AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
When he was a witch doctor, Moussa Diallo would regularly smear himself in a lotion made from a clitoris cut from a girl subjected to female genital mutilation.
“I wanted to be a big chief, I wanted to dominate,” said the small but charismatic fiftysomething from northwest Ivory Coast.
“I put it on my face and body” every three months or so “for about three years”, said Diallo, who asked AFP not to use his real name.
Genitalia cut from girls in illegal “circumcision” ceremonies is used in several regions of the West African country to “make love potions” or magic ointments that some believe will help them “make money or reach high political office”, said Labe Gneble, head of the National Organisation for Women, Children and the Family (ONEF).
A ground down clitoris can sell for up to around $170 (152 euros), the equivalent of what many in Ivory Coast earn in a month.
Diallo stopped using the unctions a decade ago, but regional police chief Lieutenant N’Guessan Yosso confirmed to AFP that dried clitorises are still “very sought after for mystical practices”.
And it is clear from extensive interviews AFP conducted with former faith healers, circumcisers, social workers, researchers and NGOs, that there is a thriving traffic in female genitalia for the powers they supposedly impart.
Many are convinced the trade is hampering the fight against female genital mutilation (FGM), which has been banned in the religiously diverse nation for more than a quarter of a century.
Despite that, one in five Ivorian women are still being cut, according to the OECD, with one in two being mutilated in parts of the north.
Cut and mixed with plants
Before he had a crisis of conscience and decided to campaign against FGM, Diallo said he was often asked by the women who performed excisions around the small town of Touba to use his powers to protect them from evil spells.
Female circumcision has been practised by different religions in West Africa for centuries, with most girls cut between childhood and adolescence. Many families consider it a rite of passage or a way to control and repress female sexuality, according to UN children’s agency UNICEF, which condemns cutting as a dangerous violation of girls’ fundamental rights.
Beyond the physical and psychological pain, cutting can be fatal, lead to sterility, birth complications, chronic infections and bleeding, not to mention the loss of sexual pleasure.
France 24 for more