ABSTRACT
Female circumcision is performed by a female specialist who uses a razor blade for the operation. For girls, the event is a private one, shrouded in secrecy. It is carried out in their own home with perhaps their sisters or a few neighbors' daughters who are a similar age and also need to have the ceremony performed. There are no festivities or public displays, and the male members of the house are banished during the proceedings. Tanzania has received pressure from international groups about the "inhuman practice" of what is now referred to in the English language papers as "female genital mutilation or female genital mutilation." Although the government and nongovernmental agencies oppose the practice, this stance seems to have had relatively little impact on many Iraqw perceptions of the operation, and it is still very much practiced in the homeland. Community-wide circumcision, like all rituals, is controlled by elders.
