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Monday, January 11, 2010

Africa battling Female Genital Mutilation

January 8, 2010 By Frank Kanyesigye - The New Times

Kigali — Egypt, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Lesotho and Sierra Leone have numerous cases of female genital mutilation in Africa.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) sometimes called female circumcision or female genital cutting involves the cutting of the girl's genitals in order to curb their sexual desire and preserve their sexual honour before marriage.

It comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. It has no health benefits and harms girls and women in many ways.

This traditional practice is carried out mainly in Africa and in the Middle East and Far East Asian countries. Over the years, reports from Europe, North America and Australia indicate that, it is practiced among immigrant communities.

This practice is regarded as a disgusting act in the modern world today, many diplomats and academics do not recognize it.

It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue, and hence interferes with the natural function of girls' and women's bodies.

According to Diana Okoth a gynecologist, "female genital mutilation causes severe pain and has several immediate and long-term health consequences, including difficulties in childbirth."

The World Health Organization and the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics have opposed FGM as a medically unnecessary practice with serious, potentially life-threatening complications.

According to Marian Koster MSc and Dr. Lisa Price of Wageningen University of Netherlands FGM, "reduces women's sexual pleasure and violates their integrity and rights."

The prevalence of FGM varies within each community but it was generally agreed that no matter the level of the practice in each community, the fact still remains that the practice is discriminatory and harmful to women.

Custom and tradition were by far the most frequently cited reasons for FGM. Along with other physical or behavioural characteristics, FGM defines who is in the group especially when mutilation is carried out as part of the initiation into adulthood. A girl cannot be considered an adult in a FGM practicing community unless she has undergone FGM.

The Ugandan parliament recently passed a bill banning female genital mutilation. Convicted offenders face 10 years in prison, but if the girl dies during the act, those involved will get a life sentence, according to the bill.

United Nation reports indicate that, about three million women and girls face female genital mutilation globally every year, and nearly 140 million have already undergone the practice.

Many experts hold that the FGM practice is African. Nearly half of the cases represented in official statistics occur in Egypt and Ethiopia. Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Sierra Leone also record a high prevalence.

The age and time at which FGM is practiced differs from community to community, and can be carried out from as early as a few days after birth, to immediately after the birth of a woman's first child. One of the notable trends in global FGM today is the progressive lowering of the age at which girls undergo the practice.

Among communities that practice FGM, the procedure is a highly valued ritual, whose purpose is to mark the transition from childhood to womanhood.

In these traditional societies, FGM represents part of the rites of passage or initiation ceremonies intended to impart the skills and information a woman will need to fulfill her duties as a wife and mother.

Among social activists and feminists, combating FGM is an important policy goal because the practice has left the victims traumatized. Those who survive can suffer adverse health effects during marriage and pregnancy.

In terms of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it is increasingly clear that when perceived as a manifestation of gender inequalities, progress towards abandonment of Female genital mutilation will contribute to the empowerment of women.

The United Nations has supported the right of member states to grant refugee status to women who fear being mutilated if they are returned to their country of origin.

Canada has granted such status to women in this situation. A judge of a Canadian Federal Court declared it a "cruel and barbaric practice."

An increasing number of international instruments underscore the commitments of many nation states to end harmful practices including FGM. Some of the major instruments include the universal declaration of human rights, the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and on the rights of children.

UNFPA (United Nations Fund for Population Activities) mobilizes people through culturally sensitive approaches that enable community members including adolescents, women, teachers and parents to become involved in behavioral change communication activities at grassroots level and hence contribute to change in attitudes towards the FGM practice.

Also, the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women denounced the practice and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child identified female genital mutilation (FGM) as a harmful traditional practice.

Recently human rights activists converged in Kampala Uganda to advocate for the end of Female genital mutilation, during the conference one of the participants said, "a better marriage results from not being cut because there are no benefits instead the practice is cruel to females."

Media reports indicate that FGM has been a top priority for United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for almost three decades.

As early as 1952, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution condemning the practice.

FGM do not vary across regions and that religion has no influence. As California State University anthropologist Ellen Gruenbaum has explained, "People have different and multiple reasons for some it is a rite of passage.

For others it is not. Some consider it aesthetically pleasing. For others, it is mostly related to morality or sexuality.

There are indications that FGM might be a phenomenon of epidemic proportions in the Arab Middle East. It is reported that traditionally all women in the Persian Gulf region were mutilated.

Arab governments refuse to address the problem; they prefer to believe that lack of statistics will enable international organizations to conclude that the problem does not exist in their jurisdictions.

Many Muslims and academics in the West take pains to insist that the practice is not rooted in religion but rather in culture.

Fighting against Female genital mutilation is a mandate not only because it's a disgusting act but because it's deliberated onto girls and women and destroys their basic right to live.

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"Change has begun here and the change must continue."

January 9, 2010 By Paul Vallely - The NZ Herald The agony of female circumcision

Hanna Abera is seven. Her mother and grandmother wanted to slice off part of her genitals. But she was saved by an extraordinarily brave intervention from her aunt after a British charity launched a programme of education on the consequences of female circumcision - which is still widely practised throughout parts of Africa and the Middle East.

No one knows how many women are subjected to the procedure but it is thought that over two million procedures are performed every year. Amnesty International estimates that over 130 million women worldwide have been affected by some form of what it calls female genital mutilation.

In Ethiopia, which is where Hanna lives, 70 to 80 per cent of women are circumcised, as are almost all men. But this is not a bad news story. It is about change n for in the region around the town of Woliso in the central part of the country a remarkable project has brought a revolution in social attitudes.

And it has come about through the empowerment of a local community, thanks to a project run by the British development agency ActionAid, which is one of the three charities being supported in this year's Independent Christmas Appeal, which closes today n though staff will remain available to receive donations by post, telephone or via the internet until the end of next month.

Change began in Woliso in 1998 when ActionAid began a project to get local communities to focus on how traditional cultural practices were assisting the spread of HIV/Aids. But it took seven years before that work began to bear fruit and Hanna - and many young girls like her - began to be saved from the circumciser's blade.

The rate of HIV infection in Ethiopia is around 4.4 per cent n which is below the 6 per cent average for the continent or the astronomical rates in some southern African countries, where one in five of the entire population is infected. Still, 1.4 million Ethiopians carry the virus, and one of the key strategies in containing the spread has been to try to curb what became known as harmful traditional practices, including widow inheritance, wife sharing, abduction and circumcision.

Campaigners who had studied the eradication of the 1,000-year-long practice of foot-binding in China in the early 20th century knew that changing social attitudes, rather than passing laws against the practice, was key. ActionAid, which specialises in community-level development projects, sponsored training for 96 young people as facilitators of attitude change. To provide them with a living it also gave them training in crop farming or animal rearing.

The facilitators travelled through villages around Woliso calling community meetings asking local people to identify the taboos which might assist the spread of HIV. "We had to proceed slowly," says one of them, Negusse Beadada, 24, "because we knew that the village elders had the power to decide everything and that they didn't trust us or believe us. What we were raising was a challenge to the older community leaders. So the first move was to obtain their blessing for our discussions.

"We began by raising single issues, such as: how do you see the relationships between women and men in this village? Only after six weeks did we raise the issue of harmful traditional practices. Some villagers insisted female circumcision was essential as it stopped females from being rude," he says, employing the word which Ethiopians of all ages use to describe enthusiastic sexual activity, male but especially female. "Others were less strongly committed to it, but said 'It has been practised here for a long time and that can't be changed.' But we started the discussion."

The starting point for debate in these weekly Sunday community meetings was the spread of Aids, but the conversations broadened into wider sexual politics. Among the issues raised were early marriages and abductions as well as circumcision. Traditionally, girls in this part of Ethiopia were considered marriageable between the age of 12 and 14, though some were wed as early as the age of nine to men who were generally over the age of 30.

"Some of the girls are not physically compatible with their husbands," says Hawariat Petros, a young Ethiopian Masters graduate in her mid-twenties who works for ActionAid. "That means sex can be physically damaging. Fistula [a rupture of the vagina and urethra which leads to urinary incontinence in women] is a common problem.

Even so, she says, thanks to girls' education a "real change" has begun. Hanna's aunt, Tijitu Obsu, is still unmarried at 22 "because I have not finished my studies". Among female graduates the average age for marrying is between 25 and 30. Weddings are expensive in Ethiopia, as anywhere. A dowry can cost 6,000 birr ($635) and a wedding feast 7,000 birr ($740) which together represent two years' wages. Men who are poor have got round this problem by lying in wait outside a different village and abducting a girl to be their bride.

"It's been a severe problem in our area," says Ms Beadada, "and it has been widely accepted in the culture and not seen as a bad thing. Sometimes the man will move far away so her family can't track her down. Or his elders come to the girl's family to apologise and see if they can agree a deal or compensation."

The community conversations have started a significant shift on that. There have been no abductions in the area for more than two years now. But circumcision has proved a more deep-rooted problem. "The assumption was widespread that an uncircumscised woman would be unfaithful and would look for other men," says Ms Petros. "She would be rude. But people are coming to see that it's not a question of being rude; it's about respecting your husband - and him respecting you."

The detail of what was done varied from one area to another. In towns the operation, often performed with unsterilised blades, was often done when the baby girl was about six weeks old but in rural areas it was left until the girl was between four and seven. "The degree of cutting in the Christian areas of central Ethiopia was less severe than in the Muslim areas," says Ms Petros, "but there are only three or four regions in Ethiopia that don't do it. Some men, if they marry a women who hasn't been circumcised, will send her away as an adult to have it done."

The procedure involves the slicing away of the clitoris and the removal of the inner and sometimes the outer lips of her vagina. The genitals are then held together using thorns or stitches with the girl's legs tied together for six weeks to allow the healing of the two sides of the vulva.

The procedure can result in a wide range of problems from infections to sterility and even death from shock or unstemmed bleeding. It can make sex painful - husbands sometimes have to cut the women after marriage to allow penetration. Severe complications in childbirth include the tearing of the vagina to such a degree that death of both mother and child can follow. The chances of the transmission of HIV from mother to child are also significantly increased.

It was after hearing all this that seven-year-old Hanna's aunt, Ms Obsu, was overcome with guilt at the operations she had organised for her two nieces. "I knew I had committed a crime and went to see my brother and sister-in-law and I started discussing it," she says, a confidence and assurance kicking in as she switches from speaking a hesitant Amharic, Ethiopia's national language, to Woliso's local tongue.

Changing attitudes is a long process and involves a number of strategies. "You have to deal with myths, like it doesn't hurt the child very much, and wounds heal," says a local man, Tariku Adinuya, 29, who is one of those whose mind has been changed. "I said to the chief elder: 'If you cut your hand with a knife, does it hurt? Well, then it will hurt a child to be circumcised.' It is also self-evident that there can more easily be physical damage during delivery if the vagina does not expand sufficiently. The child may suffer and the mother may die."

He managed to convince his wife with such arguments. But with the village elders he had to deploy a religious approach. "I asked them: 'Do you think that men and women are different in the sight of God?' And when they said no, I said: 'If we are all equal in front of God if you do something bad to a female you do something bad to God'."

Much of the resistance to change resides not with the male elders but with the older women in the community. "Many illiterate women assume that their circumcision has in some way helped them," says Hawariat Petros. "They assume that it makes it easier to give birth. And the women who perform the operation resisted; because it was their livelihood."

"Hanna's grandmother was very annoyed when her parents decided against the procedure," says Ms Obsu. "But since then something has happened to change her mind. My elder sister was pregnant and there were complications so she had to go to hospital. She was given a Caesarean. The doctors told my mother that if my sister had tried to give birth at home she would have died because she had been circumcised so badly. That altered her attitude entirely."

Other attitudes have been changed through the storytelling techniques which have been taught to the facilitators. "We tell the story of a merchant in a village not far from here who had a wife in the country and a mistress in town. When he finds he is HIV-positive he has to decide what to do," says Negusse Beadada. "We ask the villagers what they would do. Some say they wouldn't tell anyone. Others say they would use holy water. Others that they would kill themselves, because they were so evil. Others that they would tell their wife so she could go to hospital. Then we explore the pros and cons of the various options. And in the process of all this discussion you start to change minds."

It works. There have been no female circumcisions now in the area for three years. Many girls of Hanna's age have escaped mutilation. "My friends Getae and Kumisha are not circumcised either," the seven-year-old says. "They are very happy about that. And so am I. When I grow up I'd like to be a doctor to help people like I have been helped."

Change is rippling through the community. Most people now agree to having an HIV test before marriage. Under a local law those who abduct or practise early marriage are fined and jailed for three months. Sixteen girls have been saved from circumcision in one village of 17 households alone. ActionAid now would like to spread the project into other areas.

"I am not afraid that my daughters will not get husbands when they grow up, " says Tariku Adinuya. His children are aged nine and five. With the money he has saved from the operation and the parties that would have followed he has bought an ox.

"There has been such a change in the community that I'm not worried that my daughters will be left without husbands when the time comes," he adds.

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Friday, January 8, 2010

Ending the culture of FGM

January 8, 2010 By Bint al-Sultan - The Guardian Like many girls in Sudan, I suffered genital mutilation – but with education, attitudes are beginning to change.

When I was "circumcised" I was five or six, but it happens to girls as young as four. It starts as a ceremony – the girl is bought clothes, gold earrings and bangles. She has henna put on her hands and feet: the preliminaries are regarded as a celebration where she is the centre of attention.

But later they take her and put her in a gadha, which is shaped like a deep dish. They lay her across it and hold her legs open; there are often three people holding her very tight when she's on the gadha, two holding her legs and hands, and one holding her chest and head.

The equipment is handmade: a sharp curved knife which is not sterilised. And the girl is given no anaesthetic. It is usually mostly women in attendance. They leave a little hole for urination. There are no stitches; they treat the wound with herbs, salt and water. It bleeds a lot and the victim is in great pain. I was horribly frightened and crying. The "ceremony" takes as little as 20 minutes or as long as an hour, depending on how much the girl struggles.

In Sudan and in neighbouring countries, female genital mutilation (FGM) is a cultural issue. If you don't undergo "circumcision", people think you are dirty and no man will marry you. You could say it is about ownership or protection – if someone tries to rape you, they cannot do it easily.

I came to the UK to study and about the same time suffered a great deal of bleeding and pain, so I went to hospital. The nurses and doctors didn't know about FGM. They looked at me as though I was a freak and I had to explain I was "circumcised". It turned out that when they carried out the procedure they left part of one of my labia inside me, so the UK doctors operated to get rid of it.

I am ashamed to say that I attended a ceremony at a private hospital in Harley Street in London while a student here. The girl, who was about eight, was anaesthetised. I feel so guilty about it now and today, with the education I have had about FGM, I would report them to the police – but at the time it didn't cross my mind. Many families in Britain take girls to their country of origin to have it done. It is a holiday, they see family and the countryside and are then "circumcised". When they return, they tell the girl not to talk about it. They say the government will take her away from her family, and that she will lose all she has in the UK.

We need education that is respectful and sensitive. It can't be a cultural confrontation, a judgment. People have been practising this for centuries and see it as embedded in their culture. You cannot approach them aggressively – you have to invite them to talk, to show them the consequences of FGM later on, during menstruation, childbirth and so on. We must educate grandmothers and mothers and young children, and campaign against it.

Many in my generation are fighting it. These days people are more aware, and I know many educated women who will not practise it. People see it as a form of murder, paralysing a part of your body. They say: "We have had enough!"

• City Parochial Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Rosa (the UK Fund for Women and Girls), three independent charitable organisations, have collaborated to establish a new UK-wide Special Initiative to fund community-based, preventive work to safeguard children from the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

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Thursday, January 7, 2010

Female Genital Mutilation as Persecution: When Can It Constitute a Basis for Asylum and Withholding of Removal?

A document dated 2008 produced by the Congressional Research Service. To read the pamphlet click here.
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CHAD: Tackling FGM in refugee camps

January 6, 2010
By IRIN

GOZ BEIDA, 6 January 2010 (IRIN) - The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Chad is identifying pregnant women in refugee camps who have had their genitalia cut, in order to better prepare for potential complications, according to UNHCR and its medical partners. The exercise is part of efforts in the camps to tackle the health fallout of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) as well as prevent new cutting.

Since September 2009 heath clinic workers at the Djabal camp in eastern Chad started recording how many prenatal patients had been cut; for September it was 22 among 330 women. “This helps us identify at-risk pregnancies because women with closed vaginas [resulting from FGM/C] can tear while giving birth,” camp health director Nassourou Drassadou told IRIN.

The Italian NGO COOPI, which employs Drassadou, provides medical services to some 17,000 refugees at Djabal, 220km south of the main eastern town of Abéché.

Obstetric tears known as fistulas can lead to painful and uncontrollable urination and can require multiple surgeries to heal. Drassadou told IRIN 10 percent of the camp’s prenatal patients faced a high risk of complications, in part due to FGM/C.

Most reported FGM/C among refugees has typically been linked to medical complications, the doctor told IRIN. “In the refugee camps, the health staff generally learn of [FGM/C] only when something has gone horribly wrong,”

But aid workers are not only seeing the long-term health impact of FGM/C; girls are still being cut in the camps. Health NGOs recorded nearly 60 incidences of cutting in refugee camps in 2009.

“Despite efforts to wipe out [FGM/C] we know it is still happening,” health director Drassadou told IRIN.

One young girl bled to death at camp Djabal from a botched cutting, he said.

Days prior to IRIN’s visit, a five-year-old was brought to the camp health clinic for urinary tract infections. “She could not urinate. Her urinary tract was not even visible,” said Drassadou, who told IRIN the problem was a result of the girl’s genitalia being cut at 18 months. When IRIN visited the girl at the Goz Beida regional hospital to where she had been referred, her family was preparing to bring her home. “She is better and can urinate now, ” her mother, Ashta Ali Heissein, told IRIN.

Heissein and her children fled violence in Sudan in 2006 shortly after her husband was killed trying to resist men who wanted his cows, she told IRIN. “I married at 19 and we never heard in Sudan that we should not have our girls cut. All mothers did it.” Upon arrival at the refugee camp, she heard from aid workers and radio spots that FGM/C is harmful and potentially deadly.

Just after the girl’s arrival in Chad, doctors had to operate on her because of FGM/C complications, Heissein told IRIN. “Things were better, but then she started having problems again [in 2009].”

After the girl’s recent hospital stay the doctor told IRIN the girl had a good chance of not needing new surgery.

“Thanks to God,” Heissein said in prayer as her daughter sat on the hospital bed, waiting to be released. “God is good. Doctors also.”
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Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Azeb lauds FGM, HIV/AIDS prevention activities in Afar state

January 4, 2010 By Walta Information Center Addis Ababa – The Founder and Board Chairperson of the National Coalition for Women against HIV/AIDS, First Lady Azeb Mesfin, lauded the successful endeavors carried out to eradicate Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and prevent HIV/AIDS in Afar state. Speaking at the 4th annual conference of the Coalition held on Saturday in Awash Sebat town, Azeb said the Afar state has registered remarkable results in the fight against FGM, a factor which is fueling the spread of HIV/AIDS in the state. She said the coalition in collaboration with religious and clan leaders as well as pertinent bodies is exerting utmost efforts so as to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS through fighting FGM [...] Azeb Mesfin
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Working to Reduce Female Genital Mutilation in Iraqi Kurdistan

December 25, 2009
ERBIL-Hewlêr, Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — Female Genital Mutilation (“FGM”) is recognised internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. The practice also violates a person's rights to health, security and physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death. For generations, FGM has been an embedded traditional practice in Kurdistan, but, with the help of a UK-funded project, this is starting to change. With funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a specialist German NGO called WADI has been working to reduce the practice in Kurdistan, and to increase the numbers of senior figures who speak out against it. The project has the support of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the United Nations, the Dutch MFA, and various human and women’s rights groups in KRG, as well as several MPs and doctors from the region. The project has raised awareness of the issue of FGM across KRG, using computer equipment and a specially produced film. 7000 information booklets are being distributed to MPs, health workers, Imans, teachers, social workers and community leaders to encourage them to speak out against the practice of FGM. Four TV spots focusing on the issue are due to be broadcast shortly. Draft legislation is currently being discussed in the Kurdish Parliament, which would ban FGM and impose penalties on those who practised it. On 8 November, Bev Simpson the British Deputy Consul General travelled with a WADI mobile team to a Halabja women's centre to see them run one of their FGM awareness meetings. More than 50 women attended, and the two speakers (a lawyer and a social worker) showed the FGM film, then took a question and answer session which was very lively. There was a great deal of debate among the women on whether FGM is required under Islam and whether it is still practised as widely as studies suggest. * Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a human rights violation and a severe form of violence against women and children. In Iraq, as in other countries of the Middle East, official documents of governments and United Nations agencies alike, still neglect this abuse. As a consequence, Women’s groups and human rights organizations, supported by the German NGO Wadi initiated the campaign »Stop FGM Kurdistan
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Monday, January 4, 2010

FGM as a human right violation

December 30, 2010 By Monica Nankya, Secretary General of Uganda Para-Legal Society -

Uganda is a signatory to various human rights treaties and this has earned it a very positive image on the international scene as one of the countries that highly respect and observe human rights. However its biggest problem has always been implementation.

Women and children, given their vulnerability, have faced various human rights abuses at all levels, among which includes sexual exploitation, domestic rape, defilement, child labour, child sacrifice, domestic violence, child trafficking and female genital mutilation (FGM). However FGM has turned out to be more sensitive as the young women's health is put at risk when they undergo this practice.

Article 21 of the African Charter is on the rights and welfare of a child, protecting him/her against harmful social and cultural practices and this includes the elimination of all harmful practices affecting the welfare, dignity normal growth and development of the child.

In Africa about 140 million girls have undergone female genital mutilation (or circumcision as others would want to call it) and 2 million are subjected to it every year. Several basic human rights are violated by the procedure. These primarily include the right of physical integrity, the right to freedom from violence and discrimination and in most severe cases, the right to life.

FGM is an irreversible operation that removes part or all of a girl's external genital organs. It's performed on women but mostly done on girls between the ages of 4 and 12. The practice is performed in various ways which include just the removal of the clitoris; removal of the clitoris and surrounding labia; infibulations -where all the external genitalia are removed and the opening is stitched so that only a small hole remains; a variety of unclassified traumatic procedures of cutting, stretching or piercing performed on the external genitalia, such as cauterization by burning of the clitoris and tissue surrounding the opening of the vagina.

In Africa it is practiced in about 28 countries among which Uganda, Congo, and Kenya fall. About 15% of all women who have undergone FGM have been infibulated. This is largely done as a traditional practice that is believed to keep women chaste and make girls worthy brides.

In communities that practice it, it's believed that if a girl is not 'circumcised', her future as a wife and mother will be in jeopardy. Recently, I talked to one of my friends who is a member of the Sebei, a community which practices FGM, about how important this practice is to their girls. She told me that it's a norm that has to be fulfilled and that a girl must be 'circumcised' to protect her and her families' honour.

In addition to the above, research done by World Health Organisation involving 30,000 African women found that 'circumcised' women were 31% more likely to have a caesarean delivery, 66% higher chances of having a baby that needed to be revived and 55% more likely to have a child who died before or after birth. In addition to the physical complications, there are psychological and sexual impacts including severe trauma, depression and/or frigidity.

It is therefore imperative that the Government of Uganda totally abolishes all such inhuman practices that violate the rights of its people. To ensure this, it has to come up with appropriate laws. However, the law by itself would have limited reach.

Also the risk of FGM being conducted clandestinely can be an unwanted side effect of legislation. In all this great campaign against FGM, credit should go to the various civil society organisations that have tried to bring out a clear image of the scourge. I would like to encourage them to continue with their advocacy and lobby strategies mostly at government level in order to help put an end to this dreadful practice.

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