Female genital mutilation is on the rise in the U.S., and a number of doctors here are ramping up their efforts to reverse the damage the practice causes with a relatively new restorative surgery.
Friday marks the U.N.’s International Day of Zero Toleration to Female Genital Mutilation, and a new report found that the risks for girls and women in the U.S. has more than doubled since 2000. But there is renewed hope for females who have been cut as more physicians are offering clitoroplasty, which restores clitoral function.
While reconstructive surgery has long been available, about 10 years ago, French physician Dr. Pierre Foldes pioneered a procedure, which rebuilds the damaged area and rejuvenates the nerve networks so that patients can regain sensitivity and in some cases, attain orgasm, according to the U.N.
“It can certainly improve women’s pleasure and lessen their pain,” Foldes said in a statement in 2012 after studying the results of 3,000 such surgeries. “It also allows mutilated women to recover their identity.”
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“The number one reason is restoration of identity,” she told The Washington Post. “They want their body back and to feel more normal. It’s about not being different any more.”
Six weeks after the surgery, Ayan wrote in an essay for Vice that her menstrual cramps had already eased up and that she’s “healing beautifully.”
“I was immediately overcome by a feeling of completeness,” she wrote. “It was an unfamiliar feeling.”
