WUNRN
FGM - FEMALE GENITAL
MUTILATION/CUTTING
NIGER - 10 VILLAGES DENOUNCE FEMALE
GENITAL MUTILATION - FGM
(CNN) -- Ten villages in western Niger
have publicly denounced the practice of female genital mutilation, according to
a UNICEF report.
Representatives from the West African nation's Tillabery
region have called for all people living there to end the practice, the report
said.
"We have decided to definitively put an end to female
genital mutilation in our villages and to continue sensitizing neighboring
villages so they also give up the practice," said N. Babobou Pana, leader
of one of the villages.
Heading the call was Kompoa Tamkpa, a former traditional
practitioner.
"I have given up the bad work, because it does not bring
anything to our village," she said. "We thought it was good for
women, that it was going to bring them success. But we found out that it does
not bring anything."
Female genital mutilation, which is also called female
circumcision, is commonly performed on young girls without anesthesia, and is
extremely painful and traumatizing, UNICEF said.
The practice involves partial or total removal of the
external female genitalia and can result in prolonged bleeding, a higher risk
of HIV infection, infertility and even death. The procedures are based on
religious and cultural beliefs, including efforts to prevent premarital sex and
marital infidelity.
"UNICEF is extremely pleased with this public
declaration to end female genital mutilation in this part of Niger, as it is
seen by Nigerian authorities as a severe violation of the rights of women and
young girls," said Akhil Iyer, a UNICEF representative in Niger.
The rate of genital mutilation in Niger dropped by more than
half between 1998 and 2006, from 5.8 percent to 2 percent, according to a
government survey released last year. But about 66 percent of women in the west
of the country are still subjected to the practice, the report said.
The practice is most common in western,
eastern and northeastern regions of Africa, as well as in some countries in
Asia and the Middle East, and among certain immigrant communities in the United
States and Europe.
________________________________________________________________
http://www.womensenews.org:80/article.cfm?aid=3998
|
05/03/09 |
By
Iman Azzi |
In the year since |
Also this month, local chiefs in the northern Kambia district of Sierra Leone signed an agreement that girls should not undergo the ritual until the age of 18, so they can have a say in the matter. Unfortunately, progress has not come fast enough for some; a 7-year-old Kenyan girl bled to death in early April after being cut. A report released by the European Parliament in April warns that the ritual practice is on the rise in European nations, with 180,000 girls at risk on the continent every year, despite legislation being debated in Parliament that would criminalize it in all European Union nations. Here in "It's no longer on the government's agenda, they've moved on," Seham Abdul Salam, a medical doctor turned anthropologist, said in a recent interview. The law punishes practitioners with between three months and two years in jail or fines ranging from $190 to $940. During the year since the law was passed, no charges have been pressed
against parents or practitioners of genital mutilation, often referred to as
FGM, in Media Wanes
Media interest in the issue has died out and Salam says the practice remains little changed in the country villages. "In the villages, some parents don't even know the law exists. There's little awareness but a lot of support for FGM. They had it done, so they see no problem in doing it to their daughters. Some women are the strongest allies for FGM," Salam said. But activists have not been stilled. Many nongovernmental groups have made the tactical decision to treat FGM, legally speaking, as a child's issue, since the mutilation is usually inflicted around puberty. Policies affecting women--from FGM to wearing headscarves to debates over polygamy and inheritance rights in personal status laws--often ignite battles between the government and the religious conservatives and the strategy of putting FGM in the context of childhood is designed to reduce the risk of conflict. The United Nations Development Programme has sponsored a five-year project run by the Egyptian National Committee for Children and Women called the FGM-free village model. It partners with local groups and tries to secure funding for a range of social services, so they are not seen as outsiders with a single-issue focus on FGM. It has also launched a national media campaign of billboards and television commercials. Marie Assad, a long-time FGM opponent in Assad sees the law as an extra tool to help break down the tradition. Door-to-Door
Effort
Dozens of Egyptian National Committee for Children and UNICEF teams go
door-to-door in Other groups, including UNIFEM, the Population Council and the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights, take a "positive deviance" approach of seeking families who have opted to go against the social norm and providing them support and encouraging others to come together against FGM. The law, which amended existing laws on children, was sparked by two girls' deaths tied to genital mutilation in 2007. The deaths fanned international criticism that had been growing since
1994, when CNN aired a film of a young girl being mutilated in The new child law also prohibits corporal punishment and gives unmarried new mothers the right to list their surname on their infants' birth certificates. The FGM ban retains a clause allowing the operation "in cases of medical emergency." Critics argue that there is never any medical reason for FGM. They say it was inserted to appease the Islamic conservative minority. Some historians believe the FGM tradition dates to as early as 500 B.C.
and was practiced in ancient In 2007 Egypt's senior Islamic leader, Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, said the practice was forbidden by Islam, arguing that while it had been accepted in the past, recent health studies of its dangers make it unacceptable. He noted that the Prophet Muhammad's wives and daughters did not undergo the dangerous and sometimes deadly procedure. Some scholars point to a verse in the Quran (An-Nisa: 119) warning that Satan will try to trick humans into body modification: "And I will surely lead them astray, and arouse desires in them, and command them and they will cut the cattle's ears, and I will surely command them and they will change God's creation." This passage has been interpreted as forbidding altering the human body by any means, whether FGM, tattoos or piercings. The leader of Some local imams nonetheless remain staunch supporters of the practice and have characterized efforts to stamp it out as a form of cultural invasion. Last year, the Muslim Brotherhood, |
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