UNITED NATIONS: Genital cutting called "child abuse" - but only of girls

All good, but why specify "female"?


BBC News
July 15, 2016

FGM is child abuse, says UN Population Fund chief

The head of the United Nations Population Fund has, for the first time, described female genital mutilation as "child abuse".

Dr Babatunde Osotimehin told the BBC that the custom was a human rights abuse and needed to end immediately.

More than 200 million women and girls around the world have undergone the procedure, where parts of the female genitals are removed.

The UN estimates a further three million are at risk of being mutilated.

Dr Osotimehin said: "There is absolutely no reason to cut anybody, and it seemed to us that it is part of the gender imbalance that has always existed in these communities which are based on patriarchy. I think it's child abuse."

The organisation had previously referred to the practice as a human rights violation, but has stopped short of calling it child abuse.

FGM is practiced mainly in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

It involves the partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

Some countries in Africa are working to change traditional perceptions of FGM.

At the moment about one in five women in Kenya has been cut.

But the UN children's charity, Unicef, says Kenya could eradicate the practice in the next 15 years.
However, deeply entrenched traditions in some communities in this region, and across the world, make this a major challenge.

CAIRO: Girl dies after genital cutting

The Inquistr
June 2, 2016

Female Genital Mutilation Results In Death Of 17-Year-Old Egyptian Girl Maya Mohamed Mousa

by Lindsay McCane
Maya Mohamed Mousa, a 17-year-old Egyptian girl, has died after undergoing an illegal procedure known as female genital mutilation, or female circumcision.

According to Reuters, Mousa and her twin sister arrived at the private El Canal Hospital in Suez to undergo female circumcision on Sunday. Although the procedure was performed under anesthesia, Mousa died after experiencing heavy bleeding. Thankfully, Maya’s sister survived.

Sedkhi Sidhom, an official from Egypt’s health ministry, said the hospital has since been shut down, and Egyptian prosecutors are investigating Mousa’s death.

“Not all cases of female circumcision are reported across Egypt. There are cases of circumcision where the women die and are then buried without a word being mentioned,” Sidhom said.

While there are thousands of deaths due to FGM each year, many go without being acknowledged. However, there are some that make headlines like Mousa’s. Last year, Raslan Fadl, a medical doctor, was convicted of manslaughter in Egypt’s first female genital mutilation trial after a 13-year-old girl died during a botched procedure. Suad Abu-Dayyeh, Middle East and North Africa consultant at rights group Equality Now, said Fadl was sentenced to more than two years in prison, but has yet to serve time behind bars.

“It is incredible that the Egyptian police are not taking a tough line on ending FGM in a country where over 27 million have been affected,” Abu-Dayyeh said in a statement. “The death of the 17-year-old should be yet another shocking wake up call for Egypt.”
...

SYDNEY: Two jailed for 15 months for cutting girls, despite "no significant injury"

ABC News
March 18, 2015

Pair given jail time over genital mutilation of young sisters

by Jayne Margetts and staff
A mother and former midwife convicted over the genital mutilation of young girls have been sentenced to a maximum 15 months' imprisonment in a case believed to be the nation's first successful prosecution over female genital mutilation.

Former midwife Kubra Magennis, 72, and the mother of the victims, who cannot be named, were convicted in November of mutilating two sisters in separate procedures during religious ceremonies at homes in Wollongong and Sydney's north-west between 2009 and 2012.

The girls were about seven at the time.

A third offender, senior community leader Shabbir Mohammedbhai Vaziri, was found guilty of acting as an accessory after the fact by directing community members to lie to police about the practice.

He was also sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment.

The procedure, known as "khatna", involves nicking or cutting a girl's clitoris in the presence of several female elders and is considered a rite of passage by some members of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community.

Supreme Court Judge Justice Peter Johnson said these kinds of cases were "difficult to prosecute" because of their "unusual and novel circumstances".

He said the mother of the two girls requested that the former nurse and midwife carry out the procedure.

"I am satisfied KM affected injury to the clitoris of each child instructed by A2" and "used a metal instrument for the purpose of cutting," Justice Johnson said.

The court heard the girl's mother had been subjected to the same procedure as a child in Kenya.
The judge said A2 was a qualified pharmacist and an, "intelligent and well-educated woman".

One of the girls, known only as C1, told police "it hurt" when the procedure was carried out.

Justice Johnson said she was "told by her mother not to discuss it with anyone ... this is a big secret. Never tell anyone".

The judge found no significant physical injury had been inflicted on either child but there were "likely to be some adverse psychological effects".

During a sentencing hearing in the New South Wales Supreme Court, crown prosecutor Nanette Williams said the girls were "effectively voiceless" in the face of their mother and Magennis.

She said none of the offenders had shown any remorse and they had only given "qualified, ambiguous and self-serving" apologies.

All three offenders will be assessed for their suitability for home detention.

SYDNEY: Father lied to police about daughter's cutting

The Guardian
October 15, 2015

Father in FGM trial tells court he lied to police about what he knew of ceremony

Father and mother were interviewed by police and then placed in a room with a listening device, the New South Wales supreme court hears

The mother of two girls who allegedly underwent female genital mutilation told her husband “just a little bit” when her husband asked if the ceremony involved cutting their clitorises, a court has heard.

The first trial of FGM in Australia is being heard in the New South Wales supreme court with the mother of the two alleged victims charged along with an older woman known as KM, who is accused of carrying out the FGM, and Shabbir Mohammedbhai Vaziri, a leader in the Dawoodi Bohra Shia Muslim community.

When the parents were initially interviewed by police in 2012 a listening device was placed in the waiting room and after he had talked to police, their father, known in court as A1 met his wife in the room.

“It took a long time, they asked many things, they ask me do you have any idea what they do in circumcision, I tell them I don’t know anything, if they ask you say you do not know … in us do they cut skin?” he asked her.

The mother responded: “No they just do little bit, just little.”

The father admitted in court he had not told police the truth when he said he did not know what khatna, the ceremony the girls took part in, involved.

“She explained to me it involved placing forceps in genitalia, and saying Qur’anic verses,” he told the court of what his wife told him khatna involved.

In previous evidence the father had said it involved “some sort of metal on on the private parts” and when asked by crown prosecutor Nanette Williams why he had changed evidence from “in” genitalia, to “on”, A1 said “I’m not sure where the forceps are placed, but it’s on the private parts somewhere”.

A1 also admitted he had not told the truth to the police when he said in 2012 he did not know what khatna involved.

“I knew what khatna was, I knew what my girls went through, I didn’t tell the truth to the police,” he said.

Asked by Williams if khatna involved an injury to genitalia, he responded: “not in my girls.”
The alleged FGM was allegedly carried out on the girls, known as C1 and C2, when they were each seven years old, between 2010 and 2012.

A conversation between A1 and C1 was recorded in 2012 in which C1 talked about being cut.
“You have no cut, we do not do cut, no we do not cut, we cannot cut, nothing was cut of yours, we cannot do the cut here,” her father responded.

When C1 said she had seen scissors during her khatna, her father said it was forceps that she saw, not scissors.

“Forceps used for cleaning purposes, for a check up,” he said.

The court has previously heard about the “Africa story”, a lie the mother and others had agreed to tell that part of the khatna that took place in Australia was a “check up” and if the girls had been cut it was in Africa.

The trial continues.

LONDON: 50 girls "taken to Somalia for cutting"

BBC News
July 17, 2015

'Fifty girls' taken from UK to Somalia for FGM

Reports that at least 50 girls were taken from the UK to Somalia for female genital mutilation are being investigated by Scotland Yard.

Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Tonge contacted the Metropolitan Police after spotting a large group of girls on a flight from Heathrow last Saturday.

The girls were said to be aged 11 to 17 and with their mothers or grandmothers.

It comes as Bedfordshire Police secured the UK's first FGM protection order, preventing two girls from going abroad.

The Metropolitan Police said officers from the Specialist Crime and Operations Command were investigating Lady Tonge's report.

'Scattering of grannies'
Speaking to the BBC, Lady Tonge said the girls spoke English and were of Somali origin.

"It was just odd," she said. "They were young girls and mothers and a scattering of grannies."

They were on an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Addis Ababa on 11 July and according to the Lib Dem peer transferred onto a plane to Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.

Lady Tonge, along with the Labour MP for Halifax, Holly Lynch, was on a trip to the Financial Development Conference in Addis Ababa.

FGM, also termed female circumcision, is illegal in the UK. It refers to any procedure that alters or injures the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

It is a painful ritual carried out on women and young girls from certain communities from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.The Met says its Specialist Crime and Operations Command is probing the reports

Lady Tonge said that both she and Ms Lynch felt the presence of so many girls at the start of the summer holidays was "suspicious", given that it was the start of the so-called "cutting season" when FGM is carried out, and she decided to raise the alarm on her return to the UK.

Scotland Yard confirmed that police had been called by a "woman concerned about a large number of girls on a flight from Heathrow to Ethiopia on 11 July whom she believed were at risk of FGM".

That confirmation from the Met came after Bedfordshire Police said it secured a protection court order on the day new powers came into effect.

The civil legislation allows officials to seize passports from people they suspect are planning on taking girls overseas for FGM, and breaching an order is a criminal offence.

The move prevents two girls being taken to Africa, Bedfordshire Police said.

The force said it is estimated that more than 20,000 girls under the age of 15 in the UK are at risk of FGM each year, although very few cases are reported.

Aneeta Prem of Freedom Charity said "cutters" may also be entering the UK to carry out FGM
Det Ch Insp Nick Bellingham, from Bedfordshire Police's Public Protection Unit, said: "With schools breaking up for the summer holidays today, we will continue to use this legislation where needed to prevent young girls who we believe may be at risk from being taken out of the country.

"This is child abuse, and we will do everything in our power to ensure that children are kept safe and that those responsible are caught."

Aneeta Prem, founder of women's charity Freedom Charity, said the use of a protection order was a positive step.

But she warned that the authorities must also look out for "cutters" - people who carry out FGM "for as little as £200 a girl" - entering the UK.

"We can't be politically sensitive. Girls who are mutilated in this way suffer a lifetime of scarring and permanent damage," she said.

The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act 2005 in Scotland states that FGM is illegal unless it is necessary for health reasons.

The law states that is also illegal to arrange for a UK national to be taken overseas to undergo FGM.
The order secured by Bedfordshire Police, which can be made by courts in England and Wales, was introduced under the Serious Crime Act 2015.

Equalities and Justice Minister Caroline Dinenage said the protection orders have been "fast-tracked... to make sure women and girls facing the awful threat of FGM can be kept safe".

"These orders mean girls and the communities around them now know they will have somewhere to turn, that the law is on their side and help is out there.

"The government is committed to ending FGM."

GHANA: Girl banished for refusing genital cutting

MyJoy online
April 16, 2015

13-year-old girl banished for refusing to undergo circumcision

Despite efforts to combat the cultural practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Ghana, reports indicate that some traditional leaders in some districts of the Brong-Ahafo Region are still encouraging it.

According to The Chronicle newspaper, some communities in the Tain and Banda districts of Brong-Ahafo indicates that the cruel act against girls is still ongoing under the charade of custom.

The daily newspaper reported in its April 16, 2015 issue that a 13-year-old pupil of the Brohani D/A Primary School security has been banished from Brohani in the Tain District by the queen mother for reporting to police an attempt to mutilate her genital.

Read the rest of the story as published in the newspaper below:
Narrating her ordeal to The Chronicle, the 13 year old pupil who is currently seeking refuge at the expense of a Good Samaritan at Nsawkaw said she was lined up with another girl waiting to have their genitals mutilated.

After hearing the cry of the other girl, who underwent the cruel act, she fled and went to inform her teacher, who subsequently reported the issue to the Girl Child Coordinator of the Tain District Directorate of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Ms. Comfort Maanu.

Ms. Comfort Maanu, together with the girl and the teacher, reported the case to the Department of Social Welfare, and subsequently, a formal complaint was lodged with the Nsawkaw Police, which led to the arrest of the alleged perpetrators, including the Queenmother of Brohani, a relative of the girl, and the executor of the FGM.

After the arrest of the three, the Nsawkaw Police referred the case to the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service in Wenchi and the alleged perpetrators have since been released on bail.

The Queenmother of Brohani is alleged to have threatened to have the girl killed anytime she steps foot in the community, a threat which has frightened the girl compelling her to seek refuge with a Good Samaritan at Nsawkaw.

Sources at the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development in the Tain District has hinted The Chronicle that some opinion leaders of the community, including politicians in the District, have been pushing for the case not to be sent to court, and hence, after almost two months of the incident, the matter has not been to court.

When the Deputy Regional DOVVSU Officer, ASP Setina Aboagye, was contacted, she said the regional office was yet to ascertain the case.

According to ASP Setina Aboagye, she would personally go to Nsawkaw on Friday, April 17, 2015, to follow up the matter.

However, investigations by The Chronicle has revealed that Brohani is the hub of FMG in the Tain and Banda districts, where young girls are sent for the practice to be undertaken, under the supervision of the Queenmother, hence the urgent need for the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to intervene.

THAILAND: Minimal female cutting persists in Muslim south

The Guardian
April 1, 2015

In Thailand’s Muslim south, authorities turn a blind eye to FGM

Female genital mutilation, banned by the WHO, seems to be common in the
three Muslim-majority southern provinces, but officials are taking no action
by Gabrielle Paluch
Eight-week-old baby Amiyah grimaces when sunlight falls on her face as though she isn’t used to the idea of having been born yet. On a Saturday afternoon, in Thailand’s southern Pattani province, her Muslim mother has brought her to a small clinic so midwife Dah can slice her clitoris for sunat. The practice, a form of female genital mutilation (FGM), has been banned by the World Health Organisation.

In majority Buddhist Thailand, the public health department says FGM does not happen. But in the three southernmost provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, ethnic Malay Muslims are a majority. Some are locked in an intractable conflict with the Thai government, which labels them insurgents. Here, midwife Dah says she has cut almost all female births she has attended.

“Her clitoris is so small,” says Dah, 64, who seems a little flustered as she swabs the crying baby’s vulva with alcohol with her gloved hands. Despite her experience, she is having difficulty finding the clitoris as the baby squirms on the operating table. She holds a sterile surgical blade, for which she has fashioned a handle out of tin foil.

After five long minutes, during which the baby cries relentlessly and the mother tries to comfort her, the incision is finally made. The midwife mops up a drop of blood with a cotton swab, recites the name of God, and declares the baby “circumcised”.

“I feel relieved that I have done my duty,” the mother says.

The conflict in the southern Thailand can make it hard for women to access healthcare, according to Dr Sudarat Teeraworn, a public health supervisor for maternal health in neighbouring Yala province. Sudarat says FGM isn’t on the health ministry’s agenda – though according to her, almost every Muslim baby girl in the south is cut.

“There are no laws about it because there are not many health consequences, and it’s a cultural practice,” she says.

Thai health authorities have taken a pragmatic approach, apparently turning a blind eye.

FGM as practised in Thailand falls under type IV in the WHO’s classification, which involves pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterisation. Types I and II involve excision of either clitoris or labia or both, and type III includes a procedure where the vulva is sutured together after removal of the clitoris and labia. The WHO says the procedure has no known health benefits, arises from a deep-seated gender-bias, and amounts to a violation of both children’s and women’s rights.

Just across the border in Malaysia, a study conducted in 2011 showed 93% of Muslim women have been cut, including in Kelantan state on Thailand’s border, which is culturally and religiously similar to Pattani. Though the practice dates back centuries for Muslims living across the Malay peninsula, Malaysia’s highest religious authority did not issue a fatwa until 2009 requiring the cutting of all Muslim women.


Malaysia’s fatwa has put health workers in an awkward position. As women increasingly give birth in hospitals, mothers looking for a safe way to cut their female babies are essentially asking doctors to break WHO guidelines.

To reduce the prevalence of FGM in Malaysia , Saira Shameem, who works for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Kuala Lumpur, is working with health authorities to make the practice symbolic, with a routine alcohol swab performed by obstetricians at birth. “What the fatwa does not do, is it does not specify what the procedure should be,” she says, “that allows us an avenue to define the procedure in a non-invasive, non-harmful manner and shift the practice accordingly.”

In southern Thailand women are also increasingly giving birth in hospitals. Traditional midwives who pass their trade on from generation to generation are disappearing, and mothers are increasingly having their babies cut by doctors.

Many women in southern Thailand don’t even know they’ve been cut until adulthood, when they read about it. The practice is not talked about.

Dr Patimoh Umasa is one of the only female doctors in Yala, where she runs a small clinic on the edge of the city’s Muslim quarter. She knows the WHO guidelines, and doesn’t believe what she does directly contravenes them. “If it is done by a doctor and they are using the right technique, then never mind,” she says. “It’s just a little. Just an incision, no excision.”


But doctors such as Nawal Nour, director of the Global Women’s Health Centre at Harvard Medical School, believes a “right technique” does not exist. “There are girls who suffer short and long-term consequences, even from type IV,” she says. “The clitoris on a baby girl is tiny, and in error, cutters can remove it completely. Also botched jobs can lead to haemorrhage, infection, sepsis and death.”
Back in Pattani, Peung, 33, has gathered her family together to watch her eight-month-old daughter, Mia, being cut by her mother-in-law, who is sterilising a pair of nail scissors with alcohol. Some of Mia’s cousins are playing on the floor in the living room.

Peung’s two older daughters are curious. “What are they doing? Will it hurt?” they ask. “Sunat, we all must do it,” Peung responds. “The children are so eager, but it is not good for them to watch this. It will become a phobia for ever.” She caresses her youngest infant, about to be cut. “At least she doesn’t know what’s going on here.”

The baby’s grandmother draws blood from the clitoris with the curved tip of the nail scissors, a technique she says she developed herself to be safer. Mia cries loudly.


Peung is pleased her daughter is now “complete”, but she isn’t sure why. “I don’t know what the benefit is behind it, but I believe there must be one. I know the prophet said it is desirable for the husband when women are cut. Actually in Islam we believe that women have more desire than men, so there must be something to control the women, give them humility and modesty – and this could be one way to do it. Maybe in the future the scientists will find out and then we will know the benefit. All the girls here in the south do it.”

Some names have been changed

LONDON: FGC law should outlaw "designer vaginas" - MPs

The Guardian
March 14, 2015

Outlaw 'designer vagina' surgery, say MPs

Home affairs committee says FGM Act should be expanded to cover cosmetic procedures that have no medical purpose, though government says this is already covered in law
by Alexandra Topping
Genital surgery to create so-called “designer vaginas” should be outlawed under legislation designed to prevent female genital mutilation, according to a group of MPs.

A report from the home affairs select committee has called the laws governing female genital cosmetic surgery ambiguous and said the 2003 FGM law must be changed so it covers the procedures, which have no medical purpose.

“We cannot tell communities in Sierra Leone and Somalia to stop a practice which is freely permitted on Harley Street,” said Keith Vaz, the chairman of the select committee.
[Strictly speaking, cosmetic surgery is already outlawed in England under the  Female Genital Mutilation Act, 2003: (2)But no offence is committed by an approved person who performs—
  (a)a surgical operation on a girl which is necessary for her physical or mental health.. - because it is a stretch to say that a "designer vagina"  is "necessary for her ... mental health"] The government has previously stated that the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 does not contain any exemption for cosmetic surgery, and it had no plans to amend the act. But “evidence demonstrates that the police, midwives and campaigners would all like to see greater clarity on this point,” stated the report.

The select committee also risked creating a diplomatic spat with the Royal Colleges – which represent medical professionals – accusing their members of not doing enough “to encourage their members to report cases of FGM”.

The report notes that in Heartlands hospital in Birmingham, 1,500 cases of FGM were recorded over the past five years, with doctors seeing six patients who have undergone the procedure each week. “There seems to be a chasm between the amount of reported cases and the lack of prosecutions,” it says. “Someone, somewhere is not doing their job effectively.”

The first ever FGM case was brought to trial this year, but in February the NHS doctor Dhanuson Dharmasena, 32, was acquitted in less than 30 minutes amid claims that the Crown Prosecution Service had brought the case because of political pressure.

Given the failure of the prosecution, there may be an “even greater reluctance” to report, the study said, but it urged the Royal College of GPs to give training to every doctor about FGM: “Doctors are on the front line. Their professional organisations must do more to encourage their members to report cases of FGM. Without their active reporting of these cases, the full extent of FGM will remain hidden.”

Decrying the prevalence of FGM in the UK and the lack of prosecutions, the report accused the Crown Prosecution Service, police and health professionals of playing pass the parcel.

“The DPP informed the committee that she could only prosecute on the basis of evidence, the police said that they could only investigate on the basis of referral, and the health professionals told us that they could not refer cases because their members were not fully trained and aware of the procedure,” it states. “While agencies play pass the parcel of responsibility, young girls are being mutilated every hour of every day. This is deplorable.”

The select committee welcomed the government’s decision to make reporting FGM mandatory, but said it remained unclear what would happen in the event that a professional should fail to make a report. It called on the government to set out the sanctions that would apply and establish an advisory panel of FGM campaigners, to be consulted before any major policy decisions are taken.

Equality Now, a campaign group, said the focus should not be on prosecution, but prevention.

“Mandatory reporting should go hand-in-hand with mandatory training of those professionals who have a child safeguarding obligation,” said Mary Wandia, the FGM programme manager at Equality Now. “Such training is urgently needed and is the next step. It should come before holding those people to account.”

BENDIGO, AUSTRALIA: Councillor tweets shocking female -whoops! male - genital cutting pic

How shocking female genital cutting is! - whoops!

News.com.au (Australia)
February 26, 2015

Bendigo councillor Elise Chapman tweets graphic female genital mutilation photos

A VICTORIAN councillor has tweeted graphic female genital mutilation photos to a supporter of a controversial mosque development.

WARNING: Disturbing image below.
 
Bendigo councillor Elise Chapman has been outspoken against Islam in her campaign to stop a $3 million mosque development approved by Bendigo City Council in June 2014.

A mosque supporter had sent a message to Chapman on Twitter saying she hoped the mosque would get built soon.

“It’s great to see someone who cares about all Bendigo residents and their religions,” the supporter tweeted.

Ms Chapman responded with the image showing five [boy] babies with bloody wounds.

“Oh, we could have this here too? Would you like your fanny sliced off,” she captioned the photo.

“Yes. I’m opposed to female genital mutilation, child brides, inequality, women beating, all part of Quran, read it.”

The graphic tweet that has generated so much reaction Source: Twitter  [Elise Chapman has since had her Twitter account suspended.]

 

Ms Chapman was one of two councillors who voted against approving the mosque, which would include two prayer rooms, a shop and community sports centre.

The project has been the subject of vocal protests and a social media campaign from opponents, including 350 who submitted formal objections to the council.

About 40 letters of support were also received.
Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal hearings into the development are ongoing.

[Apart from Ms Chapman's Islamophobia, only one problem with this story: the picture shows boy babies who have just been genitally cut ("circumcised"). Here is the original from here (NSFW).

Click to enlarge.

Will learning this change Ms Chapman's view of male genital cutting? Or female? Since the firestorm this generated may have ended her career, does it matter?]

MALAYSIA: Female cutting on the rise

The Express Tribune (Pakistan)
February 20, 2015

Female circumcision on the rise in Malaysia

Syahiera Atika, a 19-year-old Malaysian girl  has happily embraced western-style capitalism but in contrast strictly follows the local interpretation of Islam as she informed the Vice of her circumcision.
 
Female circumcision involves the surgical removal of all or part of a woman’s clitoris. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has classed this procedure as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

WHO also defines it as an operation that “involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.”

Syahiera however, rejects the notion that it is inhumane and says that ”I’m circumcised because it is required by Islam.” She refers to it as ‘wajib’, which means any religious duty commanded by Allah.

“I don’t think the way we do it here is harmful,” she said, adding that “it protects young girls from pre-marital sex as it is supposed to lower their sex drive. But I am not sure it always works.” [Of course it does not affect their drive, only their sensations.]

According to a 2012 study conducted by Dr Maznah Dahlui, over 93 per cent of Muslim women surveyed had been circumcised. This made Syahiera among the majority of Muslim women in Malaysia.

Dr Dahlui also noted that the procedure was increasingly performed by trained medical professionals in private clinics, instead of by traditional circumcision practitioners.

Shocking to Western sensibilities, Dr Maznah insisted that Malaysia’s version of the procedure in less invasive than in other parts of the world.

Obstetrician and gynaecologist, Dr Mighilia of the Global Ikhwan private clinic located in Rawang, north of Kuala Lumpur, admitted that she performs a more drastic version with a needle or scissors. “I just take a needle and slit off the top of the clitoris, but it is very little,” she said. “Just one millimetre.”

WHO has declared FGM to provide no medical benefits whatsoever. It simply reflects the deep-rooted inequality between the sexes. For this reason, the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 unanimously passed a resolution calling it a “human rights violation” and urged states to ban the practice.

Some Malaysian medical practitioners also defend the practice by passing judgment onto other countries. “We are very much against what is going on in other countries like Sudan,”says Dr Ariza Mohamed, a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist at KPJ Ampang Puteri Specialist Hospital in Kuala Lumpur.

“That is very different from what we practice in Malaysia,” she said adding “and there is a big difference between circumcision and female genital mutilation.”

All Malaysians however, do not support the practice. Syarifatul Adibah, who is the Senior Programme Officer at Sisters in Islam, a local women’s rights group, insists that female circumcision isn’t once mentioned in the Quran.

Instead she points to its popularity as a stemming from an increasingly conservative interpretation of Islam. “Previously it was a cultural practice but now because of Islamisation, people just relate everything to Islam. And when you link something to religion, people here follow it blindly, they don’t enquire,” she explained.

The practice is not banned in Malaysia, although public hospitals are prevented from performing the surgery. More concerning however is that in 2009 the Fatwa Committee of Malaysia’s National Council of Islamic Religious Affairs ruled that female circumcision was obligatory for all Muslim women, unless it was harmful.

LONDON: Doctor charged with cutting woman after childbirth

BBC
January  19, 205

Doctor 'performed FGM on new mother in hospital'

A British doctor performed female genital mutilation on a young mother after she gave birth in hospital, a court has heard.

Dhanuson Dharmasena, 32, is accused of carrying out the illegal procedure at the Whittington Hospital in north London.

The doctor, of Ilford, London, denies the charge in what is the first prosecution of its kind in the UK.
A second man, Hasan Mohamed, 41, denies encouraging and abetting the offence.
...
Carrying out female genital mutilation carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

'Encouragement' The mother-of-two, who cannot be identified, first underwent FGM aged six in Somalia, London's Southwark Crown Court heard.

She was 24 and living in Britain when she give birth to her first child in November 2012.

The court heard that during labour, her FGM stitches were torn and Dr Dharmasena, a junior registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology, sewed her back up in a procedure that amounted to FGM.

The prosecution alleges the doctor did so at Mr Mohamed's "insistence or encouragement".

Kate Bex, prosecuting, told jurors that FGM was "very dangerous for a woman's health and psychological well-being"....

"It increases the risk of death in childbirth to both mother and baby."

Jurors heard the woman would have been most exposed to these side-effects when the surgery was first performed when she was six.

Dr Dharmasena's stitches would not have carried the same risks, but should not have been sewn at all "unless medically necessary", Ms Bex said.

'Changed tack' The hospital trust launched an investigation into the incident within a few weeks.

In a statement, Dr Dharmasena said he had carried out the procedure because he thought the woman wanted him to. He also said Mr Mohamed had urged him to do so.

He said: "At no point in time did I intentionally or deliberately want to cause any harm to the patient. I had obeyed all of the patient's wishes."

But jurors were told he had changed his justification when he was interviewed by police in August 2013.

Ms Bex said: "It would seem that Dr Dharmasena had familiarised himself with the law and you may feel that he changed tack as a result."

Ten months after the operation, he raised the possibility that it had been "medically justified", she told the court.

Dr Dharmasena denies one count of female genital mutilation.

Mr Mohamed denies one count of aiding or abetting the procedure, and one count of intentionally encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence.

The trial continues.

TANZANIA: Girls cut after leaving refuge - one father arrested

Tanzania Daily News
January  19,2015

Tanzania: Police Confirm Single Arrest Over Forced FGM in Tarime

By Mugini Jacob Tarime — POLICE have arrested a man here for allegedly forcing her daughter to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM) at a village in Tarime, Mara Region .

The single arrest came in the wake of shocing reports that dozens of girls who escaped the cut and camped at Termination of Female Genital Mutilation(TFGM) Masanga Centre in the critical months of November and December when FGM was widely conducted in area, are now being subjected to forced circumcision.

More than 600 most school girls refused the cut and sought shelter at the rescue centre, which operates under the Roman Catholic Church of Musoma Diocese with the support of several partners, including United Nations Population Fund(UNFPA) and Children's Dignity Forum(CDF), a nongovernmental organisation, which has of late enhanced the battle against FGM in the area.

... The girls left the centre early this month in a colourful function officiated by Minister for Labour and Employment, Ms Gaudensia Kabaka.

Tanzania Media Women's Association (TAMWA) Executive Director Ms Valerie Msoka described the report about the girl who was forcibly cut in Tarime as "shocking and humiliation of the highest order".

She called for immediate new effective measures that will help to save girls from the outdated harmful culture. FGM is illegal according to the law. "
...

KENYA: Police search for 17 girl-cutters

The Counties (Kenya)
December 16, 2014

Police search for 17 FGM initiators

by Fred Kibor
Seventeen suspected Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) initiators have fled for fear of being arrested after they circumcised 31 girls over the weekend.

Deputy County Commissioner Hussein Alaso said they had received the names of the suspects from Tinyar and Kaptabukwo villages in Chugor sub-location.

"The county security team is looking for the suspects and will arrest them when found," he said.
Efforts by law enforcers to rescue the girls and arrest the perpetrators were thwarted on Saturday after local residents attacked police officers with stones while hurling curses at them.

"At the moment, there is little goodwill at the local level to end this outdated practice. However, once these suspects are arrested and charged, then residents will know that the Government is determined to put an end to this dehumanising act," Mr Alaso told The Standard.

The initiates are currently in seclusion in an unknown place after their previous hideout was exposed. Health personnel have urged locals to take them to hospital, saying the girls risked infection from exposure to unhygienic conditions. Health Executive Stephen Biwott said they had deployed health workers to be on standby in the area once the locals brought the initiates for medical attention.

Local MPs said while the incident was a setback in the fight against FGM, they would not relent.

TANZANIA: 120 girls flee cutting

Tanzania Daily News
December 15, 2014

Tanzania: More Than 100 Girls Flee From 'Knife' in Mara

by Mugini Jacob
Mugumu — NEARLY 120 girls have camped at a new safe house in Mugumu Town in Serengeti District after fleeing forced circumcision from different Mara Region villages.

"The number was 117 by Saturday and most of the girls have been badly beaten and injured for refusing to be circumcised", the Coordinator of the Serengeti We Can Live Without HIV/AIDS, Gender Based Violence (GBV) and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) project, which is run by the Mara Diocese of the Anglican Church of Tanzania, Ms Rhobi Samweli, said.

The girls started fleeing their homes early this month when the on-going female genital mutilation (FGM) season kicked off in various parts of Mara Region.

"The girls we have here are coming from villages in Tarime, Serengeti and Butiama districts. We are feeding them but some come without even clothes, so we had to buy them clothes", Ms Rhobi said.
Those who were received with injuries were also taken to Mugumu District Designated Hospital for treatment, according to the official.

According to Ms Rhobi , the Police Force, through its gender desk, is showing good cooperation in protecting the girls. Establishment of the new safe house in Mugumu is designed to address the problem of FGM and other forms of GBV acts in Serengeti District.

It is part of the outcome of an ambitious anti-GBV, FGM and HIV/ AIDS implemented in the district under the sponsorship of Rapid Fund Envelope (RFE) in recent years.
...

KENYA: Chief shot with arrow after female-cutting arrest

Genital cutting makes people do strange things


The Star (Kenya)
November 28, 2014

Kenya: Chief in Bomet Struck By Arrow Over FGM Arrests

A man in Bomet county allegedly shot a chief in the shoulder with an arrow on Wednesday morning for leading detectives to his village to arrest a circumciser and his two victims.

Lelaitich location chief, Robinson Rotich, was reportedly struck by the arrow amid a confrontation by rowdy youths after the team of police officers he led to a home in Kabolwo village arrested the initiates. The circumciser escaped.

County police commander Leah Kithei told the press in her office on Thursday that assistant chief Elijah Mutai informed his boss of the circumcision following a tip off from members of the public. The victims, two married women, were reportedly forced to face the cut.

Kithei said the women were escorted to the Legume police post after their arrest but that the chief and his assistant alighted on the way and were afterwards accosted by the youths.

The youths fled after one of them injured the chief who was rushed to the Tenwek mission hospital in Bomet Central division, she said. The arrow in his shoulder was removed and he was treated and discharged.

The women were taken to Longisa County Referral Hospital and will be charged for failing to report a crime after they recover, Kithei also said. [Blaming the victims....]

She reiterated that the ban on FGM is still in effect and warned husbands and parents forcing their wives and daughters to get circumcised that it won't be long before they are arrested and punished.

She appealed to residents to volunteer information that could lead to the arrest of the run-away circumciser, by the police who have launched a search, assuring them that it will be confidential.

Bomet county women's rep Cecilia Ngetich last week told KNA that over 113 girls among them married women had secretly been circumcised.

GUINEA-BISSAU: Six on trial for cutting seven girls

AlArbia
November 22, 2014

G.Bissau launches first female genital mutilation prosecutions

Guinea-Bissau will try six people for female circumcision, a judicial source told AFP Friday, in the west African nation's first prosecutions since the practice was outlawed three years ago.

The defendants, all of whom have appeared at preliminary court hearings since Thursday, are said to believe the practice is in keeping with their Islamic faith.

The source said the defendants, two people who carried out the circumcisions and four parents, were accused of mutilating seven young girls.
...

According to a health ministry report released in 2012, at least 320,000 women and young girls have undergone FGM in the nation of 1.7 million.
...

The Bissau-Guinean parliament passed a law in June 2011 banning FGM and making it a crime punishable by up to five years imprisonment... and a fine of 50,000 CFA francs ($95, 76 euros).
Aid agency Plan International said earlier this year 50 percent of girls continue to be victims.

CAIRO: Doctor acquitted of genital cutting death

Associated Press
November 20, 2014

Egypt acquits doctor in female genital mutilation

by Maggie Michael
CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court on Thursday acquitted a doctor charged with performing female genital mutilation that led to a 13-year-old girl's death in a Nile Delta village, the country's first trial on charges of breaking the ban on the practice.

The verdict surprised activists against the practice, who had been hoping for a conviction and tough sentence to serve as a deterrent for doctors and families. Egypt has one of the highest rates of female genital mutilation in the world and criminalized the practice in 2008, but it remains widespread.

The court in the Nile Delta Province of Dakahliya ruled that the doctor, Raslan Fadl, and the father of Sohair el-Batea, the girl who died, were not guilty on charges of breaking the ban on the practice, said Reda el-Danbouki, a lawyer involved in bringing the case to trial. The judge did not immediately explain the verdict.

The judge also dropped a charge of manslaughter because the family and the doctor had earlier agreed to reconcile, el-Danbouki said. The family was paid 60,000 pounds, or about $8,500, in compensation.

El-Danbouki said he is coordinating with rights groups to appeal the verdict.

Sohair's family initially filed a police report saying she died as a result of female genital mutilation, but changed their story after reconciling with the doctor, said el-Danbouki. The case came to trial only after significant pressure from rights groups, he added.

The lawyer said that the judge ignored all medical reports that proved the girl underwent female genital mutilation, ignored a Health Ministry decision to shut down the doctor's clinic because it violated medical standards, and ignored the law itself.

"On personal level, I am shocked," he said.

Earlier this month the Associated Press visited Fadl's village and found that the doctor was still practicing in the same building.

Atef Aboul Einein, another lawyer who followed the case, said "this opens the door for any doctor to perform the same procedure without fear of being held accountable and in absence of any deterrence."

More than 90 percent of Egyptian women are estimated to have undergone the procedure, which in Egypt generally involves the cutting off of all or part of the clitoris and sometimes the labia. In a conservative society, it is believed to control a young woman's sexual appetite.

It is practiced in 29 countries, most in East and West Africa, but also in Iraq and Yemen. It is practiced among both Muslims and Christians. Rights groups see it as a way to control female sexuality that causes physical and psychological damage.

Earlier story

LONDON: No charges in 10 out of 12 female cutting cases

Evening Standard
November 17, 2014

Fight against FGM suffers a blow as more cases are dropped without charges

by Martin Bentham
Hopes of a landmark first British prosecution for the female genital mutilation of a child were dealt a blow today, after the number of suspected “cutting” cases over which no charges will be brought rose to double figures.

The Crown Prosecution Service said it had decided that “no further action” could be taken in 10 out of 12 cases referred to it by police, and only two files were still being considered for possible criminal charges.

It said that reasons for vetoing prosecution included the reluctance of one victim to testify against a 35-year-old suspect from London. A gap in the 1985 law banning FGM in England and Wales made it impossible to prosecute a Somali woman aged 40 who allegedly subjected her daughter to mutilation during a holiday in her homeland.

Three other women, two of whom were arrested at Heathrow, escaped charges because items they possessed — which police believed were going to be used for cutting — could also be used for other “traditional practices” that were lawful.

A 38-year-old London man who threatened to inflict FGM has been told he will not be charged because police were unable to show that he intended to put his words into action.

News that so many investigations have failed to produce prosecutions will disappoint campaigners, and reinforce concerns that existing measures to combat FGM are inadequate. They will also raise fears about the ability of the Metropolitan police — whose detectives are facing a growing burden from historical child sex abuse cases — to overcome the difficulty of obtaining proof to bring offenders to justice.

Ministers have already responded to the lack of charges by announcing a raft of legal reforms, including anonymity for victims and a new duty on parents to prevent mutilation. These are currently passing through Parliament as part of the Serious Crime Bill.

Today the Crown Prosecution Service and Scotland Yard vowed to do all in their power to charge offenders.

A CPS spokeswoman said FGM had “devastating consequences for girls and women” and it welcomed the government’s action to strengthen the law, in response to recommendations from Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders. “The proposed changes [will mean] there will be a positive duty on parents or carers to prevent their child from being mutilated, and a positive duty on medical and healthcare professionals to report FGM and people at risk from it,” the spokeswoman said.

“The changes will extend our powers to prosecute for actions committed overseas; enable us to work with police to build stronger cases; and give those that inflict such cruelty on women and girls fewer places to hide.”

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said the Met “remains absolutely resolute in its efforts to detect and prevent FGM”, and was working with heath, education and other professionals to ensure that girls at risk and victims were identified.

She added: “FGM is a hidden crime. It is a taboo subject within families and practising communities, making it very difficult for police to detect. We are now focusing on trying to secure the information about those committing the offences so there is less of a reliance on the victim giving evidence — often against their loved ones.”

Two people, doctor Dhanuson Dharmasena, 32, and another man who cannot be named, have been charged with FGM offences over the alleged mutilation of a woman who had just given birth at The Whittington Hospital in Archway. Both deny the allegations and are due to stand trial in January at Southwark Crown Court.

Anyone who has been subjected to FGM or who is at risk should contact the police on 999 or Project Azure officers on 0207 161 2888. They can also call the NSPCC FGM helpline on 0800 028 3550.

SYDNEY: Islamic books advocate female genital cutting

news.com.au (Australia)
November 17, 2014

Peddling pages of barbaric savagery: Islamic shops still selling female mutilation books

by
AN Australian Muslim convert who edited a book advocating female genital mutilation (FGM) has disowned the tome and urged people not to buy it.

Prohibitions That Are Taken Too Lightly was one of several books bought from Sydney bookshops by The Daily Telegraph that advocate FGM, sometimes known as female circumcision. It was edited in 2001 by Islamic convert Shifa Lynette Vivienne Mustapha who lives in Queensland — and who now says she would not “give it to anyone”.

The book was written by Saudi scholar Muhammad Saalih Al-Munajjid, 54, who ­believes Mickey Mouse should be killed as one of “Satan’s soldiers”. It provides edicts on many behaviours it says are forbidden in Islam.

“If anyone asked if they should read it, I would say ‘don’t bother’,” said Ms Mustapha, who added that she took on editing the book through “naivety or ignorance” and that the section on FGM was added after she finished working on it.

“I’ve done years of study since then and no longer have anything to do with (the book),” she said.
Ms Mustapha has also spoken out strongly against FGM and has received threats as a result.

Another book bought by The Daily Telegraph is called Important Lessons For Muslim Women, which says FGM is “obligatory” if an unmarried woman’s desire is “so great”. NSW minister for women Pru Goward has condemned the promotion of the “abhorrent” practice.

In May the NSW government tripled the sentence for performing FGM to 21 years’ jail and introduced a new ­offence of removing a woman or girl from NSW to have it performed.

But books promoting the barbaric practice remain on sale in the Bukhari House ­Islamic Bookstore in Auburn, and The Islamic Bookstore in Lakemba.

“I am a supporter of freedom of speech, but whether it is from behind a lectern or on a page, the promotion of this inhumane and illegal practice is unacceptable,” Ms Goward said. “I would be calling on booksellers themselves to pull any book ­encouraging female genital mutilation off the shelf.”

Eman Sharobeem, head of the Immigrant Women’s Health Service, said: “To hear that there are books promoting female circumcision is shocking.”

Another book bought by The Daily Telegraph, Instructions Of Shari’ah For Women, wants to ban Western education for women. Others say women should not drive, should not work with men and must have sex if their husbands demand it.

A worker behind the counter at The Islamic Bookstore in Lakemba said he did not agree with FGM but he “could not read all 10,000 books here”.

Sydney Muslim leader Jamal Rifi said FGM did not have a part in the Muslim religion, but added that discussing these issues was better than banning books. “A lot of bullshit is written in these books but it doesn’t mean we are so stupid to follow it,” he said.

FGM involves the removal of parts or all of the external female genitalia.

Originally published as Store’s female genital mutilation shame

KENYA: Amnesty for female genital cutter after girl's death

News24 (Kenya)
September 4, 2014

Female circumcision killer gets amnesty despite girl's death

Nairobi - A woman who carried out female genital mutilation on a 16-year-old girl who then bled to death has been given an amnesty after agreeing to stop the practice, police said Thursday.

"We have extended an amnesty to her because she came out and owned up," said Charles Wasike, the police chief in West Pokot county, situated on the border with Uganda.

"She is an example to others, and we encourage similar people to come out and own up," he told AFP.
Kenya outlawed FGM in 2011, with practitioners punishable by a minimum three-year jail term or fine, and life imprisonment if the procedure causes death.

The Standard newspaper said the woman, Cheponger Yarasia, admitted to police that the girl's parents had sought her out to perform the ritual because their daughter was pregnant, and that giving birth before undergoing FGM was considered taboo.

The report said the procedure went wrong and the girl bled to death.

FGM, which affects tens of millions of women particularly in the Horn of Africa and East Africa, ranges from removal of the clitoris to the mutilation and removal of other female genitalia.

Teresa Lokichu, an anti-FGM campaigner, said the girl's parents had refused to take her to hospital in order to conceal the ordeal.

"The young girl died a month ago, but the woman who circumcised her came out two weeks ago," Lokichu said, explaining that she had marshalled the help of local church leaders to get the woman to come clean, go to the police and sign a promise not to do it again.

"It's a rampant practice among many nomadic communities in the region," she said.

Local media reported that the woman said she would circumcise 50 girls per day during holiday seasons, and charged between three and five US dollars for the procedure.