood

Viewers may remember a film made in 1996 entitled The Cutting Edge which, for the first time, introduced the subject of female circumcision to many Westerners. Recently, during the biannual opening season of female circumcision, a BBC-TV film crew returned to Uganda to see whether earlier efforts to stop the practice of genital mutilation have been successful. Steeped in tradition and culture, the rites of passage for the daughters of the Sabiny people include the removal of the clitoris, without anesthesia, resulting in the crippling and/or death of hundreds of young women throughout Africa. This iniquitous custom is being practiced daily on over 6,000 girls in Africa and viewers of this program may be haunted by the ghostly faces of these girls as they slowly walk, with bloodstained dresses, back into their dark huts to heal. Any outward display of pain or even blinking is considered a sign of cowardice and may result in punishment and/or being labeled as an outcast. The filmmakers did discover one Sabiny man who has decided that his daughters will not be circumcised any longer and has planned an alternative ‘rite of passage' for them; one enlightened father may not seem like much, but he's got 43 daughters and they must be thrilled over his breaking of tradition. The production qualities are passable, at best, and audio is, at times, awful (the voice-over narration is constantly fighting with background voices and is at times unintelligible), making this an optional purchase. Aud: H, C, P. (N. Plympton)