to wonder about The Tribe and FGM

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I can't help wondering (and worrying) whether the girls in this program have been subjected to the horrendous practice of FGM.
If they have, will the program makers gloss over the fact, or even fail to mention it?
They are dissecting their lives after all, so surely they will touch upon the subject sooner or later.
They have a moral obligation to bring it to the viewers attention, surely.

Should we even be watching it if they don't?

And FGM is NOT practised by this tribe... my starting point!

Never mind!

Op why dont you google it to see what their customs are might answer your question.

YABU I've lived in a village where FGM is practiced. It is not discussed openly, or with strangers or even very much bw the women themselves (I only got to know it happened as I was friends with a local midwife and she dropped a few hints about difficult births). I imagine that this secrecy is part of what keeps it going but also remember that what you and I finx upsetting is deeply traumatic to those involved - the more so cause it's tied up with tribal (and sometimes religious) belief so women are supposed to welcome it.
Anyway, your idea that it is something that they should be happy to chat about with a western film crew is madness, frankly and any questioning would be deeply intrusive.

Just to stress, although other communities in the region like the Dassanech do practice FGM, IT IS NOT PRACTICED BY THE HAMAR

Tbh we were more concerned about the marks on that girls back than anything else had she been whipped?

I thought the same mrsjay

Brilliant comments by Saucy Jack.

Especially this bit

FGM is not a cultural difference in the same way that wearing the five articles of faith or not using scissors on the Shabbat (for ex.) are. It is, without exception, a human rights abomination that has no place in any civilised society.

And FGM is NOT practised by this tribe... my starting point

but beating is.

What were those marks on that girl's back? They looked like the type of marks you would get from a severe flogging.

Dd1 noticed them we rewound to see I was thinking they might have took out their frustrations on her because the family were dithering about bloody goats

All of which is conjecture... as you were wrong about the FGM maybe you are wrong about the beatings also.

You started of not being able to help yourself and just having to wonder about something that a couple of minutes worth of research could have set your mind at rest about.

Now you are lauding a poster for taking others (me) to task for something that happens elsewhere/when. Not sure that makes your viewpoint reasonable/reliable on this programme.

The marks are from ritual whipping which happens to female relatives of young Hamar men when they come of age. There's a description here...

www.bbc.co.uk/tribe/tribes/hamar/

"A Hamar man comes of age by leaping over a line of cattle. It’s the ceremony which qualifies him to marry, own cattle and have children. The timing of the ceremony is up to the man’s parents and happens after harvest. As an invitation, the guests receive a strip of bark with a number of knots – one to cut off for each day that passes in the run up to the ceremony. They have several days of feasting and drinking sorghum beer in prospect.
On the afternoon of the leap, the man’s female relatives demand to be whipped as part of the ceremony. The girls go out to meet the Maza, the ones who will whip them – a group of men who have already leapt across the cattle, and live apart from the rest of the tribe, moving from ceremony to ceremony. The whipping appears to be consensual; the girls gather round and beg to be whipped on their backs. They don’t show the pain they must feel and they say they’re proud of the scars. They would look down on a woman who refuses to join in, but young girls are discouraged from getting whipped.
One effect of this ritual whipping is to create a strong debt between the young man and his sisters. If they face hard times in the future, he’ll remember them because of the pain they went through at his initiation. Her scars are a mark of how she suffered for her brother."

They have several days of feasting and drinking sorghum beer in prospect.
On the afternoon of the leap

So the girls get to be whipped, while the men get to drink beer and jump over cows.
I know which gender I would prefer to be in that tribe.

But hang on - the girls 'beg' to be whipped, so that's OK then.

The whipping appears to be consensual; the girls gather round and beg to be whipped on their backs.

Of course it's consensual, what girl would want to be shunned by her peers for not bowing down to what has become expected of them.

All of which is conjecture... as you were wrong about the FGM maybe you are wrong about the beatings also.

Nope.
Not wrong after all.
They do get beaten. Although hit with bamboo leaves with knots in the ends sounds SO much naicer.

Personally, Ibani, I'd have let OP search that out for herself... like you, I went looking and found the same information, it is easy to find.

Ibani, that was very interesting to read.

But you didn't look for that information, others suggested it was a punishment!

It is a cultural more, we may not like it but, at this moment in time, it is something that appears to be acceptable to them. In years to come it may, like FGM, be seen differently by them. But that won't happen via misinformation and being so terribly upset from many miles away.

It will happen as the tribe decide for themselves how to change their culture - just as the UK did regarding the many public humiliations, public hangings, burnings etc.

Or do you think we just need to slap our own ideals over every culture in the world?

I agree with you Loulou.
Some interesting points.

It's interesting how much outrage can be generated by other cultures. Firstly the Hamar don't practice FGM so the OPs originally question is sorted.

The ritual where the women asked to be whipped on their backs as a form of bonding so that when times are tough their brother will remember what his family did for him so that he will always be there to help them is important to them. However people find it abhorrent and yet we practice cosmetic surgery with the risk of disfigurement or even death are we equally abhorred by that?

Original

Thanks, I was worried I had been overly rude there

It bothers me, a lot, that mixed up in all the good intentions and education campaigns to better the lives of other cultures we (as in Westerners) have a tendency to go a bit overboard, get a bit overly zealous.

No, don't worry Lazyloulou! you weren't rude.
I like to read all comments, even if they differ from my own views. It's good to get a bit of balance.