Genital surgery helps Burkina's mutilated women

By Naomi Schwarz

OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Abi Sanon was seven days old when she went under the knife.

Growing up in Burkina Faso, she thought all women had part of their clitoris cut out in an age-old custom practiced in various forms in much of Africa and parts of the Middle East.

"But when I got older, I had friends who had not been excised, from Burkina Faso, but especially my Ivorian, Beninoise, and Cameroonian friends," said Sanon, 35.

"I learned that for them sexuality was pleasurable, whereas for me it was mostly painful."

Now help is at hand for Sanon and women like her in the poor West African country, in the form of a surgical operation to reconstruct the clitoris and restore some sexual sensation.

Sanon first heard of the procedure being performed far away in Paris, but could not get a visa.

Then she heard the surgery was available in Burkina Faso, a country cited by experts as one of the most progressive in trying to end the tradition, and the first in Africa to make the reconstructive surgery available.

"I went to the doctor the next day," she told Reuters.