GAMCOTRAP certifies 24 community-based facilitators for anti-FGM work

June 15, 2010

By Angelic Gomez - Today The Gambia's Quality Newspaper, Online

Twenty- four new community based facilitators from Kombo South have been certificated after the completion of a three day intensive training on Rights Education in the campaign to eradicate female genital mutilation and other harmful traditional practices affecting the health of girls and women. The training has objective to empower the community based facilitators with the right information to advocate against FGM, children's and women's rights in their communities, as part of the recently launched GAMCOTRAP’s Save the Children UNIFEM project f or 2010-2012 in the Kombos, Western Region on Eradicating Harmful Traditional Practices through Rights Education.

In presenting the certificates at the closing ceremony, the chairperson of the Board of Directors of GAMCOTRAP, Honourable Sedia Jatta asserted that he was impressed because of the passion, articulation and conviction with which the participants expressed themselves. He noted that to change people the advocates have to be convinced first. He called on them to work with commitment to bring about change and advised them to be humble, to exercise tolerance and patience to listen to others in other to learn from each other. Honourable Jatta cautioned them that change is not easy, because people have to be educated and aware before they are empowered. He finally advised them to take the training as an inspiration to further seek knowledge, religious knowledge in particular to deepen their arguments, noting that it is only knowledge that transforms the world.

Speaking earlier, the executive director of GAMCOTRAP, Dr. lsatou Touray, advised the participants to develop the attitude to read in order to upgrade their skills to enable them to deal with development issues in their various communities. Dr. Touray called on them to be youths with substance and commended them for going through the rigorous training to earn the certificates. She emphasized the importance of education because the lack of it amongst girls in the communities has been reflected in the gender bias in the representation amongst the participants, noting that as future parents they should take responsibility to educate girls to close the gap.

She also reminded them that they were identified by their Village Development Committees, Alkalolu and their organizations in Kombo South to€present them amongst many others, therefore it is a responsibility they have committed to take to engage and facilitate open discussions on Female Genital Mutilation and other harmful traditional practices, gender based violence and rights of children in their various communities.

In his vote of thanks on behalf of his colleagues, Ousman Jammeh of Jambanjelly said the end of the training marks a new beginning of their commitment and called on the Community Based facilitators know their direction because they know what to achieve. He acknowledged that they have been provided with the knowledge they need to be able to deliver. He concluded by saying that “Knowledge speaks and wisdom listens" and pledged their support to GAMCOTRAP.

The training looked at concepts of rights education in relation to the protection of the rights of children, women and the other vulnerable groups. It also included understanding the health effects of FGM and religious arguments to protect girl-children from the harmful traditional practices as well as communication skills and community mobilization strategies to reach out to people.

In his contribution to the training, the National Coordinator of Child Protection Alliance, Njundu Drammeh emphasised child protection in our communities and the responsibility different stakeholders have to encourage and listen to the voices of children in their best interest in order to ensure the survival, development and non discrimination amongst children.

Dilating on the medical effects of Female Genital Mutilation, senior programme officer for Gender and Health at the Ministry of Health, Mrs. Fatou Camara informed participants that the Ministry has now taken up FGM in its Reproductive and Child Health Programme and have started training the community health nurses and traditional birth attendants to be aware of the medical effects FGM has on women and their babies during child birth. Mrs. Camara said since the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994, the Ministry has taken commitment to improve reproductive health. She expressed appreciation for the pioneering and the leadership GAMCOTRAP has taken to address harmful traditional practices and FGM in particular.

According to the participants, the training has given them confidence, information and knowledge to share with their communities and win them over to protect girls from FGM and protect the rights of children as well as stop violence against women.

The outcome of the training included a plan of action by the community based facilitators and commitment to engage in the project implementation in the Western Region, specifically the Kombos. The participants also reported on the plan of action they drew up regarding community intervention and communication strategies to reach out to their various communities in the Kombos.

Female Genital Cutting: Affecting Young Girls in America

Many U.S. doctors faced with decision when asked to cut young girls

June 14, 2010
By Brinda Adhikari and Lara Salahi

Female genital cutting (FGC) is a tradition that many assume to be affecting girls living only in Africa and Asia. But this rite of passage procedure is an all too familiar for many women living in the U.S.

The practice of cutting encompasses all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons, according to the World Health Organization. In some countries, many of these girls will have their clitoris completely removed to deny them sexual pleasure. And at its most severe, some of them will have their vaginas sewn shut to preserve their virginity.

For resources on female genital cutting, go to ABCNews.com's additional resources page.

"It's worse than anything in this world," said one young woman living in America, known as Mary, who asked to conceal her real name for fear ofretribution from her community.

Mary had the most radical form of cutting performed on her in her home country. Her clitoris was removed and her vagina was stitched together.

Another young woman, anonymously identified as Amy, told ABC News that if her parents found out she was speaking out about female genital cutting they would "literally" kill her.

Although the procedure has been officially banned in the U.S. since 1996, some parents who want to stay true to their traditions ask American doctors to cut their daughters, leaving many doctors with a complicated choice.

Female genital cutting, a ritual thousands of years old, is a tradition many mothers and fathers feel obligated to have their daughters undergo because, without it, they are deemed unworthy of marriage. It is a cultural practice, without religious basis or any medical benefits. In fact, studies show that women who have been through it may suffer a lifetime of devastating complications, from severe infections, to pain and bleeding, and even a higher risk of death during childbirth. Some women die from the procedure itself.

Each day in Africa and Asia, more than 8,000 girls between infancy and age 15 undergo female genital cutting, an estimated total of three million girls annually.

"Obviously [parents] don't use the word 'female genital mutilation,' said Terry Dunn, an obstretrician gynecologist in Denver, Colo. "What the mom of the patient says is, 'I want to have the procedure that makes my daughter like me.'" Many physicians who consider FGC a horrifying treatment of a girl suffer a dreadful dilemma. If they say no, the young patient may become one of tens of thousands of young girls taken back to their home countries, in a process known as 'vacation-cutting.' Once there, the girls are often cut using a broken glass or unsterilized razor blades, and, more often than not, without anesthesia. While FGC may be banned in the U.S., there is no law protecting girls from being taken overseas to have the procedure in another country.

The CDC estimates that between 150,000 to 200,000 girls in the United States are in danger of being taken overseas during their time off from school to undergo vacation cutting. In fact, Amy said her parents were pressuring her to return to their home country. Instead, Amy said, she ran away from home.

"If I went back, I would have been cut," said Amy.


Dilemma Doctors Face

According to Dr. Doug Diekema, a pediatrician at Seattle's Children's Hospital and former chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics' bioethics committee, by refusing to cut girls in the U.S., many doctors may be putting these girls' lives in jeopardy.

"It's very easy to take the high road in cases like this," said Diekema. "But when you're dealing with religious or cultural beliefs, saying no sometimes is not sufficient for people and it will not necessarily eliminate the practice."

In fact, Diekema and a few of his colleagues put forth the idea that American doctors use a so-called ritual nick as an alternative , to keep parents from seeking more dangerous methods of cutting. And, based on Diekema's recommendation, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released an official policy statement saying, "the ritual nick would not cause physical harm."

"The cut itself would be tiny, really just like a poke with a needle so that there might be a drop of blood," said Diekema.

But to many opponents of any form of procedure resembling the traditional female cutting, a ritual nick should not be acceptable as a substitute.

"What the AAP is in fact doing is 'wink, wink, nod, nod' in order to protect your patient from a possible worse form of [FGC], let's just spread her legs and nick her," said Taine Bien-Aime, president of the international human rights organization, Equality Now. "The reality is that what [that] statement does is perpetuate female genital mutilation. There is no other way around it."

But Diekema said that the proposed ritual nicking should not be considered a form of mutilation. "If you look up any definition of mutilation in the dictionary, it doesn't apply to this particular procedure," said Diekema.


Running Out of Options

For Mary, who has seen too many friends suffer through this, ritual nicking is not an acceptable compromise by doctors to keep parents from vacation cutting.

When asked by senior health and medical editor, Dr. Richard Besser, what pediatricians should do when faced with a family who wants to take their daughter back to their home country to undergo genital cutting, Mary said, "Call child services on them."

But, Dr. Nawal Nour, director of the African Women's Health Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass., said it is important not to vilify the immigrant community.

"Blame is never the solution," said Nour. "Empower them, rather than let's cut them and hurt them."

The center, which exclusively helps immigrant women deal with the complications caused by FGC, educates women about the dangers of FGC to prevent cutting for future generations. Layla Guled, a Somali language interpreter, says parents often feel as though they don't have a choice. Moreover, she says, they have the best intentions.

"Our mothers are trying to do the right thing for us," said Guled. "But our generation is trying to fight it."

The AAP offered clarification to their initial policy statement, saying that while the ritual nick may be considered an option, the practice of cutting is still harmful to girls. But after questions by ABC News regarding ritual nicking recommendations, the AAP withdrew their policy statement completely, saying that it had caused too much confusion and controversy.

"I want to make it very clear that the American Academy of Pediatrics opposes any form of female genital cutting, and that would include the ritual nick," Dr. Judith Palfrey, president of the AAP, told ABC News.

Still, Diekema said he stands behind the idea of ritual nicking as an alternative to vacation cutting.

Yet so many U.S. doctors still face a terrible set of options. And while millions of young girls wait for some answer on their fate, some who speak publically about it say they are not giving up the fight.

"We have to change a whole culture," said Mary. "Maybe we can't change their generation but we can change our own generation. We know it's wrong. There's nothing right about this."






Copyright © 2010 ABC News Internet Ventures

Female Genital Cutting: Where to Get Help

For Women in Communities That Face FGC, There's Help

June 14, 2010

By Brinda Adhikari and Lara Salahi – ABC News

Female genital cutting (FGC) encompasses all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons, according to the World Health Organization. While the procedure seems like a tribal tradition undergone on other countries, many young women in the U.S. have undergone FGC.

For many girls who may have already undergone FGC or who are facing community pressure to undergo the procedure, there's help. Here are a few places to turn:

Equality Now: is an international human rights organization that advocates for the social welfare of girls and women.

 Sanctuary for Families is a non-profit organization based in New York that offers help for women seeking assistance regarding FGC.

 American Academy of Pediatrics is an expert-based organization that offers medical information and policy statements on children's health, including young girls.

 UNICEF , a part of the United Nations, advocates for children's rights and protection worldwide.
 Tostan is a nongovernmental organization dedicated to preserving African women's rights and to empowering African communities to abandon FGC.

Brigham and Women's Hospital: African Women's Health Center is a clinic committed to improving the health of refugee and immigrant women who have undergone FGC.

U.S. Bill Would Outlaw FGM ”Holidays”

June 12, 2010
By Beatrice Paez - IPS News

NEW YORK, Jun 12  (IPS)  - The U.S. currently lags behind several Western European countries in closing a legislative loophole banning the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) beyond its borders to protect U.S. citizens and residents. But this may soon change. Some 6,000 girls endure FGM every day, totaling about 100 to 140 million girls and women who bear the lifetime consequences. The ”Girls Protection Act” would make it illegal to transport a minor abroad for the purpose of FGM. Introduced by members of Congress Joseph Crowley and Mary Bono Mack as a bipartisan initiative, the bill is now awaiting review in a congressional committee.

FGM rituals are practiced in many parts of Africa, the Middle East and some countries in Asia. It involves
procedures that partially or completely remove the external female genitalia and is undertaken at infancy or later in childhood, depending on a particular culture.

There are four types, which range in severity. Most common as characterised by the World Health Organisation is Type II, ”the excision of the clitoris with partial or total excision of the labia minora.”

Political asylum has been granted in the United States to FGM survivors, and activist organisations for women such as Equality Now and Sanctuary for Families warn that those at risk also include women living in the U.S.

Canada, Spain, Britain and several Scandinavian countries have already enacted such legislation, commonly known as ”vacation provisions”, which protect girls sent during on "holiday” for circumcision.

In the past, under these provisions, Sweden and France have prosecuted parents that have forced their child to undergo this rite of passage. While these laws cannot monitor and establish conclusively who is at risk, they are intended to act as a deterrent.

”If you make something illegal, people tend not to want to break the law,” Crowley told journalists at a briefing this week. If found guilty, the adults responsible can be fined or serve up to five years in prison.

However, prosecuting is a tricky situation when bearing in mind the child's welfare and the mother's second-class citizenship within her culture. ”We're not calling for the arrest of parents, especially the mothers, who very often do not have the power to decide whether or not their girls will be cut,” Taina Bien-Aimé, the director of Equality Now, told IPS.

The bill will also be coupled with community outreach and educational programmes to shore up awareness on the link between FGM and many serious health complications. Potential consequences for those subjected to FGM include urinary tract infection, complications at childbirth, infertility, cysts, death and need for surgery.

For girls aware of these hazards, they are balanced in mind with the stigmatisation and rejection they face from family members. Mothers preparing their child for marriage facilitate the practice as an ”act of love”, to ensure their child will not be rejected by men and the broader community. Local terminology describes FGM as ”cutting the dirt” or ”cleansing”, a way to preserve the chastity or virginity of a woman.

The impetus for the bill owes to the efforts of grassroots movements and the testimony of FGM survivors campaigning to uproot this tradition from their culture.

Fanta, an FGM survivor who escaped the procedure with the support of her parents, has spoken out about the pressure young girls from her community here in the U.S. face. ”I went through so many rejections, I was not accepted by certain members of the family. It took a lot of sacrifices for my parents,” she said.

Dismissed in the past as a cultural matter, service providers such as guidance counselors, social workers, the police and teachers on the frontline are often unequipped to help those at risk, said Archana Pyati, an attorney from the group Sanctuary for Families.

Bien-Aimé underscored the importance of scaling up grassroots efforts and in establishing networks within the communities as a source of support and information on FGM.

Whether the approach to outreach and education is tailored to a specific culture or not, it is vital that service providers can tackle the issue, Pyati and Bien-Aimé agreed.

”State laws also need to have the vacation provision as a counterpart because the first responders are the police and local service providers,” Bien-Aimé told IPS.

Currently, out of 17 state laws that ban FGM, only Nevada and Georgia instituted these provisions.

Museveni directs Sabiny to stop Female Genital Mutilation

June 7, 2010

By Davids Mafabi - Daily Monitor

Bukwo

President Museveni has described Female Genital Mutilation as an outdated practice and an abuse to dignity of the girl-child that has no room in modern society, urging the Sabiny to stop it henceforth.

“This cutting of girls must stop. This was a science of our ancestors and we need to change it. I am happy that before I even signed the law you already had enacted a law against it,” said President Museveni.

The President, who was on a one-day tour of Bukwo District on Saturday aimed at assessing the progress of the state-funded agricultural and credit facilities, urged people to utilise the small fragmented pieces of land in Bukwo for intensive agriculture to fight poverty at households.

However, there are reports that the practice which in traditional Sabiny society is meant to initiate young girls into adulthood now takes place at night, in the bushes and across the border in Kenya in bid to dodge the law.
Government passed a law banning FGM in March.

Crowley writes anti-mutilation bill to help girls

June 3, 2010
By Chauncey Alcorn -  Your Nabe


U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Jackson Heights), a long-time advocate for women’s rights issues, sponsored the Girls Protection Act of 2010 April 26 after receiving disturbing reports from New York-based women’s shelters, claiming FGM victims have recently visited or anonymously reported FGM cases.

If passed, the bill would outlaw sending girls overseas from the United States for FGM rituals, punishing violators with fines and up to five years in prison.

“We’re closing a loophole,” Crowley said. “Some families in our district are taking their daughters over to their homeland to have this ritual performed. If we can prevent just one girl from going through this, I think it’s worth enacting into federal law

Women’s rights advocates are alarmed at an increasing number of female genital mutilation cases happening to women in Queens.

Some call it hygienic, others call it barbaric — but officials said a rising number of underage girls in New York, including Queens communities, are becoming victims of FGM, or what some call “female circumcision.”

“Wherever you have FGM-practicing immigrant populations, people from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eretria and West African countries like Senegal, the girls are at risk of being subjected to FGM,” said Lakshmi Anantnarayan, communications director for Equality Now, an international women’s rights organization. “If those populations exist in Queens, the risk of their daughters being brought home during summer vacations or having operations done at their homes is very high.”

The practice of FGM involves cutting off part or all of a girl’s external sex organs, including the clitoris and labia. In the most extreme cases, a girl’s vagina can be sewn shut through a process known as “infibulation,” according to the World Health Organization.

The practice is said to be common among some immigrants from certain regions in Africa and the Middle East, who subject their underage daughters to it to ensure they remain virgins until marriage, making them more desirable to potential husbands. Anantnarayan said in some cases FGM is used to deliberately destroy a woman’s ability to enjoy sex to discourage promiscuity.

“It’s the control of women’s sexuality for the most part, to preserve the woman’s virginity until marriage,” she said. “They also say it’s a cultural practice to make the girl more acceptable in the community so she can be married.”

Some cultures consider FGM to be hygienic, similar to male circumcision, even though most health organizations, including the Center for Disease Control and the WHO, said it has serious consequences for a woman’s overall and reproductive health.

“The urethra is affected in women, especially African women, who have a tendency to keloid,” said Taina Bien-Aime, executive director of Equality Now. “There can be serious consequences around the urethra because of infection or a number of other reasons.”

Bien-Aime said FGM causes constant vaginal pain that can last a lifetime and in some cases create extreme complications for women during pregnancy. FGM also causes problems during a woman’s monthly period.

Federal lawmakers outlawed practicing FGM in the United States in 1996, but Equality Now and other groups claim U.S. immigrants are sending girls abroad to have the procedure done.

Since FGM is so taboo in the United States, documented instances are rare, although in recent years prominent reports of it occurred in Georgia — with one occurring last year.

Female circumcision under consideration

May 31, 2010

By IBT Health

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

The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) says the practice of "ritual nicks" could meet the cultural needs of some women and potentially save some people from drastic surgery.

Although illegal in Australia, female genital mutilation is common among some African, Asian and Middle Eastern communities but has been known to leave some young girls scarred for life when not carried out in proper clinical facilities.

Former commissioner and current state Liberal MP, Pru Goward, has called for action against  initiating the practice of circumcision and said it is a form of child abuse. She said it doesn't matter whether it is cultural or not, it is against the law.

''I think the Federal Government needs to have an education campaign as part of our immigration program, and if you are introducing  people from other countries where you know it goes on, you need to let them know it is unlawful and it is not acceptable.''

 Elizabeth Broderick, Sex Discrimination Commissioner for the Australian Human Rights Commission said: "I disagree with the suggestion by the RANZCOG that we should, for any reason, entertain a practice of "ritual nicks" in a sterile environment. 

"In my opinion female genital mutilation or female circumcision, whatever you want to call it, is violence against women, often against children and young women."

RANZCOG secretary Gino Pecoraro told News Ltd, "We will need to start to think about [its introduction] but we would have to speak to community leaders from Australia."

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

RANZCOG said the issue would be discussed at a women's health meeting in June.

Fewer women being mutilated in Cote d'Ivoire

May 31, 2010

By Alison Clarke - Women's Views on News

Although rates of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) have slowed down in the Cote d'Ivoire thanks to a campaign of zero tolerance, campaigners are concerned that they are not falling faster. 

The Ministry for Family, Women and Social Affairs is at the forefront of the campaign, which is backed by the UN Development Fund for Women, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and UN Population Fund, according to Ministry head Euphrasie Yao.

"FGM is decreasing, but one in three women in this country is still mutilated, and that is too high," Leticia Bazzi, child protection officer for UNICEF in Côte d'Ivoire, told IRIN.

In 1998 some 49 percent of women and girls aged 10 to 45 were subjected to FGM/C, but by 2006 the number had dropped to around 36 percent.