https://information.tv5monde.com/te...e-de-cinq-ans-pour-une-mere-de-famille-451500
Jurors and magistrates have decided: the law takes precedence over tradition. In Le Mans, a mother was given a five-year suspended prison sentence for having had her three eldest daughters circumcised during trips to Djibouti. Sociologist Isabelle Gillette-Faye, a specialist in excision, sheds light on the issues at stake in this trial.
On March 30 and 31, 2022, a mother of seven children appeared before the Assize Court of Sarthe, in central-western France, for “complicity in violence against a minor under the age of 15 followed by mutilation or permanent disability.” Specifically, she is accused of having subjected her three eldest daughters to excision. However, this mutilation of the female sex is strictly prohibited and punishable, in France, by fifteen years of imprisonment – in Djibouti, too, excision has been prohibited since 1995. This trial is the first in France for ten years after that of Nevers, in 2012.
Excised in Djibouti
If the Nevers trial judged parents who had had their little girls circumcised in precarious conditions, at their home in France, the 39-year-old woman tried in Le Mans had her three eldest daughters circumcised in 2007 and 2013, during stays with their grandmother in Djibouti, her country of origin. The little ones were then aged 4, 5 and 7 years old.
In France, the eldest daughter, mentally handicapped, is followed in a socio-educational center. Upon returning from the trip undertaken by the family in 2013 in Djibouti, she, who usually does not speak or speaks little, explains to her educators that she has “no chouchou, no zizi” by showing the genital area. His drawings represent children crying tears of blood.
Alerted, the socio-educational team issues “worrying information,” in accordance with the reporting procedure. This leads to a medical examination which will confirm that the young girl and her two sisters have undergone sexual genital mutilation. “This time, and this is not always the case, the magistrate in charge of the case went all the way, up to the trial in assizes,” notes Isabelle Gillette-Faye.
An exemplary trial
Director of the National Federation GAMS (Group for the Abolition of Sexual Mutilation, Forced Marriages and other traditional practices harmful to the health of women and children), the sociologist attended part of the trial as an expert witness, solicited by a justice conscious of its pedagogical role. She came to explain the ins and outs of an excision and to contextualize the facts alleged against the mother of the family. “I was there to shed light on people, jurors or assessors, who are not used to being confronted with this kind of business, she explains, underlining the attitude of the stakeholders: “very attentive and eager to do well, to understand without judging. How can a mother do this to her daughters. Why do the girls themselves continue to trivialize an act that could have, and still can, have dramatic consequences?”
The accused seems to have understood the prohibition, but not the why.
Isabelle Gillette-Faye, found the mother “very worthy, who says she understood that excision is prohibited by law.” The sociologist has another decryption of the thought of the accused: “I believe that she remains convinced that it is a religious necessity (the mother being of the Muslim faith, editor’s note) and that she does not understand why it is prohibited.” Still, since 2015, the mother has had four other children. “She didn’t touch any of them, girls or boys. She therefore seems to have understood the prohibition, but not the why,” Isabelle Gillette-Faye concludes
Throughout the trial, testifies Isabelle Gillette-Faye, the mother of the three circumcised young women wants to convince that the infibulation that she herself suffered in her childhood (total or almost total excision, i.e. female genital mutilation type 3) has had no adverse consequences on her life as a woman: “She assures us that her sexuality has remained perfect, that her deliveries have gone very well,” reports the sociologist.
In addition, the accused argues that she had a nurse come to her home so that the excisions of her daughters took place under the best hygienic conditions and that their excisions were relatively non-invasive – type 1 female genital mutilation. “She thinks she behaved like a good Djiboutian mother.”
Jurors and magistrates have decided: the law takes precedence over tradition. In Le Mans, a mother was given a five-year suspended prison sentence for having had her three eldest daughters circumcised during trips to Djibouti. Sociologist Isabelle Gillette-Faye, a specialist in excision, sheds light on the issues at stake in this trial.
On March 30 and 31, 2022, a mother of seven children appeared before the Assize Court of Sarthe, in central-western France, for “complicity in violence against a minor under the age of 15 followed by mutilation or permanent disability.” Specifically, she is accused of having subjected her three eldest daughters to excision. However, this mutilation of the female sex is strictly prohibited and punishable, in France, by fifteen years of imprisonment – in Djibouti, too, excision has been prohibited since 1995. This trial is the first in France for ten years after that of Nevers, in 2012.
Excised in Djibouti
If the Nevers trial judged parents who had had their little girls circumcised in precarious conditions, at their home in France, the 39-year-old woman tried in Le Mans had her three eldest daughters circumcised in 2007 and 2013, during stays with their grandmother in Djibouti, her country of origin. The little ones were then aged 4, 5 and 7 years old.
In France, the eldest daughter, mentally handicapped, is followed in a socio-educational center. Upon returning from the trip undertaken by the family in 2013 in Djibouti, she, who usually does not speak or speaks little, explains to her educators that she has “no chouchou, no zizi” by showing the genital area. His drawings represent children crying tears of blood.
Alerted, the socio-educational team issues “worrying information,” in accordance with the reporting procedure. This leads to a medical examination which will confirm that the young girl and her two sisters have undergone sexual genital mutilation. “This time, and this is not always the case, the magistrate in charge of the case went all the way, up to the trial in assizes,” notes Isabelle Gillette-Faye.
An exemplary trial
Director of the National Federation GAMS (Group for the Abolition of Sexual Mutilation, Forced Marriages and other traditional practices harmful to the health of women and children), the sociologist attended part of the trial as an expert witness, solicited by a justice conscious of its pedagogical role. She came to explain the ins and outs of an excision and to contextualize the facts alleged against the mother of the family. “I was there to shed light on people, jurors or assessors, who are not used to being confronted with this kind of business, she explains, underlining the attitude of the stakeholders: “very attentive and eager to do well, to understand without judging. How can a mother do this to her daughters. Why do the girls themselves continue to trivialize an act that could have, and still can, have dramatic consequences?”
The accused seems to have understood the prohibition, but not the why.
Isabelle Gillette-Faye, found the mother “very worthy, who says she understood that excision is prohibited by law.” The sociologist has another decryption of the thought of the accused: “I believe that she remains convinced that it is a religious necessity (the mother being of the Muslim faith, editor’s note) and that she does not understand why it is prohibited.” Still, since 2015, the mother has had four other children. “She didn’t touch any of them, girls or boys. She therefore seems to have understood the prohibition, but not the why,” Isabelle Gillette-Faye concludes
Throughout the trial, testifies Isabelle Gillette-Faye, the mother of the three circumcised young women wants to convince that the infibulation that she herself suffered in her childhood (total or almost total excision, i.e. female genital mutilation type 3) has had no adverse consequences on her life as a woman: “She assures us that her sexuality has remained perfect, that her deliveries have gone very well,” reports the sociologist.
In addition, the accused argues that she had a nurse come to her home so that the excisions of her daughters took place under the best hygienic conditions and that their excisions were relatively non-invasive – type 1 female genital mutilation. “She thinks she behaved like a good Djiboutian mother.”
