Cut, then shamed: Menstrual discrimination, female genital mutilation, lifelong systems of control.

Most of them did not even understand such myths because no one bordered explaining anything beyond the obvious mention of ‘cutting’. 

“Most of what I heard came from older girls whispering among themselves. Those conversations often created more fear, so I could not and did not ask questions,” Amina recalls. 

Another young woman, Leila [real name withheld for fear of stigma], said her first menses triggered a different reaction.

“My mother was so excited when I told her about my first menses; she said I should start getting ready for suitors,” she says. 

The experiences of these two women, gathered for this report reveal a pattern that becomes clearer in Female Genital Mutilation, FGM, Menstrual Discrimination, two of the world's most common forms of discrimination against women and girls, that have been treated as entirely separate stories. 

Though the names of our interlocutors have been changed to protect their identities, their stories are not unusual, as campaigners now argue that menstrual discrimination and female genital mutilation are one-half of a story that has been told for decades as two separate ones. 

The two issues have been treated for decades as separate issues; one a human rights violation, the other a health and hygiene problem, but both are now being framed as tools in one lifelong system to control the menstruating body.

FGM and menstrual discrimination, researchers say, are siblings in a system of control. Drawing on the Dignified Menstruation framework developed by the Global South Coalition for Dignified Menstruation, GSCDM, researchers argue the separation between FGM and menstrual shame has hidden the deeper issue. 

“Before a menstruator learns what menstruation is, they have already learned that their bodies belong to others,” reads part of the GSCDM framework document. 

In that view, FGM is the ‘older sibling’ building a gate before menarche, while menstrual discrimination follows silence, whispers and restrictions. But as girls grow, the barriers change form but not purpose. 

“It's like planting a tree and then tying it down at every stage, it can never grow tall and strong,” stakeholders state. 

Amina’s experience perfectly captures the situation. “The decision was made by the older members of my family. My parents followed what they believed was expected by the community. There was also pressure from relatives who felt that an uncut girl would bring shame to the family,” she says. 

Advocates map the pattern across a girl’s life, where before menarche, their body is controlled pre-emptively through cutting and at the first period; instead of education, girls meet silence and fear. 

As teenagers, the restrictions grow, school is missed, and girls withdraw from peers and finally as women, the limits become invisible ropes affecting choice, leadership and freedom.

Not just a Cameroonian, but global problem

The pattern repeats itself beyond Cameroon. In Sierra Leone for example, most girls join the ‘Bondo’ society, where cutting and menarche historically happen at the same age, making both one event that marks a girl as ready to be watched and controlled by the community.

In parts of Kenya, women who had been cut could not tell if period pain was normal or caused by the cutting echoing Amina’s worry in Cameroon. While in Egypt, families still say cutting keeps a girl ‘clean and pure’, the same two words used to shame menstruators.

In Indonesia, on the other hand, about half of all girls are cut with families often citing tradition or religion. Just like menstrual shame, the practice is passed down quietly from grandmother, to mother, then to daughter.

These accounts in different countries, the report states, show one fact, “…different places, different words, but same belief underneath: A body that has not been cut, or a body that is bleeding, is dirty and must be fixed or hidden”.

Both cutting and menstrual secrecy signal marriageability according to proponents. 

“Cutting is meant to lower a girl's feelings; keeping menstruation secret stops menstruators from learning about their own body thus taking away the power to choose,” it adds. 

A new lens to look at the problem

Global anti-FGM work has focused on health impacts, awareness and laws. UNICEF’s 2024 global report estimated that over 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM, a 15% increase since 2016. 

The UN warns the current rate of decline is too slow to meet the 2030 elimination target. Nevertheless, advocates argue, that the numbers say nothing about menstrual discrimination affecting virtually every girl in these countries, cut or not.

The GSCDM model proposes the Dignified Menstruation approach based on four principles; that outline respect for girls from birth to old age, normalizing menstruation, addressing health, money, school and family not just handing out pads and respecting culture while rejecting harm. 

“Ending the cutting without ending the shame is only half the job,” the report concludes.

UN bodies are beginning to make the link. CEDAW has noted that shaming or isolating girls for menstruating is part of the same system that treats women as less than. 

Another UN report has called menstrual discrimination a ‘hidden gap the world has quietly ignored for years’. Using the image of a river to explain the lifelong impact. 

“At the start, FGM is like a dam built across her path, blocking her before she even knows the waters of menstruation. But removing that dam alone isn't enough,” it states. Downstream come silence, shame and exclusion.

“Month after month, year after year, the wound shifts, reopens, and keeps reshaping her journey. Unless we clear the whole river, the dam, and the hidden barriers downstream, the river will not flow freely,” it adds. 

Moving beyond the problem to the solution

To address the issue, the reports advocate stakeholders to teach about menstruation inside the same programs that work to end cutting or Female Genital Mutilation, working with women who have lived through cutting and menstrual discrimination help design solutions and bringing families, schools, religious leaders and government together. 

This would ensure that success is measured by how much freedom and choice girls gain, not only by counting how many cuttings are stopped.

For girls like Amina and Leila, the answer will determine whether the next generation learns about their bodies through fear and whispers or with dignity, knowledge and choice.

By Angwi Njamah: She is a Buea-based journalist with CBS Radio