Growing Up Sexually

SOMALI (3,3+,3,4,4,4;1,1) (Somalia) (EHRAF) 

Index → Africa→ Somalia → Somali

(Somali, Darod) 

[continued from Somalia]

“There is some indication that infant betrothal may have been common in the past, but whether this is true or not, it is certainly not the general practice now (Lewis, 1962:p16[1]; Lewis, 1994:p33[2]). According to Grassivaro and Abdisamed (1985)[3], the practice of female circumcision was universal in Somalia; the percentage of circumcised women was 99.3%. Infibulation is the commonest type of circumcision used (75.7%). The age of circumcision varies from birth to 15; the average being 7.5. The type of circumcision does not seem to be influenced by some environmental variables (e.g. birth place of parents or place of circumcision), it is primarily determined by the population of the individual region. Infibulation is accepted to the greatest extent by the pastoral populations of the middle/northern regions, principally in Ogaden and in the 4 Somalian regions on which it borders: Togdheer, Nugal, Muddug, Galgadud. In the southern regions (Upper, Middle, Lower Giuba) amongst rural populations or populations with a cattle/cultivation economy, there are also attenuated types of circumcision: sunna and clitoridectomy (20 to 30%). An account of female circumcision was provided by Lee Barnes and Janice Boddy[4]. By the time she is nine, Aman has undergone a ritual circumcision ceremony; at eleven, her innocent romance with a white boy leads to a murder; at thirteen she is given away in an arranged marriage to a stranger.

In precapitalist northern pastoral Somali, the following was noted:

“As soon as she learned to walk and talk, [a girl] was to acquire the skills of women’s work and to imitate, even in play, the child care, matweaving, buttermaking and cooking tasks of the women of her household and camp. From such a young age too a young girl was learned about the central value of her sexual organs and the need to hide and protect them; the genital operation which she underwent before she was nine or ten years drove these points home. By the time a girl reached puberty and became nubile, she had mastered all women’s work skills. While north Islamic and customary law prescribed that she continue to guard her virginity, she was at this age allowed to participate in customary courtship practices, or attract a husband and thus find her niche as a wife in a new productive and reproductive unit: the household” (Kapteijns, 1995:p249)[5].

Janssen, D. F., Growing Up Sexually. Volume I. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin: Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology

Last revised: Aug 2005