Tag: FGM

INDONESIA: Female genital mutilation persists despite ban

Muslims invariably lie and deny that clit-cutting has anything to do with Islam.  While it is correct  that FGM was practiced in some parts of Africa before the 7th century, the same cannot be said for Indonesia, which was largely Hindu and Buddhist until 500 years ago. Even 30 years ago the practice was as foreign as the hideous  Middle Eastern shrouds, which are now seen as ‘obligatory’ and falsely called ‘traditional dress’.

As you can see from this article, FGM is practiced only for one reason:  In March this year, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country’s largest Muslim organization, issued an edict supporting FGM/C, though a leading cleric told the NU’s estimated 40 million followers “not to cut too much”.

Thanks to Islamization Watch

Dede Jafar playing with her ten month old granddaughter. Dede did not hesitate for a moment to have her only granddaughter genitally mutilated. FGM is still widely practised in Indonesia,  even after the government ban in 2006

JAKARTA, 2 September 2010 (IRIN) – Though the Indonesian government banned female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) four years ago, experts say religious support for the practice is more fervent than ever, particularly in rural communities.

A lack of regulation since the ban makes it difficult to monitor, but medical practitioners say FGM/C remains commonplace for women of all ages in this emerging democracy (?) of 240 million – the world’s largest Muslim nation.

Although not authorized by the Koran, the practice is growing in popularity.

With increased urging of religious leaders, baby girls are now losing the top or part of their clitoris in the name of faith, sometimes in unsanitary rooms with tools as crude as scissors.

‘Nothing to do with Islam’- right?  Wrong:

“We fear if [FGM/C] gets more outspoken support from religious leaders it will increase even more. We found in our latest research that not only female babies are being mutilated, but also older women ask for it,” said Artha Budi Susila Duarsa, a university researcher at Yarsi University in Jakarta.

While the procedure in Indonesia is not as severe as in parts of Africa and involves cutting less flesh, it still poses a serious health concern.

“Even a small wound on the genitals can lead to sexual, physiological and physical problems,” Duarsa said.

Indonesia forbade health officials from the practice in 2006 because they considered it a “useless” practice that “could potentially harm women’s health”.

However, the ban was quickly opposed by the Indonesian Ulema Council, the highest Islamic advisory body in Indonesia.

In March this year, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country’s largest Muslim organization, issued an edict supporting FGM/C, though a leading cleric told the NU’s estimated 40 million followers “not to cut too much”.

Sexually mutilated infants, is this cult perverse or what?

Read more »

“It is against human rights,” said Maria Ulfah Anshor, a women’s rights activist and former chair of the women’s wing of the NU. “For women there is absolutely no benefit and advantage.”

Continue reading INDONESIA: Female genital mutilation persists despite ban

Rise in female genital mutilation in Londonistan

Cultural Enrichment

(as usual, nothing to do with Islam. Except when it does: ‘its the sunnah of the profit’)

The number of cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) reported in London has risen and some procedures are taking place in the city, a doctor has said.

BBC/thanks to the RoP

Dr Comfort Momah, who runs a clinic in Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, said she sees 350 women and children a year.

The Met said it was aware that FGM was taking place in London and had intervened in 122 cases since 2008, including 25 times this year.

But it said that as it was a “taboo” subject there had been no prosecutions.

FGM is illegal in the UK and anybody convicted for it can be jailed for up to 14 years. The law protects British citizens even if they undergo the procedure abroad.

Dr Momah, who runs one of the 11 African Well Women Clinics in London, said a majority of the cases she saw were from African countries, including Somalia, Eritrea, Gambia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

‘Need to prosecute’

She said: “In London FGM is widely spread and in my clinic we see about 350 women and children with FGM related problems every year and do reversal in about 100 cases every year.

“We do have people calling me or calling other clinics saying I know a circumciser in Leytonstone, I know a doctor who is performing it within the community, but they won’t give you the information.”

She added that more cases are being reported since 2005.

British girls undergo horror of genital mutilation —

Continue reading Rise in female genital mutilation in Londonistan

Retreat From the "Nick?" Not So Fast…..

Tim Blair: MUTILATION NATION

FORMER sex discrimination commissioner Pru Goward says genital mutilation of girls is widespread as doctors here consider the practice.

By Padraic Murphy and Kate Sikora/Daily Telegraph

“There’s not been one prosecution. People coming here as a refugee or a migrant need to have it explained to them it attracts a jail sentence, we will prosecute you and if they don’t like that they should apply to go to another country.”

The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians will next month discuss backing “ritual nicks”, a modified form of genital mutilation.


With the rise in Somali and Sudanese living in Australia, doctors are seeing more cases of young girls, and women, needing surgery after illegal operations. Backers of “ritual nick” said it was a superficial procedure leaving no long-term damage.

RANZCOG secretary Gino Pecoraro said the policy would be discussed at next month’s Women’s Health Committee meeting.

“We will need to start to think about [its introduction] but we would have to speak to community leaders from Australia,” Dr Pecoraro said.

“If a nick could meet the cultural needs of a particular woman, then it might save her from going through what can really be drastic surgery.

“But we need to make sure we do not legitimise the ritualistic maiming of children.”

But many are outraged, some saying a “ritual nick” is still child abuse and legitimises female mutilation.

Read it all

Related links:

Just a little “NICK”, right?

Warning: Graphic Stuff!

Continue reading Retreat From the "Nick?" Not So Fast…..

Australia: a clit-cutting nation?

Tim Blair

America’s slicing community  forced medical authorities to review their previous opposition to female mutilation:

In areas with large numbers of east Africans – in Seattle and Minnesota, for example – it was clear that just saying no was often inadequate.

‘’We had families explicitly tell [paediatricians] that if we did nothing they would take their kids back to Africa where they would not have control over how harmful a procedure was done,’’ Dr Diekema said. ‘’What they needed was something that satisfied what they believed were the demands of their religion.’’  PEN vs SWORD

As in the United States, Australian medics waver:

Australian doctors are considering a controversial form of genital mutilation on baby girls.

The practice involving cutting a girl’s genitals, sometimes with razors or pieces of glass, could be allowed in a clinical setting to stem illegal backyard procedures which are leaving young girls scarred for life.

The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians will next month discuss backing “ritual nicks”, a modified form of genital mutilation.

What’s to discuss? Today’s editorial says it straight.

Should the U.S. be a safe haven from female genital mutilation?  Not according to the AAP. /RoP files

FGM: Multiculti Mush Trumps Feminism

The Clit-Cutting Debate We Just Can’t Have

The Corner [Mark Steyn]

I wrote last week about the American Academy of Pediatrics’ support for Female Genital Mutilation-lite – a “ritual nick.” In return, I received a remarkable number of letters asserting I’d invented the whole thing. Not so. You can find chapter and verse and here.

Ah, a custom from the old country! Why didn’t you say so…?

One reason why readers think we right-wing madmen are just making this stuff up is because of the shameful silence (and worse) of western feminists, who implicitly accept a two-tier sisterhood, in which some women get to lead the lives they choose while others, in the interests of “cultural sensitivity,” get a literally rawer deal that begins with FGM and, if they’re really unlucky, ends with “honor killing.”

So I’m happy to salute the great Tina Brown, a fully paid-up Clinton-Blairite but not one prepared to descend into barbarism. Over at her Daily Beast, Ms. Brown has published a tough and unsparing column by Ayaan Hirsi Ali on what the AAP’s “nick” really means — and where it leads. I have one tiny quibble with the e-mail alert Tina sent out:

Do read the extraordinary piece by Ayaan Hirsi Ali this morning on The Daily Beast on the outrageous proposal from the American Academy of Pediatrics to “nick” little girls, a slippery slope to tolerating genital cutting in the U.S. — Tina Brown

“Genital cutting” is itself a euphemism. In its 1998 policy position, the AAP used the phrase “female genital mutilation.” A decade on, they prefer to call it “female genital cutting” — “mutilation” being regarded by cultural accommodationists as too judgmental. At the rate this slippery slope is greased, you can guess where we’ll be in another decade.

Horror in the U.S.: 228,000 women have undergone or are at risk for female genital mutilation

H/T JW

“Cutting” doesn’t describe it. “Circumcision” doesn’t, either. It is mutilation, plain and simple, and must be recognized as such. But at least this story doesn’t entirely tiptoe around the prevalence of the practice in Muslim countries.

It may be a millennia-old practice, but the fact remains that Islamic law embraced it, and that is the reason for its persistence — it is not at all merely “cultural.” From the Shafi manual of Islamic jurisprudence, Umdat al-Salik (Reliance of the Traveler), certified as “reliable” by the Misunderstanders of Islam Al-Azhar University in Egypt:

“Circumcision is obligatory (O: for both men and women. For men it consists of removing the prepuce from the penis, and for women, removing the prepuce (Ar. bazr) of the clitoris (n: not the clitoris itself, as some mistakenly assert). (A: Hanbalis hold that circumcision of women is not obligatory but sunna, while Hanafis consider it a mere courtesy to the husband.)” — ‘Umdat al-Salik e4.3

Regional variances of the practice in Muslim communities depend just as much on the justification of the principle in Islamic law. Those who would defend “just a little” cutting as somehow more acceptable — including the American Academy of Pediatrics, with their approval of a “ritualized nick” (background and commentary here and here)– miss the point: Mutilation is mutilation, and must not be allowed to happen on U.S.soil. Period.

“Pressure for female genital cutting lingers in the U.S.,” by Stephanie Chen for CNN, May 21:

Continue reading Horror in the U.S.: 228,000 women have undergone or are at risk for female genital mutilation

The term "traditional or customary practices" is a shameful euphemism for a crime against females. Female Genital Mutilation is crime against humanity

FGM: ‘traditional practice’ in 32 countries, of which 29 are OIC States — 3 million girls mutilated worldwide each year, 95% of Egyptians

JW

Comments by David G. Littman, NGO Representative at the UN in Geneva:
Association for World Education and World Union for Progressive Judaism


Oral statement (from UN webcast above) reproduced verbatim below

We decided to speak out again on a “traditional practice”, whose religious links are vociferously denied, despite irrefutable UNICEF facts and figures. FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) is spreading in Europe with some migrant populations that practise it traditionally. There are now over 1,500 cases in Geneva and nearly 10,000 in Switzerland, with hundreds of thousands in European Union countries. This won’t cease until it is strongly penalized, backed by an unambiguous fatwa from the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar (Cairo) stating, unambiguously, that this ‘cultural relativism’ is forbidden by all legal traditions in Islam – unfortunately, this is unlikely. The subject is still considered taboo at the UN and an explicit mention of Sharia justification usually leads to an angry denial and rude denigrations, as we have learned from personal experience since 1993.

Continue reading The term "traditional or customary practices" is a shameful euphemism for a crime against females. Female Genital Mutilation is crime against humanity

"Don't cut too deep…"

Clit-cutting in Indonesia.

Look out for ‘defenders of Islam’ who’ll pop up to tell us its all ‘cultural’ and has ‘nothing to do with Islam’. 30 years ago virtually unheard of in this formerly Hindu nation, female genital mutilation is now common like the hijab. According to a 2003 study by the Population Council, an international research group, 96 percent of families surveyed reported that their daughters had undergone some form of circumcision genital mutilation by the time they reached 14.   Islam, the gift that keeps on giving….

Farahat Sa’id Al-Munji: The Prophet said that circumcision is obligatory for men , and is noble for women. … She said: Yes. He said: “Trim it, but don’t cut it off. ……

Bagus BT Saragih ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Makassar, South Sulawesi/thanks to Mullah

Some of our readers requested to post the photos below the fold, since they cause nightmares. Although these pictures were originally printed in the NYT, it seems their horror is

The butchers of Indonesia

Warning: the following images are VERY GRAPHIC!

Continue reading "Don't cut too deep…"

We got mail! From Ameena: "Clit-Cutting Prevents HIV/AIDS…"

Thank you, Ameena! Where would we be without Islamic science and medicine! How can we allow our adulterous women to live another day without being properly infibulated!? I’m sharpening my razor as  I’m typing. I’ll get right to it!

Ameena posts from California, ironically under cleansexy@gmail.com/could be a fake e-mail…

Female Circumcision Prevents HIV/AIDS

Stallings et al. (2009) reported that, in Tanzanian women, the risk of HIV among women who had undergone Female Circumcision was roughly half that of women who had not; the association remained significant after adjusting for region, household wealth, age, lifetime partners, and union status.

Female circumcision and HIV infection in Tanzania:
for better or for worse?
(3rd IAS conference on HIV pathogenesis and treatment)
International AIDS Society

——————————————————–

Kanki et al. reported that, in Senegalese prostitutes, women who had undergone Female Circumcision had a significantly decreased risk of HIV-2 infection when compared to those who had not.

Kanki P, M’Boup S, Marlink R, et al. “Prevalence and risk determinants of human immunodeficiency virus type 2 (HIV-2) and human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in west African female prostitutes
Am. J. Epidemiol. 136 (7): 895-907. PMID

FGM in Germany: Stupidity and Complicity Allows Gambian Family to Sexually Mutilate 4 Girls

Here’s a Babelfish translation:

Deutsche Presse:

Hamburg court order saves two girls from genital mutilation

BUT: FOUR SISTERS MUTILATED. COMPLICIT GERMANS  PREVENTED  PROSECUTION. AUTHORITIES:   NO CHANGE  TO CRIMINAL LAW, NO OBLIGATION TO REPORT IT!

Hamburg, 10 January 2010. A provisional order of the district court Hamburg Barmbek protects two under age girls from genital mutilation in Gambia. Although the parents of these children had already four daughters mutilated at one homeland vacation, they do not have to expect criminal consequences. Complicit Germans  and the organization TERRE DES FEMMES registered association defeated the prosecution.

The parents, who live in Hamburg,  allowed their four daughters (two to ten years old)  to be severely mutilated  in 1997 their during a  “holiday trip “to  Gambia   (by cutting out Klitoris and Labia) that they show to this very day symptoms of dissociative Amnesie due to solid trauma by the force. The oldest daughter, at the time of the act ten years old, was left behind in Gambia by  the parents for unknown reasons. Gambia is a strange country  for her.

The above translation is my own. The  Babelfish translation below is not very good, but I think you get the message. If somebody can do a better job please sent it in, much appreciated! Full text in German available here

Continue reading FGM in Germany: Stupidity and Complicity Allows Gambian Family to Sexually Mutilate 4 Girls