Excision, a silent tragedy for indigenous girls in Colombia

Alejandrina Guasorna only discovered as an adult that she had undergone excision the day she was born. A sometimes deadly practice which continues in certain indigenous communities in Colombia, the only country in Latin America where it exists and in which a ban is under study.

In the mountains planted with coffee trees in the department of Risaralda (west), ancestral territory of the Embera people, the removal of the clitoris continues to affect dozens or even hundreds of girls. No official figures exist.

When babies are born, midwives use a blade or a hot nail, women from the Embera Chami reserve in Pueblo Rico, a territory under indigenous jurisdiction, tell AFP.

Ms. Guasorna, aged 74, learned that she had undergone excision at birth through rumors, later confirmed by her sister. Among the Embera, the subject is taboo.

“We often saw dead little girls,” she told AFP, “we thought it was normal.” This farmer helped with the births of the women in her family but without performing genital mutilation.

To eradicate this practice, some indigenous leaders as well as parliamentarians presented for the first time a bill currently being debated in the Colombian Parliament.

Its objective: to ban excision, but without imposing prison sentences on midwives, considered victims of "lack of information". The initiative mainly provides for preventive actions.

- Buried without death certificate -

In the communities where it is practiced, excision is supposed to prevent babies from becoming "easy" girls or from having their clitoris grow to the point of turning into a penis, Embera women explain.

Without this organ, whose function is pleasure, sexual relations are sometimes associated with suffering.

Etelbina Queragama has her face painted with traditional designs. This 63-year-old housewife says she “never” felt anything during sex other than “pain”. One of his seven children translates his words from Embera into Spanish.

The total or partial removal of the clitoris can lead to bleeding and infections, sometimes even death, and constitutes a violation of the fundamental rights of girls, recalls the World Health Organization.

According to the NGO Equality Now, 204 genital mutilations were carried out in Colombia between 2020 and 2025.

There are no consolidated figures: the remoteness of the communities and the secrecy surrounding this phenomenon make it difficult to identify cases in the South American country.

“There is an incredible under-registration,” says Sarita Patiño, a doctor in one of the hospitals that sees victims, in Pueblo Rico. Since the start of the year, there have already been six cases.

In February, a six-month-old baby arrived with a fever. "L