‘Making history’: The fight to end female circumcision in Colombia | Health Issues

‘Great decline’

Quiragama knows firsthand how difficult it is to follow female circumcision. His area in Choco is one of the places where this practice is still practiced.

“In the past, many girls died,” Quiragama told Al Jazeera. But their mother did not say that she died because of this.

One area of ​​Choco, Alto Andagueda, recorded two cases last month, he added. But Quiragama learned that one of the girls did not receive any treatment after the operation, because her family was afraid that child services would intervene to take the child.

Such fear and stigma have left the practice shrouded in secrecy, relegated to the most remote parts of Colombia.

As a result, MPs believe that government statistics greatly underestimate the scale of the problem.

Between January 2024 and March 2026, 98 cases of female genital mutilation were recorded in the country. Of these cases, 70 percent were less than one year old.

“Of course, we have very little,” said Representative Carolina Giraldo, one of the authors of the new bill.

He also pointed out the lack of cooperation between the government agencies that handle the cases. “The recording process in this country is very difficult.”

Embera women also reported that stigma from the community also contributed to underreporting.

“I knew many girls who did this,” said Sebastiana Pepe Batesa, an Embera midwife from Choco. “But they said it’s a secret, it can’t be told to anyone.”

Pepe Batesa has never performed female circumcision. He and Quiragama, one of his daughters, have been at the forefront of the fight to end this practice.

Both women reported experiencing the pain of genital mutilation. Pepe Batesa explained that one of his children underwent this surgery when he was a baby, which caused serious problems.

“His body was very pale,” Pepe Batesa recalled. Sometimes he would sleep for days, then get very cold.

While her child survived, many women suffer lifelong pain from female genital mutilation. It can also help with things like cysts, sexual dysfunction, urinary incontinence and emotional trauma.