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ccording to a UNICEF report released last year, half of all girls in Indonesia under the age of 12 have experienced some form of female genital mutilation (FGM).  

The report also revealed that Indonesian girls under the age of 14 represent nearly a quarter of the estimated 200 million females who have undergone FGM worldwide.

While the findings were shocking for many, it was not for those who have long paid attention to this issue.

The government banned FGM (sunat perempuan) in 2006, but just four years later kowtowed to various Islamic organizations and the procedure once again became legal, although with a provision that it had to be done by a medical professional.

In 2014, the government, under pressure from anti-FGM activists, repealed that regulation, but did not go so far as to explicitly prohibit FGM or specify the penalty for those who performed the procedure.

Just last year, largely in response to the aforesaid United Nations Children’s Fund report and the ensuing outrage, Minister for Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Yohana Yembise announced the government was launching a campaign to end FGM in Indonesia, but there is not much information about the government’s strategy or the effectiveness of its campaign.

In short, female circumcision is still a very common practice in the world’s most populous Muslim country, but why?

Many defend the procedure on religious grounds. The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued a fatwa that female circumcision was a religious practice and Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, approves the practice, so long as doctors don’t “cut too much.”

But the problem is that the Quran, which takes precedence over the hadiths (Prophet Muhammad’s sayings), forbids such a practice.

Surah An-Nisa advises against any actions that “change the creation of Allah,” which presumably includes the act of cutting one of the most sensitive and intimate parts on a woman’s body. Those who do so, according to the Quran, ally with Satan.

While religion is the main factor behind why parents decide to have their daughters cut (these unfortunate young girls are certainly not the ones making the decision), many also do so for cultural and superstitious reasons.

As Grata Endah Werdaningtyas, a senior foreign ministry official, said, some “say a girl has to be circumcized or else she can’t cook rice properly, or she can’t get a husband…or her prayers will not be accepted
by God.”

Now some of you may roll your eyes and shake your head, envisioning some shaman or dukun somewhere in the jungle performing FGM with a sharp piece of bamboo (which does happen), but female genital cutting is also very popular in Jakarta. In fact, Jakarta is among the 10 provinces with the highest percentage of circumcised girls aged 11 and below (68.1 percent).

Papua, East Nusa Tenggara and Bali are the only provinces where the prevalence of FGM is in the single digits, according to UNICEF’s report.

Aside from the physical risks (infection, urinary and reproductive problems, and even death), the psychological effects of female circumcision cannot be overlooked.

In 2010, researchers of the private Islamic Yarsi University reported that girls who learned their genitals had been cut during childhood experienced various mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.

When people defend the practice and state that it does not harm these young girls, tell them that it most certainly does. When people defend the practice as a religious duty, tell them that it most certainly is not.

It is your moral, and even religious duty, to speak out against this barbaric practice, and end FGM in Indonesia, once and for all.
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The writer lived in Southeast Asia for nearly four years, where he consulted for various companies and governments. He is currently a graduate student at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.