Sometimes I Just Can't Be "Culturally Relative".

I knew from the beginning of this class that the topic of female genital mutilation would come up and I have really been dreading it. Just the though of FGM literally makes me sick to my stomach. Since I am taking an anthropology class this semester, I know all about ethnocentrism (the tendency to believe that one's own race or ethnic group is centrally important, and that all other ethnic groups are measured in relation to one's own) and cultural relativism (the concept that one must suspend judgment or culture bound-values on other people's practices to understand them in their own terms). But to me, when a practice becomes dangerous and life threatening, and there is no real spiritual value to it, that's when the line from culture to torture is crossed. While I do not think that "outsiders" have a right to force other cultures to stop a practice, I do think that they have the right to critique it, and even offer alternatives to it. From the FGM fact sheet I read that often "FGM is believed to reduce a woman's libido and help her resist "illicit" sexual acts". In an article I read for that same anthropology class this semester I learned that in India, a country where FGM is practiced, they believe, unlike the Western world, that women are more sexually aggressive than men, and for this reason they must be controlled. Controlling women's sexuality is one of the main reasons that FGM is performed. What a cruel way to keep women from having premarital or extra marital affairs. According the video on Current, there are also economical reasons that these procedures take place. In the villages of Sierra Leon, many women perform the "female circumcisions", as they are called, as their only means of income. I liked how in the video, rather than trying to force the women of these villages to stop performing the circumcisions and leaving them with no way to make money, they offered to help them get an education if they stopped the practice, that way they could find new ways of supporting themselves.

The writing by Eve Ensler was very moving. Until recently, I just didn't realize how often things like that happen. Hearing an account of a girl who wa strong enough to escape from her captors was very uplifting, but we all know that this isn't the norm. Unfortunatley, most girls who are taken and forced into prostitution wont be seen or heard from again. Sex trafficking also goes on in the US, as much as we don't want to believe it, it happens. The sad reality is that many of the girls who are being kidnapped and forced into prostitution are being treated as runaways and prosecuted as criminals. If you're interested, take a look at this link http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27098993/. Its about a 16 year old girl from Pensacola, FL. who was abducted and sold into sex slavery.

Another look at children in the sex worker industry is the documentary Born into Brothels. I have seen this movie before, but I really enjoyed watching it again. As bleak as these children's lives are, it is uplifting to see their spirit and determination to better their lives. It is terrible to see how these children live and know that there is little hope for them to overcome it. How unfair that these children, especially the girls, were born into a life where they could be bought and sold; where their only means of bringing money into their families was by "joining the line". One of the saddest parts of this documentary, to me, was when one of the boys said that you just have to accept life as "sad and painful". To think that these children, who are clearly full of life, think that there is no happiness in the world is just devastating. Another thing that I found very sad was the fact that many boarding schools did not want to take these children simply because they were the children of sex workers, something that the children themselves had no control over! I think the work that "Zana Auntie" did was just amazing. Not only was she able to show the resiliency of these children and the transformative power of art, she was able to really help a few of these kids. The amount of work that Zana Briski went through, getting birth certificates, ration cards, passports and blood work, really shows how desperately she wanted to help them. And the fact that she was able to get each of them accepted into a school, despite their "sex worker" status, was nothing short of a miracle. Because of this, it really upset me to see that some of them returned home, either of their own accord or by the decision of their parents. But the ones who are in school and doing well, Avijit and Kochi, have hope for their futures. Kochi no longer has only the option of becoming a prostitute, and Avijit will be able to follow his dream of becoming an artist. So to me, and I have a feeling Ms. Briski feels the same, if even one child could be helped, then all of the hard work was worth it.