Campaigning against FGM can be dangerous work, at least in the UK. The Guardian has spoken to women who have received death threats, been publicly assaulted and who have had to move house after speaking out about FGM, which involves cutting away some or all of a girl’s external genitalia and can include sewing up …
Tag Archive: Female genital mutilation
Feb 07 2013
Edna Adan versus FGM
Edna Adan is one of the heroic women I learned about courtesy of the Half the Sky series. She built and runs a hospital in Somalia. A Safe World for Women gives us her statement on Female Genital Mutilation. As a midwife, I have been delivering babies for 50 years, many of whom were being …
Dec 11 2012
Surgeries and modifications
There’s the Hastings Center report itself, which was the source of Lisa Wade’s article. Zinnia Jones has a great, detailed post on it. I’ll just mention some things that jump out at me. Starting with the title. Seven Things to Know about Female Genital Surgeries in Africa They’re not surgeries. If you’re walking down the …
Dec 11 2012
Women who
Now that the first steam has dissipated a little, a closer look at one part of Lisa Wade’s “Balanced Look” at cutting off parts of the genitalia of very young girls. The third item in her list of useful things for people to know so that they can take a more “balanced” approach to Female …
Jul 24 2012
Thousands of British girls are the victims of wounding with intent
Nick Cohen notes that it’s progress when violence against women and girls is treated as such. Odd though it may seem to older readers, the Crown Prosecution Service now regards itself as a liberal organ of the state. This week it is making a great play of its success in deterring violence against women. Its …
May 16 2012
Those “moderate” Islamists running Egypt
Like Freedom and Justice Party MP Azza al-Garf, who publicly supports FGM. Egypt’s New Women Foundation said they are suing Islamist Parliament member Azza al-Garf over her pro-female genital mutilation (FGM) statements. The women’s rights foundation sent a letter to the speaker of parliament Saad al-Katatny, informing him of legally going after Garf and asking for …
Mar 31 2012
The Muslim Brotherhood calls it beautification
Via Deeyah, via Mona Eltahawy: Azza El Garf of the Freedom and Justice Party – the Muslim Brotherhood party – disapproves of the ban on FGM. She condemns the notorious “virginity tests” that military officers and doctors are accused of perpetrating on a group of female protesters in March 2011. But she disagrees with Egypt’s 2008 ban …
Mar 25 2012
It’s not a priority
I saw a powerful BBC report on FGM in Egypt the other day. The most chilling part is at the very end (11:00) when Sue Lloyd Roberts asks a Salafist honcho if he’s on board with the campaign to end FGM and he said it’s not a priority. She pressed him by saying, “So you wouldn’t …
Oct 16 2011
Men couldn’t hear the girl’s screams
One small bit of good news, for a change. The movement to end genital cutting is spreading in Senegal at a quickening pace through the very ties of family and ethnicity that used to entrench it. And a practice once seen as an immutable part of a girl’s life in many ethnic groups and African …
Sep 01 2011
My faith dispels any doubts
And by the way three cheers for female genital mutilation. …some communities see the practice as an integral part of their culture. “I have two daughters and five nieces, all circumcised by doctors. I do not consider it a human rights violation because, according to our religious teachings, it has been divinely ordained. My faith …
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