KENYA, UGANDA: Men regret being cut, denounce campaign

BlackNews.com
November 30, 2016

Africans Speak Out Against the Mass Circumcision Campaign

by Max Fish
“We respect science honestly, but we do not support what science brings to finish us, to defile our cultures, defile our rights.” — Prince Hillary Maloba

— Since 2008, western public health giants* have been circumcising Africans by the millions to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS. American taxpayers are funding the effort through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). An estimated 12 million men and boys have been circumcised to date. The world has not heard a word from them until now. —
 
Nationwide — The VMMC Experience Project recently sent cameras into Uganda and Kenya to document the realities of the mass circumcision program. Local investigators conducted interviews with 90 affected men and women and found:
1. Africans are told circumcision conveys immunity from HIV. 2. Condom use is at an all-time low, and AIDS is on the rise.
3. The program is killing the very people it is supposed to help.
4. No follow-up post circumcision (cut-and-release approach).
5. Resentment and outrage among Africans.
The “Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision” (VMMC) public health program is the first mass surgical campaign in human history. It targets Africans exclusively, leading some to question whether there are underlying racial motives. For centuries, western stereotypes have held that African men are lascivious or hypersexed, unable to control their sexual urges. Compulsory African-American male circumcision campaigns were proposed as early as the nineteenth century.

Prince Hillary Maloba is a native Kenyan, director of the VMMC Experience Project, and the driving force behind the investigation. “Male circumcision,” he explains, “as a project that has been applied for we [sic] Africans, has failed to reduce HIV the way we were told. Two, we view it as a violation of human rights. How target only one race in the entire world?”

Bishop Cleophas Matete, another native Kenyan, agrees: “I believe the entire process of trying to test it in Africa was wrong from the beginning.”

The mass circumcision campaign was introduced to reduce the incidence of HIV in fourteen sub-Saharan African countries that did not initially practice genital cutting. However, UNAIDS data indicate that the African HIV epidemic has only worsened since 2010—shortly after VMMC was implemented. For the first time since the war on AIDS began, HIV is back on the rise.

The World Health Organization claims that male circumcision curbs female-to-male HIV transmission by up to 60 percent and provides lifelong partial protection against HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Their conclusions derive from a process of contentious surgical experimentation on Africans.

Opponents allege that the targeting of impoverished Africans constitutes a racial and human rights issue. Comparisons are made to the Tuskegee syphilis study. Others argue that the program results in a dangerous false security. The present investigation confirms that men, women, and teens are abandoning condoms out of a belief that they are already protected by circumcision. This in turn increases the spread of HIV.

Prior to the VMMC Experience Project investigation, none have consulted or followed up with the men and women who have been directly affected. Many are living in rural poverty, invisible to the developed world. They have had no platform or voice in the circumcision agenda. Maloba’s investigation is the first to shed light on the African side of the story.

African men and women say the campaign is violating their rights, confusing their cultural identity, and profoundly worsening the AIDS epidemic. They implicate the program in the spike in HIV cases we have seen in recent years. Seven respondents in Maloba’s investigation said that they had acquired HIV because of misinformation around circumcision.
 
“I blame those who told me that if I get circumcised I won’t get HIV,” said one respondent, “and I got HIV already!”

Others mourned the loss of friends, brothers, relatives, and neighbors to AIDS following the procedure they believed would protect them.

“These people are dying of HIV due to ignorance,” a respondent explained.

“If we don’t stop this thing,” Maloba warns, “this community will not have a generation that will take care of the old people.”

Instead of mass circumcision, Africans want funding for sustainable medical facilities, anti-retroviral medications (ARVs), more durable condoms, HIV education, and poverty reduction initiatives.

Many cite AIDS-related tragedies from the VMMC program. They seek an end to the circumcision campaign as a public health disaster and a form of cultural imperialism from the West. “It is something that has been imposed on us,” a reverend explained in his interview. “If I could get a forum to fight it, I could fight it very hard.”

*VMMC-promoting institutions include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, USAID, PEPFAR, Jhpiego (Johns Hopkins University), and numerous NGOs.

About the VMMC Experience Project The VMMC Experience Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit effort to document the effects and aftermath of the world’s first mass surgical campaign. Its aim is to empower the most frequently overlooked contingent in the African circumcision regime: Africans.

GEORGIA: Government may make [female?] genital cutting criminal

This is Georgia the country next to Turkey, and it's not a done deal yet


Agenda.ge
November 24, 2016

Gov’t takes step to declare circumcision a criminal offence

Georgia's Ministry of Justice has begun proceedings to make circumcision, same as female genital mutilation (FGM) illegal in Georgia. [A careful reading suggests that "same as" means "such as" not "like" and that this whole article refers only to female genital cutting.]
 
Acting Minister of Justice Thea Tsulukiani said the Justice Ministry had initiated a law amendment that would make circumcision a criminal offence.

Her comment yesterday followed local media reports that two-three of villages in eastern Kakheti region, inhabited by Muslim Kist people, still addressed FGM.

Several locals told media that circumcision remained part of their tradition that played a role in the 'coming of age' of a girl and was necessary before marriage.

Throughout the world FGM is widely frowned upon, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) saying FGM is the deliberate mutilation of female genitalia, with FGM being described as any procedure that injured the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

The Muslim Kist population still believed FGM was appropriate and meant girls would be a virgin for their wedding night and remain faithful to her husband, as the mutilation prevents women from achieving sexual pleasure.

The process was generally carried out by people who do not have relevant medical knowledge and experience, with no anesthesia and sometimes could be fatal.
"Over the last four years the Government of Georgia has taken a range of steps ... to ensure high level protection of children’s rights,” Tsulukiani said. "The process must continue and conclude with the ratification of the Istanbul Convention I had the honour of signing two years ago. I have big hopes that the new Parliament of Georgia will ratify the Convention,” she added.
A couple of days ago the Ministry of Justice introduced an Article in the Istanbul Convention that envisaged circumcision would become illegal and punishable, said Tsulukiani, adding "unfortunately” there was no earlier information about the existence of the archaic tradition in the "two or three” villages in east Georgia where the practice still occurred.

Representatives of the Muslim religion said their holy scriptures "said nothing" about circumcision and said it was a custom of some ethnic groups that mainly resided in Africa, consequently Islam generally doesn't support FGM.

Georgia’s civil sector has already addressed the issue and said circumcision was one of the "highest level violation of human rights.”

Circumcision is generally carried out on young children aged 2-4 years of age but it can also be carrier out on young adults through the initiative of family members.

ROME: Progress in foreskin regeneration research

VICE: Motherboard
February 17, 2015

How One Company Aims to Help Circumcised Men Grow Their Foreskin Back
by Arikia Millikan

If someone has grown up male in the United States, odds are that he doesn’t have a foreskin. Most Americans likely haven’t given this much thought, and if they have, it’s probably along the lines of “good, it’s better this way.”

But a growing number of men known as "intactivists" are expressing outrage about being circumcised—which they call an “unnecessary amputation”—before they were old enough to understand the implications of the procedure and consider providing consent.

As adults, short of undergoing a complex surgery that transplants scrotal tissue onto the penile shaft, or practicing a body mod technique called ‘tugging’ that can sometimes stretch the remaining foreskin tissue back over the head of the penis, these men have been left to wonder: “What would sex be like with a foreskin?”

Now, a company called Fore​gen purports to soon be able to help these men answer that question by using regenerative medicine to regrow their foreskins—much like a salamander can regrow a severed appendage.

“The premise behind Foregen is that if we are regenerating entire body parts from more complex body parts, why not apply this to the only body part that hundreds of millions of boys are missing,” says Foregen spokesperson Eric Clopper.

Of the 660 million circumcised men worldwide, 115 million of them are American, making the United States the country with the most circumcised men, even outnumbering African and Middle Eastern countries, according to st​ats from the World Health Organization. In fact, the United States is the only developed country where male infant circumcision is the norm, rather than something done out of religious ceremony.

Today, national circumcision rates hover between 50–60 percent, but in the 1980s as many as 83 percent of infants were circumcised in the Midwest; in some places it was so common that physicians wouldn’t even bother cons​ulting new mothers on whether or not they want their infant sons circumcised, they’d just go ahead and do it.

Though circumcision has been steadily dec​reasing in the US, dropping about 10 percent over the past 35 years and hitting a regional low of 30 percent on the present day West Coast, rates are much higher than in European countries. There, only about 10 percent of boys are circumcised, and rates are as low as 1.6 percent in Denmark.

But what exactly are circumcised guys missing? Depending on who you ask, the answer ranges from “penile cancer” to “the best sex you and your partner have never had.” It’s hard to weigh the factors around this issue, as the science is wrought with bias and even deliberate interference, and sexual enjoyment is largely subjective. But after conducting extensive research on the topic, I’ve found the intactivists make a more compelling case.

Since the 1800s, proponents of circumcision in the US have pointed to health as the main reason parents should have their infants circumcised. Back then, circumcision was medically touted as a method of reducing a boy’s urge to masturbate, which was believed by the Puritans of New England to be the cause of illnesses. There’s a pretty clear medical consensus these days that this isn’t the case, but the tradition lingered and foreskin became associated with a new host of ailments.

In December of 2014, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a draft endorsing infant​ male circumcision. This mirrors a 2012 statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics which links circumcision with the decreased transmission of HIV, STDs that can cause cancer, and urinary tract infections. However, both statements were called out ​by the international medical community by and large as lacking on a scie​ntific and eth​ical basis.

When it comes to medical recommendations about circumcision, there is an undeniable cultural bias that is persistently reflected in the scientific literature. Most medical societies in developed nations—except for the American ones—agree that in environments where hygienic conditions allow men to wash themselves regularly, any health benefits circumcision might offer cease to outweigh the risks. “The other claimed health benefits, including protection against HIV/AIDS, genital herpes, genital warts, and penile cancer, are questionable, weak, and likely to have little public health relevance in a Western context,” states the critique of the AAP’s stance on circumcision led by Danish epidemiologist Morten Frisch.

The European scientists did find that circumcision can result in reduced UTIs, but only by about 1 percent. They cite the AAP’s own estimates of the risk of complications from circumcision to conclude that “1 case of UTI may be prevented at the cost of two cases of hemorrhage, infection, or, in rare instances, more severe outcomes or even death.” A UTI is no picnic, but I’m sure it beats a penile hemorrhage.

    Logic is often no match for religious zealots, or those on the other end of the spectrum: "circumfetishists."

This isn’t a new stance either—scientists h​ave been arguing against circumcision on the basis of health benefits since the 1970s. But logic is often no match for religious zealots who think masturbation is a sin, as well as those the other end of the spectrum—circumfetishists. Most egregiously, one Australian man named Br​ian Morris has been plaguing circumcision-related research for the past decade, lying about his scientific credentials and publications, submitting criticisms of circumcision research in which he disproportionately cites him​self, and “issuing ​misstatements faster than they can be checked and refuted.” I can’t speak to his motivation for doing this, but one circumcision watchdog site observed him linking to circum​cision erotica.

Aside from the scientific debate, there is a parallel ethical debate which revolves around the issue of consent. Even if medical science could irrefutably prove health benefits from circumcision, many intactivists contend that performing a preventative surgery on a child is unethical; the decision to circumcise should only be made for children in medical emergencies, or voluntarily by adults such as is the case with cosmetic surgery and other body modifications. This view rubs up against religious views that circumcision is necessary to protect children from their sexual impulses, which could distract them from God.

“I think that children should be protected from having their genitals modified because they don’t understand what’s at stake,” says Brian Earp, an ethics researcher at the University of Oxford. “In general we should consider legal adults competent to modify their own bodies.” He raised the point that removing the breast buds of infant girls could prevent breast cancer, but nobody would seriously recommend doing that in a medical setting.

Earp says he became interested in the ethics of circumcision after the city of San Franciscio considered ban​ning infant circumcision in 2011, and more so in 2012 when a local court in Germany ruled that​ child circumcision was illegal, even with parental consent, after a botched circumcision involving a four-year old Muslim boy. “While the court held that religious circumcisions in fact are to be deemed illegal because they violate the child's right to physical integrity and self-determination, it differentiated such acts from instances when a circumcision is medically necessary,” the ruling reads. Similar legal measures have been considered in Finland, Denmark, and Sweden.

Religious dictates aside, the main ethical consideration parents use to have their baby boys circumcised in the US is the pop cultural belief that in doing so they are somehow protecting their kids from future locker room harassment. But studies show this isn’t actually a problem—if guys are going to have their penises made fun of for any reason, it will probably be ​the size, not whether or not they’re circumcised.

But locker rooms are one thing—what about the room where it really matters: the bedroom?

Think about what a foreskin does, biologically: In a non-erect penis, the foreskin covers the shaft completely, hanging over the tip and making it effectively an internal organ. When its gets hard, the foreskin secretes lubrication that allows the skin to slide back and forth against the shaft. When it gets really hard, the top part of the foreskin flips inside out, exposing a really sensitive part called the frenulum and the head of the penis, which is almost always otherwise covered. Some liken the function of a foreskin to that of a lip or an eyelid, as it protects the mucosal membrane beneath.

Circumcision removes about 15 square inches of skin containing about 20,000 nerves (as an adult), makes the penis an external organ with the head constantly exposed, disables the frenulum, the lubricating function, and its gliding mobility, and even dulls the color of the penis—and that’s if the procedure goes well.

“Overwhelmingly, men who have foreskins like them and want to retain them, whereas men who have never had a foreskin assume it’s useless,” Earp says.

Largely absent from the scientific and medical literature is research on the sexual benefits of foreskin for men; there’s almost a complete void when it comes to how male circumcision impacts sex from a female partner’s perspective. A 2015 paper by Jacobs and Arora claims that foreskin has basically no effec​t on sexuality, but it cites likely biased sources connected with Brian Morris, and, as Earp points out in a critique​ published in the American Journal of Bioethics, the research they cite relies mainly on a pair of clinical trials that were carried out—not on infants—but on adult men who were voluntarily circumcised.

But even absent a basis for comparison or any compelling research, intactivists contend that the loss is dire.

“The effects of adult circumcision, whatever they are, cannot be simply mapped on to neonates,” Earp says.

Likewise, the big question for the folks over at Foregen is if they can map the function of adult foreskin back onto someone who was circumcised as a neonate.

Clopper, whose friends call him “foreskin guy,” has been a vocal intactivist ever since his college rugby team went to Scotland. “We’d get really drunk and naked and do really stupid things. Not gay things, just weird things,” Clopper says, which was when he noticed that his Irish counterparts weren’t circumcised, prompting a debate over which penile format was better.“I said, ‘I think being circumcised is better so I’ll do my own research.’ Now that I know that having the entire penis is better, it seems insane that I felt otherwise,” Clopper says. Ever since his initial foray into circumcision research, he’s connected with several other men who also feel they have been robbed of one of nature’s coolest biological functions, and are pissed about it. “It’s really a brainwashing,” he says. “Once they realize what they lose—and the internet’s a huge help—that’s where the outrage comes from.”

The biomedical technologies that would enable a procedure like this to be conducted safely are still theoretical at best, but Fo​regen founder Vincenzo Aiello of Rome, Italy, says he plans to have a procedure patented and cleared for clinical trials within five years.

“The peripheral nervous system can regenerate. The only obstacle to getting this to work is getting the new nerve endings to connect to the severed ones,” Clopper says. “We are able to graft entire limbs to amputees right now. We’re doing the same thing using the same exact technology but on a smaller scale with a bigger market.”

    "Now that I know that having the entire penis is better, it seems insane that I felt otherwise."

The process Clopper described would involve taking a donor foreskin and decellularizing it, or 3-D printing a new cellular skeleton, then “reseeding the decellularized matrix” with stem cells matched to the recipient. “They’ll pick up on the cellular signals and grow into the full tissue,” Clopper says. They completed their first animal experiment in December of 2013 at the University of Bologna’s School of Veterinary Medicine in Italy. “Foreskin has proved exceptionally fruitful as a regenerative agent, making the likelihood of real foreskin regeneration in vivo, on a living male, all the better,” the websi​te claims.

Though the science may be theoretically possible, it’s definitely not there yet. Perhaps the greatest challenge, even beyond the theoretical stem cell science, is the piece that involves grafting or regenerating peripheral nerves; nobody can do that yet, and the first people to figure it out probably won’t use it for foreskin.

When I asked Aiello about the exact details of the procedure, he said he couldn’t tell me because he wanted to protect his future patent, but I got the feeling that he still had some conceptual track to lay. After all, Aiello is a mosaic artist, not a scientist. That said, plenty of startup founders know nothing about the technology that powers their products when they go into VC meetings. Currently, he is working on a sculpture project that he described as an anatomical depiction of the adult foreskin, which he expects to be highly controversial.

The Forege​n team admits that “the main obstacle in achieving foreskin regeneration is aligning the overwhelming demand for a cure for circumcision with the correct scientific personnel.” Aiello told me the biomedical researchers who have agreed to work with Foregen so far have done so on the condition that he doesn’t name them. “I think they are a little bit scared for many reasons. They don’t want to be remembered in history for regenerating the foreskin. It’s basically a taboo.”

Aiello estimates that Foregen, a nonprofit registered in the US and Italy, has raised about $100,000 to date from private donors, mainly Americans, and intends to crowdfund the rest. But this is a negligible amount compared to what will be needed to set up a clinic if and when the procedure makes it through clinical trials. “We’d like to do everything in four years, but we don’t know if this will be possible because the bureaucracy makes the entire process very slow,” he says.

Regardless of whether or not Foregen meets their quotas, the main variable that will impact the prevalence of infant circumcision in the United States and beyond in coming years is the culture. If present trends are any indication, that culture is shifting in favor of foreskins. What’s needed now to confirm that this is indeed the most beneficial path—health-wise, ethically, and sexually—is unbiased research collected to this end that could formally influence the recommendations of respected medical bodies and perhaps even local law.

When I asked Earp how to achieve this, he shrugged. “It would be great if there was some dispassionate researcher somewhere who was just curious about the effects of circumcision.”

Correction: This post was updated to clarify how often Brian Morris's research criticism cites his own work, changing "mostly" to "disproportionately."  The post was also updated to clarify that the city of San Francisco considered, not proposed, a 2011 proposal for a circumcision ban.

[Variations of this story were published widely with headings like "Men Will Soon Be Able To Regrow Their Foreskin". This is hopelessly optimistic and discounts the importance of leaving babies' foreskins on them. Already some objectors to infant cutting are being told "Who cares? If he doesn't like it, he can just restore it when he grows up."]

MALAWI: World Bank funds genital cutting

Star Africa
August 8, 2014

World Bank funds Malawi circumcision programme

The World Bank has agreed to fund Malawi's voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) programme to the tune of MK6 billion (about US$15million) for the next four years, the Ministry of Health announced Friday.Ministry spokesperson Henry Chimbali said the funding would enable the Malawian government to roll-out the programme in remaining districts.

"We have been unable to expand the service to other districts due to inadequate resources to train service providers, formulation of communication messages and purchase of supplies therefore the funding will help fill this gap," he said.

He said the ministry would take the VMMC programme to the districts of Nkhotakota and Lilongwe in Central Region and Blantyre, Phalombe and Zomba in Southern Region, targeting 45,000 adult males aged 15 to 49 years.

He said VMMC was one of the HIV and AIDS interventions in the country. It reduces chances of contracting the virus by up to 60 percent.

Malawi
HIV Rates:	Circumcised men	10.3%
	Intact men	7.9%
Source: dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR247/FR247.pdf p207

VMMC also has other benefits such as hygiene and helps a man from developing cancer, he said.

[Ah yes, always the bait and switch.]

The World Health Organisation recommended the inclusion of male circumcision for countries with generalised HIV epidemics like Malawi in their national HIV prevention strategy.

MALAWI: Boys being circumcised again

Polysurgery addiction by proxy...

Malawi News Agency
April 23, 2014

Double knifed to fulfill the needful

by Josephine Chinele
Blantyre, April 23: Even though his son had gone through the traditional male circumcision, Geoffrey Linje, a Manase resident was not satisfied.

“During our time, the traditional circumcision was okay but nowadays, it’s fashionable to have both,” he said, whilst waiting for his 11 year old son who was having the second time circumcision procedure inside the make shift theatre at Namasimba primary school in Blantyre.

Linje recalls that during his youthful days, anyone who was not circumcised was regarded as a toddler even if they grew up and raised a family.

World Health Orgsanisation describes Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) as the surgical removal of the foreskin- the retractable fold of tissue that covers the head of the manhood.

It is believed that traditional male circumcision rite is not fully done hence other people like Linje are taking their children to have VMMC.

The father of six children, two of whom are boys proudly says the first boy also had two circumcisions and this makes him feel better.

“The first circumcision is like a mere transition from a ‘toddler’ to a fully grown adult. Now with the advent of many diseases, it’s very necessary that such children should also have medical male circumcision,” he elaborates.

Linje is however quick to say he did not know of any VMMC campaign until his 11 year old boy told him that he heard from ‘chimkuza mawu’ (Mobile Public Address system) which was going around their area announcing the same.

He points out that VMMC reduces a man’s chance of contracting HIV and helps in hygiene of the individual.

Linje’s child is one of the many youths that expressed interest in VMMC at Namasimba mobile clinic.

Site supervisor, Jofirisi Jofirisi says the centre circumcised an average of 25 youths per day from April 9 to April 15, 2014.

“I believe adults are not forthcoming because of perception. May be they think they are already married and no longer need VMMC. The youth may be coming because they want to fit among their peers,” he says.

Nevertheless, Jofirisi reveals that all youths who present themselves for VMMC are tested for HIV, counseled and clearly told that VMMC is not an HIV vaccine.

“We also advise them to take a lot of fluids so that they should have frequent urination to avoid erection since this could disrupt the healing process and increase bleeding on the stitched area,” he says.

World Health Organisation says there is compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately 60 percent.

[Except in the real world:]

Malawi
HIV Rates:	Circumcised men	13.2%
	Intact men	9.5%
Source: www.measuredhs.com

“Male circumcision provides only partial protection, and therefore should be only one element of a comprehensive HIV prevention package which includes: the provision of HIV testing and counseling services; treatment for sexually transmitted infections; the promotion of safer sex practices; the provision of male and female condoms and promotion of their correct and consistent use,” reads the information in part.

[ A traveller came to a farmhouse and offered to make the occupants Nail Soup in return for a night's shelter. He threw a large iron nail in a pot of boiling water, but said: -
"A Magic Nail provides only partial soup-making power, and therefore should be only one element of a comprehensive soup-making package which includes: vegetables; meat; herbs; stock; the provision of pepper and salt and spices and promotion of their correct and consisten use," he said in part.
The farmer's wife accepted this, and in the morning the traveller went on his way, refreshed after a night in a comfortable bed, minus the Nail, with some gold coins in his pocket and the thanks of the family ringing in his ears for the wonderful Magic Nail that made such delicious Nail Soup.
Thus if a circumcised man doesn't get HIV, circumcision will get the credit, but if he does, he can be blamed for failing to take the other precautions. And if a non-circumcised man gets HIV, his foreskin will be blamed, but if he doesn't, nobody will take any notice.
Circumcision is as good at preventing HIV as a Magic Nail is at making soup.]

PSI Community Counselor responsible for Blantyre Manyowe, Chikondi Magalasi, says many people still do not know the difference between VMMC and traditional circumcision.

“I have at least encountered situations where people decided to take their children for VMMC even after they had the traditional one like the case of Mr. Linje,” he says.

Magalasi says to some extent, ‘Angaliba’ (Traditional circumcision surgeons) are feeling threatened by the coming in of VMMC since they think it may take away their source of income and public respect.

“VMMC is not only cultural but a must-have for today’s man. Women should also take a role by encouraging their spouses to go for it since one benefit of VMMC is that when a man is circumcised, they don’t carry the Human Papaloma Virus (HPV) which causes cervical cancer to their spouses,” he elaborates. [That is completely false]

Another Community Counselor responsible for Nancholi, Jonathan Dinesi says it is pleasing to note that some parents have been taking their children to have VMMC even if they already had the traditional one.

“I have personally met three of such children aged between 10 and 15. It takes an understanding parent to do that,” he says. [Misunderstanding, rather.]

Ministry of Health’s deputy spokesperson, Adrian Chikumbe says the fact that other parents are taking their children for VMMC even after the traditional rite is an indication that people understand the VMMC concept. [Except "Voluntary"]

“The message, however, still stands that VMMC is a supplement to all other HIV prevention measures not a vaccine therefore people should still observe abstinence and condom use,” he emphasizes.

Chikumbe says the ministry is trying to work together with ‘Angaliba’ so that they should be arranging for the initiated boys to have VMMC at a medical facility then take them back to their initiation camps so that their job is not compromised. [Oh dear, heaven forbid that their jobs should be compromised?]

BOTSWANA: "Safe" infant circumcision - with Accu-circ and Mogen clamps

Daily News (Botswana)
February 4, 2014

Ministry introduces SMC device for infants

The Ministry of Health has introduced two new devices for infants’ Safe Male Circumcision (SMC).
The SMC national coordinator, Mr Conrad Ntsuape said the two devices were the best that Botswana opted for. He noted that the entire procedure was bloodless, requiring no anesthesia, suturing or a sterile setting.

Mr Ntsuape said the median time for complete healing was seven days after device removal. The devices Mogan Clamp and AccuCirc would be administered on children from zero to two months, eight hours after birth. Circumcision would be done on physically fit babies with no signs on abnormality weighing more than 2.5 kg and a penis of at least one centimetre.

He said the two devices were safe and effective for nonsurgical male circumcision without anesthesia or sterile settings. The distinction between the two devices is that the Accucirc is disposable while the Mogan Clamp is useful in mass circumcision programmes particularly in resource-limited setting. The disposable component of it is the razor blades.
[The Mogen has caused several serious botches, resulting in the Mogen company losing lawsuits and going bankrupt and out of business. The Accu-circ has had no impartial field trials. It chops the foreskin off out of sight, with no knowledge of how the cut will turn out - or whether it will be complete. The word "Safe" is deeply ironical here.]

He said the decision to adopt the two devices followed a lengthy consultation process that focused on acceptability of infant male circumcision as part of HIV prevention and male reproductive health efforts that was conducted by the governments of Botswana and United States through Harvard Institute in 2008. The survey was also done on the acceptability of infant male circumcision among mothers of newborn male infants in Botswana.

Mr Ntsuape said the results of the survey indicated that 96 per cent of mothers in Botswana accepted early infant circumcision while the remaining four per cent were undecided or not interested. He also said infant circumcision was long overdue because Botswana was among 14 periotic [sic] countries in Africa that should scale up safe male circumcision for both children and adults.

The uptake of SMC follows a study by the World Health Organisation that had shown that such countries have high HIV prevalence and low SMC uptake. [There is every reason to suppose that in Botswana, as in Lesotho and Swaziland, circumcised men are as likely as intact men - or more likely - to have HIV.] Twenty five infants have so far been circumcised in the past two weeks at Princess Marina, Nyangabwe and Bamalete Lutheran hospitals.

He said training was conducted on midwife nurses and doctors. ... ENDS

KENYA: Female cutting spreads HIV

Daily Astorian (Oregon)
March 14, 2014

Woman combats female mutilation

by Kathy Aney
Sometimes, tradition trumps reason.
That's how Rachael Tengbom sees the practice of female circumcision performed on young girls in her native Kenya. Tengbom, now a Kennewick, Wash., counselor, spoke to an audience at Blue Mountain Community College on Wednesday.

Tengbom, part of the Maasai culture, said only about two percent of girls escape circumcision in her tribe. Though the practice is illegal, the law is widely ignored.

"You can't be a woman without female genital mutilation," she said. "You go through this between 8 and 14. They don't use pain pills -- you have to face the knife like a woman."

Tengbom cited the World Health Organization, which reported that the ritual offers zero health benefits and causes disfigurement and other lasting problems.

"When you ask the Maasai why they put their daughters through this ritual, they say it's part of us," she said.
... The surgery is done en masse, she said, and usually with the same knife. Not surprisingly, the spread of AIDS is a common byproduct.

Girls don't receive much education and are expected to marry young. Circumcision is part of preparing for marriage, which is typically arranged and accompanied by a dowry of cattle. ...

Tengbom said the tradition is slowly changing through the efforts of multiple organizations, including her own, Voices of Hope. The group offers a safe house and funds education for Kenyan girls.

...

CAIRO: Doctor and father to stand trial for girl's death after genital cutting

Middle East Online
March 11, 2014

Egypt doctor faces trial for fatal female circumcision

Although banned in 2008, female genital mutilation is still rampant in Egypt.

CAIRO - A doctor in Egypt will face trial for performing a female circumcision operation that killed a teenage girl, a judicial official said on Tuesday.

The 14-year-old girl's father who took her to the doctor for the procedure will also face trial, the official said.
Although banned in 2008, female genital mutilation is still rampant in Egypt, especially in rural areas where many believe it is part of their faith.

The doctor in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura performed the dangerous procedure at a private clinic.
The operation involves the removal of the clitoris and sometimes even more extreme mutilation, which proponents argue 'purifies' women from sexual temptation.

The practice has been common among both Muslims and minority Christians, said Nehad Abolkomsan, who heads the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights.

A survey in 2000 said the procedure had been carried out on 97 percent of the country's married women.
The fight against the practice was dealt a setback by Islamists after president Hosni Mubarak's overthrow in 2011, who argued women's rights laws were vestiges of the dictator's regime, Abolkomsan said.

She said efforts to reach out to rural areas to end the practice had been partially successful, but more government supervision was needed.

"This will continue to need a lot of work and effort by the state to apply the law," she said.

"Most cases don't get to the attention of the prosecutor, unless the girl suffers health consequences."

The practice is also common in other African and Middle Eastern states.

The World Health Organisation estimates that between 100 million and 140 million women have been victims of genital mutilation worldwide.

JAKARTA: Female cutting - "Don't touch our tradition"

Jakarta Globe
April 20, 2013

Activists Demand Repeal of Regulation on Circumcision

by Yuli Krisna

Bandung. “Once a baby girl is 40 days old, she can be circumcised. That’s the tradition,” says Lusi, a mother of one.

“My mother says the child must bleed, but the midwife said there’s no bleeding involved because she’s just cleaning it up down there.”

Lusi is one of many mothers in Indonesia who subject their daughters to a procedure involving pricking and piercing the hood of the clitoris with a needle, citing an Islamic belief that it will keep the girl’s libido in check when she grows up.

Although there is no official data to gauge the extent of the practice, women’s and children’s rights activists say it is widespread, particularly in rural areas.

Ellin Rozana, the executive director of the Women’s Institute, an advocacy group, argues that a Health Ministry regulation issued in 2010 that legitimizes the practice must be repealed.

She says the government’s rationale — that the form of female circumcision performed in the country is largely symbolic and not harmful — is irrelevant, and that no form of female circumcision can be justified on religious grounds.

“Admittedly the circumcision practiced in Indonesia isn’t as bad as in some African countries, where they mutilate parts of the girl’s genitals,” she tells the Jakarta Globe.

“Here they call it pricking and cleaning, but there’s no clear reason for why it has to be done. It’s different from male circumcision, which has clear health benefits.”

Ellin says the age-old reason given, that the circumcision prevents a girl from having a high sex drive and thus from becoming sexually promiscuous, highlights the patriarchal and discriminative nature of traditional Islamic Indonesian society toward women.

“There’s this idea that if a girl is circumcised, she will grow up to be a ‘good girl’ with a low sex drive,” she says.

“But this is a question of a woman’s reproductive rights, her right to enjoy sex.”

The government initially banned all forms of female circumcision in 2006. Four years later, however, it made an about-face and issued a regulation giving health workers the discretion to perform circumcisions as they saw fit.

The government argued that the regulation was needed because the all-out ban had led to large numbers of parents getting their daughters circumcised by unqualified shamans and traditional healers, thereby putting their children at high risk of medical complications.

The Health Ministry regulation defines permissible female circumcision as “an incision of the skin covering the front of the clitoris, without cutting the clitoris.”

But a 2003 study by the Population Council found that 22 percent of 1,307 female circumcision cases in the country were excisions, meaning that part of the clitoris or labia was removed. Of the rest, 49 percent involved incisions while only 28 percent were of the “symbolic” prick-and-clean type.

Ellin argues that as minimalist as it seems, the kind of circumcision allowed by the government is still unacceptable under internationally recognized standards on women’s rights.

In December, the United Nations passed a resolution banning female genital mutilation, which extends to the circumcision practiced in Indonesia.

Procedures such as pricking, piercing, incising, scraping, cauterization or burning that are carried out for non-medical purposes are categorized by the World Health Organization as mutilation along with practices that alter or remove any part of the genitals.

Back in Bandung, Lusi has come to realize that she did not need to have her daughter circumcised.

“I found out too late that what I did was a violation of my child’s rights,” she says.

BERLIN: Female cutting growing in Germany

Jewish Press (!)
February 6, 2013

Female Circumcision Now a Growing Problem in Germany

For many of these women, urinating can take up to 30 minutes, and is very painful.

Between 130 and 150 million women are victims of genital mutilation – most of them are Africans, Deutsche Welle reports. Now, doctors, teachers and social workers in Germany report being confronted by this practice in ever growing numbers.

Jawahir Cumar, who moved to Germany with her parents from Somalia when she was a girl, witnessed, at age 20, on a visit to her grandparents’ village, the funeral of young girl who had bled to death after being “circumcised.”

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is practiced in 29 African countries, even though it is illegal in some of them. It is usually done when girls are between the ages of four and eight – using razor blades, kitchen knives and even broken glass and tin lids. Because these tools are used more than once, it also increases the spreading of bllod-based diseases like HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.

FGM alters or injures female genitalia for non-medical reasons, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). ...

An estimated 30,000 women living in Germany have been subjected to FGM and 6,000 girls are at risk, according to human rights organization Terre des Femmes.

“Mothers-in-law and grandmothers, especially, call all the time, write letters and send messages,” says Cumar. And the message is always the same, “you have to cut your daughters! Or just bring them to us and we will do it.”

...

She was able to prevent 17 girls from being subjected to FGM last year. But there’s still a lot of work to be done in Germany as well, says Cumar, pointing to how long it took for “honor killings” to be viewed by police as a criminal offence and not simply as the customs of immigrants.

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