Female Circumcision is a human rights violation

cocorioko.net
 Article 21 of the African Charter is on the rights and welfare of a child, protecting him/her against harmful social and cultural practices and this includes the elimination of all harmful practices affecting the welfare, dignity normal growth and development of the child.
In Africa about 140 million girls have undergone female genital mutilation (or circumcision as others would want to call it) and 2 million are subjected to it every year. Several basic human rights are violated by the procedure. These primarily include the right of physical integrity, the right to freedom from violence and discrimination and in most severe cases, the right to life.
FGM is an irreversible operation that removes part or all of a girl's external genital organs. It's performed on women but mostly done on girls between the ages of 4 and 12. The practice is performed in various ways which include just the removal of the clitoris; removal of the clitoris and surrounding labia; infibulations –where all the external genitalia are removed and the opening is stitched so that only a small hole remains; a variety of unclassified traumatic procedures of cutting, stretching or piercing performed on the external genitalia, such as cauterization by burning of the clitoris and tissue surrounding the opening of the vagina.

In addition to the above, research done by World Health Organisation involving 30,000 African women found that 'circumcised' women were 31% more likely to have a caesarean delivery, 66% higher chances of  having a baby that needed to be revived and 55% more likely to have a child who died before or after birth. In addition to the physical complications, there are psychological and sexual impacts including severe trauma, depression and/or frigidity.

Contributed by Gandolf