Tiina Pelkonen

Horror can´t be the correct way to respond to girls´ circumcision in order to prevent it. The KokoNainen project is to affect people´s attitudes with the aim of preventing circumcisions and providing support for those who have been circumcised.

When public health nurse Janneke Johansson explained about the health hazards caused by circumcisions to Somalis for the first time in the early 1990s, she felt she couldn´t get her message through.

– My listeners agreed with me about what I was saying, but I was certain they would do exactly what they wanted.

In 1994 doctor Mulki Mölsä of Somali origin was assigned by Stakes to examine girls´ circumcision. It then appeared that only five percent of the Somali women living in Finland hadn´t been circumcised. The most difficult faraon operation had been carried out on nearly 70 percent of the women and some wished their daughters to undergo a similar circumcision.

Fortunately attitudes have changed a lot since 1994. None of the women interviewed in Finland for the KokoNainen project want their children to have a faraon operation. There are also families who don´t want their daughters to be circumcised at all.

So far no circumcision performed on a girl living in Finland has been revealed, but:

– We would be naive to believe that nobody has been sent abroad to be circumcised, says Janneke Johansson, who has been working as the project manager in the Finnish League for Human Rights since 2005.

Female circumcisions are made in 28 African countries as well as in some Middle East and Asian countries. This project has been targeted at both immigrants whom the issue concerns and authorities who meet these people in their work, such as staff working in the social welfare and healthcare sector, day care centres and schools.

People mustn´t be judged

The attitudes towards girls´ circumcisions were marked by horror in the early 1990s. However, it isn´t the correct attitude to eradicate the custom. As a working partner of the Finnish specialist, it´s useful to have a person with such an ethnic background who knows the phenomenon and culture under discussion.

Saido Mohamed, a specially trained nurse with a Somali background, makes close contact with her native countrymen, both men and women. As the expert in the project she chairs meetings with men and women and underlines health risks caused by circumcisions as well as explaining about the Finnish legislation and human rights.

– It´s essential not to judge people by their traditions because they aren´t to blame, emphasises Janneke Johansson.

She goes on to add that, however, one professional such as Saido Mohamed isn´t enough. With better resources the project could employ many health care professionals with an African background who have qualified in Finland.

– In addition, the training of Finnish professionals is important. They have to be able to address these issues professionally and win their listeners´ trust.

Not everybody is familiar with female physiology

The funding for the KokoNainen project will cease at the end of the year. That´s why the Finnish League for Human Rights has made applications for funding further measures. They plan to extend the sphere of topics to concern being a woman in general. Despite the fact that the best trained women don´t need enlightenment, there are some who don´t know at all how their body functions.

– During our discussions we have noticed that many isolated housewives who can´t speak Finnish don´t know the organs in their body, how they function or how the baby inside them develops.

We intend to talk more with men and perhaps later even arrange joint occasions for both men and women. Anyway, the subject is sensitive and difficult. Among many ethnic groups, circumcisions and other matters related to sexual health are a taboo. If men an women don´t talk about these things with each other, great misunderstandings can occur.

- Women assume that men only want a circumcised woman, but men often say that they have nothing to do with the matter because it´s the women´s own affair.