Peter Fredericksen, a 63 year old Danish man living in South Africa was arrested when 21 pieces of female genitalia were discovered in his home freezer. He is facing counts of charges on sexual assault, intimidation and domestic violence.
Fredricksen is a gun store owner who lives in the city of Bloemfontein, in the central Free State Province. He was caught when his wife called the police to report that her husband drugged and incapacitated her, then cut off her genitalia. Several surgical equipment anesthetics and photographs were found in his apartment and he confessed to luring women from Lesotho, a neighbouring country, and sedating them before performing illegal operations on them. He documented this atrocious process by taking photographs.
Reports allege that Peter Fredericksen left Denmark in 2006 to escape arrest for illegal dealing in arms and to pursue his interest in female circumcision. His interest in female circumcision began 20 years ago and he took lessons from the popular Danish plastic surgeon Jorn Ege Siana who is now deceased.
However, Fredericksen referred to the female genitalia as ‘trophies’ which conjures a history of European fascination with African women’s private parts.
In 1810, Saartjie Baartman, a 20 year old woman from Khoi Khoi village in South Africa was sold to a Scottish surgeon and exporter of rare museum varieties from South Africa, Alexander Dunlop. Saartjie was seen as rare and a ripe candidate for entertainment in London because of her large buttocks, which was an anomaly for the Europeans who had a particular body shape and further reinforced their beliefs that Africans were somehow genealogically different. Dunlop hoped that his ‘find’ would get him a lucrative buyer in London and he eventually sold Saartjie to Hendrik Cezar, a show man who immediately started organizing exotic exhibitions to show off his latest acquisition.
Named Hottentot Venus, she was presented naked at the circus, adorned with waist beads and feathers. In most of these exhibitions, or human zoo displays, she was pinched and poked to ascertain if her features were ‘natural’. Apart from London, Saartjie also made appearances in other cities in Great Britain. After Dunlop’s death in 1814, she moved to Paris and was exhibited there by S. Réaux – an animal trainer. The following year, Saartjie was painted by several artists in Paris forced to strike poses similar to animals. And even though she was offered money to pose nude, she refused, keeping her genitalia covered. She died in 1815, at the age of 25. Exactly five years after she was lured from her native home.
George Cuvier, the head keeper of the collection of exotic animals at the museum was curious about Baartman, so after her death, he dissected her brain, organs, labia and buttocks and reportedly boiled her flesh to bones which was exhibited for several years after. Cuvier’s physiognomy diagnosis suggested that Saartjie Baartman resembled an ape rather than a woman and because of her elongated labia, she was likened to an Orangutan. This diagnosis cannot be excluded from a scientific obsession throughout the seventeenth century and beyond which likened African women to their sexuality, and nothing more.
While Fredricksen’s intentions are unclear, his behaviour underscores a persistent fascination with African women’s sexuality and bodies. A fascination, that is evident beyond the material acquisition of black women’s genitalia. Until his case is heard by the South African court, the reason behind his obsession with African women genitals may be unknown. But in case there was any confusion, African women are not objects or strange entities, they are humans to be treated with respect and dignity.
