All Muslim girls should have their vaginas inspected at school when they turn seven!

Words, wounds and war.

‘It should be a law! All Muslim girls should have their vaginas inspected at school when they turn seven! That way, we will know, we can find out if the circumcision has taken place and we can go after their parents.”

The Dutch woman gestured wildly, punctuating every sentence with a glare at the audience and a hand slamming on the desk in front of her.

We were on a panel together and the chairperson turned to me, slightly bemused, asking­ if I would like to respond.I had been in Amsterdam for a week, with a play, At Her Feet, which was running as a part of a South African arts festival. We had been billed with Veiled Monologues, a work whose poster had already attracted debate. It showed a naked woman, her nipple jutting out in profile, covered with a transparent hijab, her face indecipherable in shadow.

.............................

I started with the children. I suggested that a state-issued mandatory physical examination of children’s genitals without individual parental guidance or consent raises the possibility of abuse.

That if these girls had endured the horrors of circumcision, inspecting them would re-enact trauma, especially if the sexualised wound was used to trap their parents. There would be, I said, inevitable and terrible damage.

Surely there must be another way?The Dutch director leaned forward, her body taut with anger: “No! No! This is fuc*ing liberalism! You people never do anything! You just fuc*ing talk! Words mean nothing!”

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