Action

You Can Help End Female Genital Mutilation

 

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“The World Health Organization defines Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as “the partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” In some cultures, FGM is believed to preserve the virginity of girls and keep them “pure” until marriage. It is also believed to keep girls faithful to their spouses because of lack of arousal during intercourse.”

https://www.change.org/p/end-fgm-now-protect-girls-from-getting-cut-and-support-victims-of-female-genital-mutilation-in-the-usa

 

Does the title of this article make you feel uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that you are afraid to read it?

How about the opening quote? Are you horrified by the thought of reading about a child’s clitoris being cut off or her labia sewn together, so much so that you prefer to avoid the entire subject?

Have you clicked on an internet link, regarding female genital mutilation and scrolled speedily past the pictures, not wanting to see what a mutilated vagina looks like? Are you afraid to speak out about this topic, for fear that you will be painted as a bigot?

Have you known about this practice, but stayed away from speaking out against it, because you believe it does not directly impact your culture, religious practices, or society?

Do you feel as if you speak out against female genital mutilation someone will think you support a woman’s right to have control over her body and her sexuality? There is a war being waged against women, it has been going on so long that some of us have been beaten down to the point, where we have stopped fighting, and surrendered to the notion that God, rather than physical and financial power, selected men, as His tool to define and control women; but He did not.

Recently, while driving in North Carolina or Virginia, I heard a woman speaking, on NPR, about how when she was seven years old, her mother took her to the pediatrician and asked if it was time to have the child’s bug removed, the doctor said yes. Soon the child faced lying down, on the floor, in a woman’s house, where the little girl was partially disrobed, while her mother restrained her, and said woman mutilated the child’s genitals, of course without anesthesia.

With the exception of having a friend share her personal story with me, when I was seventeen years old, I have never heard anyone speak so clearly, honestly, and from the heart about the experience of being mutilated under the guise of worship, but in truth, in order to control a woman’s sexual self.

I wish I had this woman’s name, as I would like to share her story, she is from Karachi, of the Bohra sect of Islam; I would so appreciate if anyone can enlighten me with her identity and/or contact information. However, the issue of female genital mutilation is neither new nor sadly exclusive to any one group of people.  This evil is being perpetrated on girls all over the world, even as I write these words.  While Americans are obsessed with a whole litany of issues, I would urge you to take a few minutes, and enlighten yourself about an issue, which should weigh on your heart and soul and which you can actually do something about.

There is an on-line petition which we can sign, we can raise awareness, and we can demand that this practice be put to an end! We do have power; let us use it productively, regardless if you think of yourself as liberal or conservative, this is a human rights issue that we can all get behind.

In the United States, we can raise our voices, and demand that no financial aid be given to countries where girls are still being mutilated; send off an email, share a social media post, or call your elected officials and let them know that you are not okay with your tax dollars being used to torture little girls, whose only crime is that they were born into a world where they are not respected and viewed as being perfectly created, exactly as they are, and made in God’s image, just like their brothers.

I do not believe God has made any mistakes. I do not believe that God needs man to alter my body or any other female body, period.  I do not believe that God was confused when He created the clitoris nor do I believe that God has a problem with women having an orgasm.  Female genital mutilation is misogynistic torture that has been clothed in a veil of religious piety, which cannot be defended and should not be tolerated. That is all for now.

https://www.change.org/p/end-female-genital-mutilation-in-india

http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/67/146

A/RES/67/146 Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilations

2/6

“Nations Millennium Declaration12 and the commitments relevant to women and girls

made at the 2005 World Summit13 and reiterated in Assembly resolution 65/1 of

22 September 2010, entitled “Keeping the promise: united to achieve the

Millennium Development Goals”,

Recalling the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights

on the Rights of Women in Africa, adopted in Maputo on 11 July 2003, which

contains, inter alia, undertakings and commitments on ending female genital

mutilation and marks a significant milestone towards the abandonment and ending

of female genital mutilation,

Recalling also the decision of the African Union, adopted in Malabo on 1 July

2011, to support the adoption by the General Assembly at its sixty-sixth session of a

resolution banning female genital mutilation,

Recalling further the recommendation of the Commission on the Status of

Women at its fifty-sixth session that the Economic and Social Council recommend

to the General Assembly the adoption of a decision to consider the issue of ending

female genital mutilation at its sixty-seventh session under the agenda item entitled

“Advancement of women”,14

Recognizing that female genital mutilations are an irreparable, irreversible

abuse that impacts negatively on the human rights of women and girls, affecting

about 100 million to 140 million women and girls worldwide, and that each year an

estimated further 3 million girls are at risk of being subjected to the practice

throughout the world,

Reaffirming that female genital mutilations are a harmful practice that

constitutes a serious threat to the health of women and girls, including their

psychological, sexual and reproductive health, which can increase their vulnerability

to HIV and may have adverse obstetric and prenatal outcomes as well as fatal

consequences for the mother and the newborn, and that the abandonment of this

harmful practice can be achieved as a result of a comprehensive movement that

involves all public and private stakeholders in society, including girls and boys,

women and men,

Concerned about evidence of an increase in the incidence of female genital

mutilations being carried out by medical personnel in all regions in which they

are practised,

Recognizing that negative discriminatory stereotypical attitudes and

behaviours have direct implications for the status and treatment of women and girls

and that such negative stereotypes impede the implementation of legislative and

normative frameworks that guarantee gender equality and prohibit discrimination on

the basis of sex,

Recognizing also that the campaign of the Secretary-General entitled “UNiTE

to End Violence against Women” and the database on violence against women will

contribute to addressing the elimination of female genital mutilations,”

_______________

12 Resolution 55/2.

13 See resolution 60/1.

14 See Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 2012, Supplement No. 7 and corrigendum

(E/2012/27 and Corr.1), chap. I, sect. A.

 

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