On March 24th, 2004, as lawmakers outlined the bill against Female Genital Mutilation, (FGM), the piercing of female genitalia was banned by the Georgia House. The FGM bill (SB 418) was originally proposed to put an end to the custom of female circumcision, or the removal of female genitalia, which is currently practiced by many African countries and immigrant communities in the United States.

FGM, which is usually performed with unsterilized instruments, has equally devastating health consequences of both the emotional and physical kind. Immediate side effects include excruciating pain, hemorrhage, tetanus, septicemia, and death. Among longer term consequences are scarring, infertility, painful sexual intercourse, rupture of the vaginal walls, long and obstructed labor, and chronic infections. FGM has been recognized explicitly as “persecution” by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

In 1996, a federal law that criminalized the practice of FGM was passed, and became effective in 1997. Since 1998, sixteen states in the U.S. have established criminal sanctions against the practice, and, after Ethiopian immigrant Khalid Adem allegedly circumcised his two year old daughter Amirah Joyce Adem with a pair of scissors, many were hoping that Georgia would come through as the seventeenth state to implement similar sanctions.

The bill against female genital mutilation had been approved by the senate, but due to complications involving an amendment to the FGM bill that banned the piercing of any woman’s genitals, the FGM bill eventually failed.

Amending the FGM bill to include the banning of piercing draws a disturbingly inaccurate correlation. It essentially equates consensual piercing of adult women for the sake of sexual pleasure, with the inherently violent crime of removing one of the most pleasurable parts of a woman’s body.

Senator Nadine Thomas, who initially proposed the bill against FGM, had strongly lobbied for the piercing language to be removed. “If the democrats had been in control, and [the piercing amendment] wasn’t there, this never would have happened,” she said of the failed bill. “I do believe that we enjoy freedom of choice, and I think an adult can make a decision about what she wants to do with her body; if she chooses piercing, then that’s okay.”

While she mentioned that good practices and piercing techniques for cleanliness were necessary, Thomas maintained that the anti-piercing sentiment was largely a freedom of choice issue. “I don’t think we need to take away the right of being able to choose and the right of being able to express speech,” she stated. “I’ve had to fight these groups all year; their whole premise is not allowing a woman to have choice, and freedom to what she wants to do with her body. In my opinion - that piercing amendment - that’s what it was all about: trying to go through the back door and take away a woman’s right to choice.”

The piercing amendment, which was sponsored by Republican Representative Bill Heath, was initially proposed to him by an individual who claimed that some parents were piercing their female babies’ genitals.

Thomas confronted the individual and asked her if she knew the amendment was unconstitutional; according to ACLU attorney Maggie Garrett, “prohibiting piercings on the basis of gender violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution.”

“I thought she might be trying to sabotage the bill,” said Thomas. “But she denied it.”

Yet Thomas questioned the motives of Bill Heath. “Why would [Representative Heath] lie?” she queried. “This man didn’t know the politics around [the amendment], he is an engineer and a farmer. And, he was too spontaneous about implementing it.”

“I really don’t feel compelled to discuss it with you,” said Representative Heath when asked to comment on the piercing amendment. “I work for the people of my district here in Georgia, and I work for the people of the state of Georgia. I don’t work for any other people in any other state in the country.”

Senator Thomas has spoken to her colleagues and requested that they introduce the bill again next year. “There are a lot of strong women out there and we’ve all been in the fight,” said Thomas. “You want to maintain your guns, we want to maintain our choice, as women, and as men as well.”

Megg Mass, Outreach Coordinator for the Association of Professional Piercers, spoke out about the piercing language in the amendment to the bill. “It’s a discriminatory measure against women; it’s a discriminatory measure against everyone, because we’re talking about the right of any consenting adult to decide what they do with their body,” said Mass. “It’s very disturbing that [lawmakers] thought they could legislate something being done in a clean and hygienic way, by consenting adults, and in professional studios.”

Regulatory systems for any practice risk falling apart if the practice is made illegal, and female genital piercing is no exception. “Another concern is that [making piercing illegal] will force it underground and put people at the mercy of who’s doing it. People don’t just go to any person [above ground], they go to someplace legitimate,” maintained Mass. “It doesn’t make it any safer, and it sends a horrifying message. We need to keep it above ground, so that parents can go in with teenagers and ask questions; we need to make sure they can have follow ups, have everything in writing, and treat [the process] as you would any other procedure, like getting your hair permed, or getting a wart removed.”

“One of the goals of our organization is to educate health care professionals about performing body art in a safe and hygienic manner, Mass said earnestly. “When folks are getting things done without being educated it may be unclean or unethical.”

Mass noted not only concern for the current issue, but also for the future. “If this can be legislated against, it’s opening the door to various discriminating measures,” she said. “This is not a matter for government at all.” After adding that the new piercing language in the FGM bill meant a higher level of control over women’s bodies than for men, Mass pointed out that it had “started out being a bill against minors,” and had somehow been extended to include “adult women doing something consensual, with full knowledge [of what they are doing].”

Indeed, the bill started off “to provide for the crime of female genital mutilation,” and cited as the “Amirah Joyce Adem Act,” after the two year old suffered a scissor-executed female circumcision at the hands of her father. How such an act can be equated with the consensual piercing of adult women for the sake of pleasure is beyond comprehension for many people; one of whom is Amirah Joyce’s mother, Fortunate Adem.

“I was against the fact that they added piercing [to the bill] because it was minimizing female genital mutilation,” said Adem. “I think the language was too broad. If you want to pierce yourself and you’re an adult, it’s one thing. But when you’re talking about cutting up [a child’s] vaginal parts I have a problem with that.”

Adem, who is South African, said her culture does not practice FGM. Her ex-husband’s culture, however, does. “My ex-husband comes from a country where they mix [this custom] with religion; but it is not a religious issue, it is not proven in the bible, it was created by a man to control a woman,” she asserted.

Adem’s fearlessness in speaking out about what happened to her child allowed the state of Georgia to claim their first documented case. “Georgia should be ashamed of themselves,” said Adem. “They could have been state seventeen, and they failed us; they failed the children. They kept amending it and messing it up, if they hadn’t allowed that to happen there would have been a law.”

Maceo Williams, legislative assistant to Nadine Thomas, was dedicated to helping get the FGM bill passed, but the addition of the piercing amendment brought about new obstacles. “It was put aside for two days for whatever reason before it was ready for me to file, by then the republicans had already done their job,” said Williams.

“It goes back to narrow mindedness,” said Williams about the piercing amendment. “It was totally uncalled for. When you’re talking about FGM, they use whatever is available, a bottle cap, a knife, whatever. When you’re talking about piercing, you’re talking about a trained individual. If the amendment hadn’t been included, [the bill] would have been a law right now.”

Williams, who dedicated two years of his life towards eradicating the practice, was unspeakably frustrated at the political detainment. “There’s a lot of ego-ing going on,” he said regretfully. “The bottom line is, it hurts women, it hurts children, and it’s done under the table. The community [that practices it] covers it up, but it’s wrong because it’s being done in our country, and we don’t do that here.”

And Williams’ work went well beyond the political. From a simple human rights level, he had attempted to educate the refuge community. “Without education the act of legislation won’t do anything,” he pointed out.

Adem, who has started a nonprofit organization called Amirah’s Voice, has also been using education to crusade against the practice. “I believe the only way to eradicate this is through education,” said Adem. “Women need to stand up for themselves, especially once they come to the United States, because here is where you have the opportunity to express yourself and have a voice.”

“A woman has a right to feel sexual pleasure just like a man,” Adem stated. “She should not be a bedpan to a man. I do believe a woman has more to offer than her clitoris, but removing it is stripping away her rights as a human being.” While noting that many women become social outcasts in certain cultures if they do not submit to the tradition, Adem maintains that the practice has nothing to do with religion. “If a woman’s clitoris is not appropriate, then why would it have been created? I believe women need to appreciate their bodies and be proud of them,” she affirmed.

Adem and her co-crusaders against FGM plan to march on the capitol in March of 2005. “We will demand that [the bill] pass next year,” she vowed.

To join the struggle against FGM, visit www.amirahsvoice.org