Tackling FGM in refugee camps

 irinnews
GOZ BEIDA, 6 January 2010 (IRIN) - The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Chad is identifying pregnant women in refugee camps who have had their genitalia cut, in order to better prepare for potential complications, according to UNHCR and its medical partners. The exercise is part of efforts in the camps to tackle the health fallout of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) as well as prevent new cutting.
Since September 2009 heath clinic workers at the Djabal camp in eastern Chad started recording how many prenatal patients had been cut; for September it was 22 among 330 women. "This helps us identify at-risk pregnancies because women with closed vaginas [resulting from FGM/C] can tear while giving birth," camp health director Nassourou Drassadou told IRIN.

Contributed by Gandolf

Google Alert - "female circumcision" OR "genital mutilation" OR "genital cut"

Google News Alert for: "female circumcision" OR "genital mutilation" OR "genital cut"

Mauritanian Muslim imams initiate rare ban on female circumcision Ethiopian Review Human rights campaigners who have been struggling for years to eliminate female genital mutilation (FGM) in West Africa got a boost this week as news ... See all stories on this topic

Uganda Urged to Stop 'Anti-Gay' Bill OneWorld.net In another triumph for sexual and women's health, the Ugandan parliament unanimously passed a bill in early December banning female genital mutilation. ... See all stories on this topic

Torture in Health Care Huffington Post (blog) Female genital mutilation is another practice that can cause severe suffering for no medical purpose. Human Rights Watch spoke with midwives and government ... See all stories on this topic

Health Buzz: One Fifth of U.S. Kids Have High Cholesterol U.S. News & World Report Opponents of circumcision nevertheless call the procedure unnecessary and compare it to female genital mutilation; many contend that it's child abuse and ... See all stories on this topic

WeNews 21 Leader Survives Quake; 4 Haitian Activists Killed Women's eNews A group of 30 Muslim leaders have issued a religious edict banning female genital mutilation in the West African country Mauritania, the Associated Press ... See all stories on this topic

Many here misunderstand Islam's teaching on violence, women, member says Evansville Courier & Press Oppression, female circumcision and families who murder or mutilate female relatives they believe have dishonored them are all cultural trappings, ... See all stories on this topic

Police laud Bongo Civic Union for promoting peace Ghana News Agency He said negative cultural practices that were against the law including female genital mutilation, elopement and widowhood rites had reduced drastically. ... See all stories on this topic

UNICEF (press release) UNICEF and the European Commission support campaign to end female genital ... UNICEF (press release) It's part of a programme that promotes human-rights-based development and encourages communities to abandon female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and ... See all stories on this topic

Hairdos now in Indonesia Muslim clerics` crosshairs Moneycontrol.com ... need to [proscribe] everything as haram or not. Some injustices such as polygamy and female genital mutilation are more important" than rebonding, she said. See all stories on this topic

Where Do We Go from Here? Getting Rid of the Oligarchs OpEdNews No genital mutilation. No disease. No neediness. No lack. No starvation. No hoarding. No ownership. No cheating. No adultery. No hidden agenda. ... See all stories on this topic

Vancouver Courier Hey diddle diddle, Joni Mitchell's Fiddle Vancouver Courier Fans of onscreen genital mutilation and talking foxes rejoice. Things get heavy and disturbing at Vancity Theatre as Lars Von Trier's controversial and ... See all stories on this topic

MPs debate Violence Against Women DeHavilland (press release) (subscription) The Government have developed a number of linked national action plans on domestic violence, which includes tackling female genital mutilation, ... See all stories on this topic

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Ending the culture of FGM

Guardian.co.uk

When I was "circumcised" I was five or six, but it happens to girls as young as four. It starts as a ceremony – the girl is bought clothes, gold earrings and bangles. She has henna put on her hands and feet: the preliminaries are regarded as a celebration where she is the centre of attention.

But later they take her and put her in a gadha, which is shaped like a deep dish. They lay her across it and hold her legs open; there are often three people holding her very tight when she's on the gadha, two holding her legs and hands, and one holding her chest and head.

The equipment is handmade: a sharp curved knife which is not sterilised. And the girl is given no anaesthetic. It is usually mostly women in attendance. They leave a little hole for urination. There are no stitches; they treat the wound with herbs, salt and water. It bleeds a lot and the victim is in great pain. I was horribly frightened and crying. The "ceremony" takes as little as 20 minutes or as long as an hour, depending on how much the girl struggles.

Contributed by Gandolf

Doctor Graeme Reeves may face more charges

The Australian
 POLICE are considering laying a further 24 charges against a NSW doctor who is already facing 69 charges of aggravated sexual assault and female genital mutilation.
Graeme Stephen Reeves, 59, a former obstetrician from Bega on the NSW South Coast, was originally facing 17 charges, including aggravated sexual assault, indecent assault, female genital mutilation, and grievous bodily harm offences, after being charged by police in September 2008.
Last month Sex Crimes Squad detectives laid an additional 52 charges in relation to further allegations of sexual assault, indecent assault, and grievous bodily harm, putting his March trial date for the previous offences in doubt.

Contributed by Gandolf

Google Alert - "female circumcision" OR "genital mutilation" OR "genital cut"

Google News Alert for: "female circumcision" OR "genital mutilation" OR "genital cut"

FORWARD Awarded £30000 To Help Protect Bristol Girls From Genital Mutilation eGov monitor "Female genital mutilation has very serious health implications for girls in this country. Cutting is usually performed before puberty and we estimate that ... See all stories on this topic

Raising Awareness At Davos Forbes (blog) The 2010 winner, Julia Lalla-Maharajh, is pitching the cause of ending female genital mutilation. Now she gets a free trip to Switzerland--five days of ... See all stories on this topic

Kelis makes fun of PETA News Trends Or female circumcision. Or the Rights of Women in America, we are still paid less for the same work as men. "Moreover, the singer took the opportunity to ... See all stories on this topic

Live: Charlotte Gainsbourg's First Live Solo Show Literally Ever Village Voice (blog) ... this year, she won Best Actress at Cannes for a graphic role that included her own genital mutilation; her gamine allure is frequently, mercifully, ... See all stories on this topic

Pro-Life is a misdirection Amador Ledger-Dispatch In other areas, female genital mutilation, foot binding, women burning ("witch burning") and other forms of violence go back five to ten millennia after a ... See all stories on this topic

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Battling Female Genital Mutilation

AllAfrica. com
Kigali — Egypt, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Lesotho and Sierra Leone have numerous cases of female genital mutilation in Africa.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) sometimes called female circumcision or female genital cutting involves the cutting of the girl's genitals in order to curb their sexual desire and preserve their sexual honour before marriage.
It comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. It has no health benefits and harms girls and women in many ways.

Contributed by Gandolf

Independent Appeal: Saved from the agony of female circumcision

The Independant

This is Hanna Abera. She is seven. Her mother and grandmother wanted to slice off part of her genitals. But she was saved by an extraordinarily brave intervention from her aunt after a British charity launched a programme of education on the consequences of female circumcision – which is still widely practised throughout parts of Africa and the Middle East.

No one knows how many women are subjected to the procedure but it is thought that over two million procedures are performed every year. Amnesty International estimates that over 130 million women worldwide have been affected by some form of what it calls female genital mutilation.

 Contributed by Gandolf

Maasai warriors take on AIDS

Irin Plus News
MAGADI, 29 December 2009 (PlusNews) - Attempts to promote HIV awareness among Kenya's Maasai community have often foundered on the community's unwillingness to accept externally driven change; but a new initiative is using Maasai 'morans', or warriors, to spread the word.
"The Maasai are very traditional people and the best way to reach them is to go in without trying to dilute their culture - we give them free space to learn by using cultural systems to integrate reproductive health education," said Peter Ngura, programme manager for a nomadic youth project of the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), a health and development NGO.
"Because I have been taught about the dangers of sex without a condom and circumcizing girls and beating women, I have made it my duty to tell the same to my fellow 'morans'," he told IRIN/PlusNews. "There are things we have done like cutting women [female genital mutilation/cutting] but I think there haven't been valid reasons for doing it."

Contributed by Gandolf

Uganda Bans Female Circumcision

EmpowerHer
The Ugandan Parliament unanimously passed a bill in the beginning of December, 2009, that bans female circumcision which is also known as female genital mutilation, or FGM.
According to the United Press International, people who are convicted of performing FGM will have to spend up to 10 years in prison and will face life sentences in those cases where the girl dies from this brutal procedure. The Ugandan Parliament is considering an amendment that would give compensation to the victims of this form of mutilation.

Contributed by Gandolf

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

"would not the Covenant also exclude any African Anglican bishop practicing or promoting female circumcision?"

Virtueonline.org
The covenant (section 4) talks of "interdependence" and argues that "where a shared mind has not been reached...every effort must be made to facilitate agreement." It is true that the Standing Committee may request a Church to defer a controversial action, say consecrating Mary Glasspool, a lesbian, as the next Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles, but would not the Covenant also exclude any African Anglican bishop practicing or promoting female circumcision? Why infer that homosexuals are the only persons at risk of breaking up the communion.

Strange irony of bishops' multiculturalism

Irish Times .Com
There are profound philosophical and practical problems with this version of multiculturalism. Philosophically, it ends up eating its own tail, as respect for one "identity" ends up canceling out another. If female genital mutilation is a protected part of an African identity, what happens to women's rights?
If it's okay for imams to preach hatred of homosexuals, is it okay for homosexuals to teach hatred of Muslims?
And who gets to define a "tradition" anyway? (Usually, of course, middle-aged or elderly men in dresses.)
Most obviously, of course, the purveyors of this ideology in the religious sphere don't actually believe it themselves. With a very few exceptions, religions are founded on the idea of a unique and superior access to the mind of God. The relativism that they sometimes adopt is merely strategic. If the Catholic bishops actually believed the stuff that they are currently spouting – that everybody's faith or lack of faith has the same status in a lovely world of pluralism or diversity – they would be Bahais or Unitarians.

Contributed by Gandolf

When race, religion and 'culture' must come second to what is right

Mail Online
When I saw the tear-stained face of Hanim Goren, the mother of 15-year-old Muslim schoolgirl Tulay, who was murdered by her own father (I refuse to dignify the crime with the word 'honour'), I'm afraid all politically correct niceties and notions of acceptance, tolerance and inclusion went flying straight out of the window.

Social workers, too, are terrified of upsetting people who are clearly monsters, because of their race and religion. This was obviously the case in the murder of Victoria Climbie when socalled professionals failed to interfere, dazzled by respect for something they mistook as 'culture' there's an overused word if ever there was one) when in fact it was just plain old 'cruelty'.
...
The policing of crimes that are 'alien' to our culture (there is also the nasty practice of female genital mutilation) needs to be far tougher, if the training video shown to officers who deal with such matters is anything to go by.

I wish, when I was stopped for speeding, that I had been treated with such care for my feelings.

Contributed by Gandolf

Organizations cash in on Female Genital Mutilation

Daily Nation
Unscrupulous non-governmental organisations have flocked to the Kerio Valley area and are soliciting cash from donors on the pretext of fighting female genital mutilation (FGM).

More than 300 girls have undergone the dangerous rite of passage in the region this year despite intensified anti-FGM campaigns by the government and religious groups.

At the same time, more than 100 girls rescued from forceful circumcision in Marakwet District have undergone an alternative rite of passage.

Contributed by Gandolf

At least 109 girls and women were subjected to rape, genital mutilation or kidnapping

The New York Times
The U.N. report, based on 687 interviews conducted by investigators in Conakry and elsewhere in late November and early December, corroborated witness reports that more than 150 people were killed or went missing during a rally.
At least 109 girls and women were subjected to rape, genital mutilation or kidnapping, with hundreds more subjected to torture and abuse, the report said.
Asked by a legislator what France, the former colonial ruler of Guinea, was doing to ensure that these findings resulted in prosecutions, Kouchner said that the International Criminal Court had taken on the issue of its own accord.

Contributed by Gandolf

Strange irony of bishops' multiculturalism

Irish Times .Com
There are profound philosophical and practical problems with this version of multiculturalism. Philosophically, it ends up eating its own tail, as respect for one “identity” ends up cancelling out another. If female genital mutilation is a protected part of an African identity, what happens to women’s rights? If it’s okay for imams to preach hatred of homosexuals, is it okay for homosexuals to teach hatred of Muslims? And who gets to define a “tradition” anyway? (Usually, of course, middle-aged or elderly men in dresses.) Most obviously, of course, the purveyors of this ideology in the religious sphere don’t actually believe it themselves. With a very few exceptions, religions are founded on the idea of a unique and superior access to the mind of God. The relativism that they sometimes adopt is merely strategic. If the Catholic bishops actually believed the stuff that they are currently spouting – that everybody’s faith or lack of faith has the same status in a lovely world of pluralism or diversity – they would be Bahais or Unitarians.

Contributed by Gandolf

Is the Republic of Guinea a blessing or a curse ?

Inter religious marriages are very common among the people, and these relationships work very well. The country's constitution is monogamous although polygamy is acceptable here. Female genital mutilation is being practiced equally by Moslems and Christians alike. Traditional beliefs go side by side with religion, even among Christians. Tribalism/ racism are on the rise but the nation unites as one people to protect their country. Guineans are known to segregate the 'slaves'/ griot (praise singers) from the upper class. No matter one’s status in life, the cast system affects a lot of people. But most people do get along. I have made Guinea my home for the past 12 years. I’ve witnessed many internal problems escalate, only to dissipate quietly. It's a blessing.

Uganda’s Inhumane Bill

TIMESONLINE

Why this African nation, which this week approved a landmark Bill banning female genital mutilation and has shown commendable past honesty in confronting ignorance about Aids, should now consider such a benighted Bill is no mystery. Prejudice has always been strong in Africa against homosexuality, as it is in the Caribbean. This has been fanned by the row within the Anglican communion over gay clergy and by the tentative attempts by a few gay Africans to call for greater tolerance. But political groups have seen easy advantage in exploiting this prejudice. In the Church, as among those seeking voter support, branding homosexuality as a Western perversion is an easy way to hit out at perceived Western cultural dominance. This link has been encouraged by the recent visit of leaders of US conservative Christian ministries that promote therapy for gays to become heterosexual.

Male and Female Circumcision in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Communities

A Religious Debate, by Doctor Sami Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh
"Many doctors and religious men were encouraged to start talking about female circumcision; however, the circumcision of males is still an obj ectionable topic. I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Sami Abu Sahlieh, the author of this book, that the campaign against circumcision should include both sexes, not just females. The crime is one, even if they vary in degree or form. "

Swiss Minaret Ban a Setback for MidEast Diplomacy

The Layalina Review

“Most Muslims accept the minaret as an architectural conduit for the call to prayer, but most do not seek political power, subscribe to the burqa, tolerate forced marriages, or accept genital mutilation of girls,” comments Ahmed Rehab at the Huffington Post.