Title: The ritual: disfiguring, hurtful, wildly festive. Grafton journal.

POPLINE Document Number: 129007

Author(s):

French HW

Source citation:

NEW YORK TIMES, 1997 Jan 31;:A4.

Abstract:

Refugees in Grafton, Sierra Leone, will soon be going home. To celebrate the upcoming move, refugee women have been engaging in the ancestral communal ritual of Bondo. Since Christmas, as many as 600 women in one refugee camp have communed in small groups for a week or two at a time to dance, drink, feast, share lessons about womanhood, and have their external genitals cut off. Long practiced, the Bondo ceremony was traditionally part of an exclusive female secret society which, unlike most tribal rites in Africa, brought Sierra Leonian women together across ethnic and religious lines. It has been estimated that in less than 1 month, 4000 or more women in neighboring refugee camps have engaged in the Bondo ritual in preparation for their return to rural homes. Bondo, and the female genital mutilation (FGM) which is part of the ceremony, is deeply entrenched and supported by the overwhelming majority of women in Sierra Leone. By some estimates, as many as 90% of the country's women have undergone FGM. In many other parts of Africa, however, FGM is under siege and in retreat in the face of new legislation against the practice, education targeted to women, and even preaching against the ritual by Muslim clerics.

Keywords:

Sierra Leone
Refugees
Culture
Cultural Background
Female Genital Cutting
Women
Developing Countries
Africa, Western
Africa, Sub Saharan
Africa
Migrants
Migration
Population Dynamics
Demographic Factors
Population
Population Characteristics
Harmful Traditional Practices
Traditional Health Practices