The pain of coming of age

The Women's Bundu Society, a controversial ritual involving female circumcision, is practiced by the Mende and other tribes in Sierra Leone and Western Liberia. When a girl reaches the age of maturity (usually 12 or 13), she spends a week secluded in the forest where she learns the skills necessary to be a successful wife and mother and undergoes female circumcision, in which the clitoris is removed.

This traditional Muslim ceremony marks the girl's transition to womanhood, according to juniors Hannah Marima and Fatmata Munu, whose friends and relatives have participated in the Bundu Society.

As Marima and Munu describe the details of this ritual at their table in the SAC during lunch, other female students from Sierra Leone scoot their chairs in close together, adding their own knowledge of the tradition. But none of these students has experienced a Bundu Society or even heard a firsthand account of the event, for it is an extremely secretive occasion.

Once a woman has gone through the ceremony, she cannot reveal anything about it. According to Munu, the women conducting the Bundu Society tell participants that discussion of the Society will cause swelled stomachs and sickness. At the ritual's end, the girls are welcomed by a parade.

Although the Bundu Society tradition celebrates a girl becoming a woman, some people oppose the ritual because of the dangers associated with the circumcision. Munu's mother, who participated in Bundu Society in Sierra Leone, refused to allow Munu to suffer the pain and health risks that are part of the ritual.

Fierce opposition to female circumcision, a ritual preformed in many world cultures, stems from the physical consequences of the procedure. Immediate complications often include severe pain, hemorrhaging, acute anemia, shock, infection and, in extreme cases, death.

Both Marima and Munu smile as they nod their heads and say they are relieved they do not have to undergo the traditional ceremony.