ASPIRE TO INSPIRE
Women in Islam - female genital mutilation
Beyond Comfort
The struggle to end forced female genital mutilation (FGM) on the bodies of girls and young women world-wide is making slow progress. There is still much to be done, to change the laws and sanctioned practices of clitoridectomy, excision and infibulation.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the term used by the World Health Organization and other opponents of the practices to refer to the removal of part, or all, of the female genitalia. In areas across the globe where the procedures are practiced, there have been objections to the term "mutilation," along with arguments that the cultures which value these traditions do not seek to intentionally disfigure or harm their children. As a result, some writers have attempted to utilize more politically neutral terms, such as "female genital cutting" and "female genital surgeries." However, along with the World Health Organization, Amnesty International, and many other groups, we at STANDARDS understand the practices to be unnecessarily painful, disfiguring, and brutal. We therefore join others in using the term "FGM."
The performance of the procedures range from operations on anesthetized women or girls by skilled medical professionals in sterile clinical settings to the use of glass shards, tin edges, razor blades, or other slicing implements -- without anesthesia.
Clitoridectomy, also called "female circumcision," involves the removal of some part of the clitoris. While the least severe procedure for clitoridectomy involves the removal of only the clitoral hood, there is more commonly very little consonance between this practice and male circumcision: most often, a clitoridectomy procedure removes most or all of the clitoris. (It is noteworthy that many advocates within and beyond the medical communities also currently consider male circumcision to be an unneccessary procedure amounting to "genital mutilation.")
Excision is the removal of both the clitoris and all, or part of, the labia minora.
Infibulation, also known as "pharaonic circumcision," is by far the most severe form of FGM: the procedure involves clitoridectomy, excision, and cutting of the labia majora to create raw surfaces, once the vulva, which are then stitched or held together, using thorns, silk, catgut sutures, or thread. Often, a small piece of wood or reed is inserted in the body, developing a small hole through which urine and menstrual blood can flow. Less conventionally, smaller amounts of tissue are removed, leaving a larger opening in the body.
Where This Happens
According to Amnesty International, an estimated 135 million of the world's girls and women have undergone some form of genital mutilation, and two million girls a year are at risk of mutilation -- approximately 6,000 per day. The procedures are well-documented in Africa, as well as in some countries of the Middle East. FGM is also practiced, mainly among immigrant communities, in parts of Asia and the Pacific, North America, Latin America and Europe.
While there have been reports of FGM among certain indigenous groups in Central and South America, little information is available.
Similarly, there are no figures to indicate how common the practices are in Asia. According to some reports studied by Amnesty International and other groups, FGM is practiced among Muslim populations in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Malaysia, yet very little hard data exists for these countries. In India, a small Muslim sect, the Daudi Bohra, practices clitoridectomy.
In the Middle East, FGM is practised in Egypt, Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates.
In industrialized countries, FGM occurs predominantly among immigrants from various nations where mutilation is practised. The procedures have been reported in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and USA. Young girls -- even infants -- living in industrialized countries may undergo illegal FGM procedures performed by physicians from their own communities who are reside in the new country. More frequently, traditional practitioners are brought in from the country of origin, or girls are sent abroad to be mutilated.
No figures are available on how common the practise is among the populations of industrialized countries. It is well established, however, that female genital mutilation was routinely practiced as recently as the 1940s and 1950s, by doctors in England and the United States who believed the procedures worked to "combat" hysteria, lesbianism, masturbation and other perceived sexual "deviance" in girls and women. The "prevention" of "deviance": in some societies, the rationale for FGM includes guarding against infidelity by insuring the woman's genitals are sown shut; reducing the sex drive of women to ward off "unfeminine" behaviors"; and delineating gender roles, by removing the clitoris and labia -- considered the "male parts" of a woman, replete with fears that the clitoris might "prick" the man -- and, after FGM, girls are considered to be imbued with the more desirable qualities of docility and obedience.
Still, "custom and tradition" are by far the most frequently cited reasons for FGM, particularly in areas and groups where mutilation is carried out as part of the initiation into adulthood. According to Amnesty International, Jomo Kenyatta, the late President of Kenya, argued that FGM was inherent in the initiation which is in itself an essential part of being Kikuyu, to such an extent that "abolition... will destroy the tribal system."
In many FGM-practising societies, it is difficult to impossible for a woman to marry, if she has not undergone mutilation. Many proponents of the procedures argue that FGM enhances fertility -- including the belief that a woman who has not been mutilated may not bear children.
Worse, "hygeine" and the enhancement of male sexual pleasure are often cited as reasons for performing FGM. Women are considered "unclean" without the procedures, and in some communities are not allowed to handle food and water until the "initiation" has been performed. The genitalia of women are considered "ugly" and unwieldy: in some FGM-practising cultures, there is the belief that the genitals of a woman will grow and hang between her legs, unless the clitoris is removed. Others believe that a man will die, should his penis come in contact with the clitoris, or that babies will die during birth, if the head touches the clitoris.
Connected with this is the perception in FGM-practising communities that women's unmutilated genitals are ugly and bulky. In some cultures, there is a belief that a woman's genitals can grow and become unwieldy, hanging down between her legs, unless the clitoris is excised. Some groups believe that a woman's clitoris is dangerous and that if it touches a man's penis he will die. Others believe that if the baby's head touches the clitoris during childbirth, the baby will die.
Notably, although a pro-feminist viewpoint obtains in all the literature seeking to eradicate FGM practices, one of the most prevalent, yet least discussed, aspects of cultures in which the female body is brutally altered to promote childbearing and/or marriage is the notion of compulsory heterosexuality. We have not, to date, found information regarding lesbian rights movements in areas of the world where FGM is routinely performed on women. In fact, in many parts of the world (including the United States), FGM -- especially clitoridectomy -- has been practiced to "prevent" lesbianism.
Effects
The physical consequences of FGM can lead to shock; hemorrhage; serious chronic infections of the urinary and/or reproductive tracts; the development of stones in the bladder and uretha; kidney damage; excessive scar tissue; dermoid cysts; the spread of HIV through repeated use of unsterile implements; even death. Yet the incidence of these health risks cannot be reliably estimated: supporters of FGM claim that major complications and problems are rare, while opponents of the practice claim that they are frequent.
Beyond medical health risks, women who are "sewn shut" after FGM procedures must undergo painful dilation of the opening, in order to experience first intercourse. In many instances, further cutting is necessary to widen the entrance to the woman's body, before intercourse can occur. Some new wives experience severe physical damage at the hands of husbands unskilled at this cutting.
After childbirth, some women are reinfibulated, to make their openings "tighter" for their husbands.
Human Rights
Due to the inherent health risks and possibility of death associated with FGM, international health advocacy groups and human rights organizations have bonded to change global perceptions regarding the practices of ritual mutilation.
As there is no single religion to which FGM is attributed (in fact, the procedures are enacted upon the bodies of women within many faiths), genital mutilation cannot be viewed as simply a spiritual practice.
And, as the cultures in which FGM is most common routinely represent the practices as methods of controlling women's sexualities and gender identities, international organizations consider FGM a human rights violation.
It is unacceptable that the international community remain passive in the name of a distorted vision of multiculturalism. Human behaviours and cultural values, however senseless or destructive they may appear from the personal and cultural standpoint of others, have meaning and fulfil a function for those who practise them. However, culture is not static but it is in constant flux, adapting and reforming. People will change their behaviour when they understand the hazards and indignity of harmful practices and when they realize that it is possible to give up harmful practices without giving up meaningful aspects of their culture.
Joint statement by the World Health Organization, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and UN Population Fund, February 1996
The booklet attached details some of the principal ways in which women suffer in the Islamic world – often with religious and cultural sanction. Many of these crimes against women, such as wife-beating, are ordained by the Qur’an itself; others, such as female genital mutilation and honor killing, are praised by Islamic clerics and hallowed by Islamic culture. That feminists in the West remain silent about this deeply ingrained and institutionalized mistreatment of women, and even ally with groups that have devoted themselves to the spread of Islamic law that justifies this mistreatment, is one of the unconscionable scandals of our time.
This article is a segment of a series being run as part of our nation-wide campus effort, Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, which will be held on 200 university and college campuses on October 22-26. Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is a national effort to focus on all the victims of Islamo-Fascist Jihad -- as well as to counter the lies of the academic Left, which seeks to deny the evil, and even the very existence, of our enemy in this terror war. In this way, Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week hopes to educate American students and to enable them to rally to defend their country.
In terms of the booklet of our subject today, its cover is a still photograph that epitomizes Islamic oppression of women, and it has come to also epitomize the Western feminist non-response to it. The picture comes from a Dutch film called De Steen (The Stone), directed by Mahnaz Tamizi, and features the actress Smadar Monsinos. The Stone dramatizes the barbaric treatment of women in Islamic countries. It accurately depicts the reality of Islamic Sharia law regarding adultery: when a couple is caught in adultery, the man is jailed while the woman is stoned to death.
It is a telling indication of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Left that it has fastened upon our use of this picture to try to discredit Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, since the photo does not depict an actual event – as if women weren’t being stoned to death under Sharia law in Iran and some other Muslim countries today. In reality, eight women are currently in prison in Iran awaiting death by stoning for the crime of adultery. A mother was sentenced to be stoned to death in Iran for adultery just last week. It is typical of the Left to try to cast opprobrium not upon those responsible for these harsh realities, but upon us who are trying to draw attention to them in the name of human rights.
It may have seemed inconceivable that feminists and their allies would defend those who bury women in the earth and kill them by throwing large stones at them, but that is the ultimate thrust of the Left’s outcry against our use of this picture and against Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week in general. Such are the ironies of our troubled age.
In this booklet are realities that should be of paramount concern not just for feminists in the West and their allies on the Left, but of all those who are concerned with the universality of human rights and the dignity of every human being.
To read this booklet click the attached file.
The struggle to end forced female genital mutilation (FGM) on the bodies of girls and young women world-wide is making slow progress. There is still much to be done, to change the laws and sanctioned practices of clitoridectomy, excision and infibulation.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the term used by the World Health Organization and other opponents of the practices to refer to the removal of part, or all, of the female genitalia. In areas across the globe where the procedures are practiced, there have been objections to the term "mutilation," along with arguments that the cultures which value these traditions do not seek to intentionally disfigure or harm their children. As a result, some writers have attempted to utilize more politically neutral terms, such as "female genital cutting" and "female genital surgeries." However, along with the World Health Organization, Amnesty International, and many other groups, we at STANDARDS understand the practices to be unnecessarily painful, disfiguring, and brutal. We therefore join others in using the term "FGM."
The performance of the procedures range from operations on anesthetized women or girls by skilled medical professionals in sterile clinical settings to the use of glass shards, tin edges, razor blades, or other slicing implements -- without anesthesia.
Clitoridectomy, also called "female circumcision," involves the removal of some part of the clitoris. While the least severe procedure for clitoridectomy involves the removal of only the clitoral hood, there is more commonly very little consonance between this practice and male circumcision: most often, a clitoridectomy procedure removes most or all of the clitoris. (It is noteworthy that many advocates within and beyond the medical communities also currently consider male circumcision to be an unneccessary procedure amounting to "genital mutilation.")
Excision is the removal of both the clitoris and all, or part of, the labia minora.
Infibulation, also known as "pharaonic circumcision," is by far the most severe form of FGM: the procedure involves clitoridectomy, excision, and cutting of the labia majora to create raw surfaces, once the vulva, which are then stitched or held together, using thorns, silk, catgut sutures, or thread. Often, a small piece of wood or reed is inserted in the body, developing a small hole through which urine and menstrual blood can flow. Less conventionally, smaller amounts of tissue are removed, leaving a larger opening in the body.
Where This Happens
According to Amnesty International, an estimated 135 million of the world's girls and women have undergone some form of genital mutilation, and two million girls a year are at risk of mutilation -- approximately 6,000 per day. The procedures are well-documented in Africa, as well as in some countries of the Middle East. FGM is also practiced, mainly among immigrant communities, in parts of Asia and the Pacific, North America, Latin America and Europe.
While there have been reports of FGM among certain indigenous groups in Central and South America, little information is available.
Similarly, there are no figures to indicate how common the practices are in Asia. According to some reports studied by Amnesty International and other groups, FGM is practiced among Muslim populations in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Malaysia, yet very little hard data exists for these countries. In India, a small Muslim sect, the Daudi Bohra, practices clitoridectomy.
In the Middle East, FGM is practised in Egypt, Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates.
In industrialized countries, FGM occurs predominantly among immigrants from various nations where mutilation is practised. The procedures have been reported in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and USA. Young girls -- even infants -- living in industrialized countries may undergo illegal FGM procedures performed by physicians from their own communities who are reside in the new country. More frequently, traditional practitioners are brought in from the country of origin, or girls are sent abroad to be mutilated.
No figures are available on how common the practise is among the populations of industrialized countries. It is well established, however, that female genital mutilation was routinely practiced as recently as the 1940s and 1950s, by doctors in England and the United States who believed the procedures worked to "combat" hysteria, lesbianism, masturbation and other perceived sexual "deviance" in girls and women. The "prevention" of "deviance": in some societies, the rationale for FGM includes guarding against infidelity by insuring the woman's genitals are sown shut; reducing the sex drive of women to ward off "unfeminine" behaviors"; and delineating gender roles, by removing the clitoris and labia -- considered the "male parts" of a woman, replete with fears that the clitoris might "prick" the man -- and, after FGM, girls are considered to be imbued with the more desirable qualities of docility and obedience.
Still, "custom and tradition" are by far the most frequently cited reasons for FGM, particularly in areas and groups where mutilation is carried out as part of the initiation into adulthood. According to Amnesty International, Jomo Kenyatta, the late President of Kenya, argued that FGM was inherent in the initiation which is in itself an essential part of being Kikuyu, to such an extent that "abolition... will destroy the tribal system."
In many FGM-practising societies, it is difficult to impossible for a woman to marry, if she has not undergone mutilation. Many proponents of the procedures argue that FGM enhances fertility -- including the belief that a woman who has not been mutilated may not bear children.
Worse, "hygeine" and the enhancement of male sexual pleasure are often cited as reasons for performing FGM. Women are considered "unclean" without the procedures, and in some communities are not allowed to handle food and water until the "initiation" has been performed. The genitalia of women are considered "ugly" and unwieldy: in some FGM-practising cultures, there is the belief that the genitals of a woman will grow and hang between her legs, unless the clitoris is removed. Others believe that a man will die, should his penis come in contact with the clitoris, or that babies will die during birth, if the head touches the clitoris.
Connected with this is the perception in FGM-practising communities that women's unmutilated genitals are ugly and bulky. In some cultures, there is a belief that a woman's genitals can grow and become unwieldy, hanging down between her legs, unless the clitoris is excised. Some groups believe that a woman's clitoris is dangerous and that if it touches a man's penis he will die. Others believe that if the baby's head touches the clitoris during childbirth, the baby will die.
Notably, although a pro-feminist viewpoint obtains in all the literature seeking to eradicate FGM practices, one of the most prevalent, yet least discussed, aspects of cultures in which the female body is brutally altered to promote childbearing and/or marriage is the notion of compulsory heterosexuality. We have not, to date, found information regarding lesbian rights movements in areas of the world where FGM is routinely performed on women. In fact, in many parts of the world (including the United States), FGM -- especially clitoridectomy -- has been practiced to "prevent" lesbianism.
Effects
The physical consequences of FGM can lead to shock; hemorrhage; serious chronic infections of the urinary and/or reproductive tracts; the development of stones in the bladder and uretha; kidney damage; excessive scar tissue; dermoid cysts; the spread of HIV through repeated use of unsterile implements; even death. Yet the incidence of these health risks cannot be reliably estimated: supporters of FGM claim that major complications and problems are rare, while opponents of the practice claim that they are frequent.
Beyond medical health risks, women who are "sewn shut" after FGM procedures must undergo painful dilation of the opening, in order to experience first intercourse. In many instances, further cutting is necessary to widen the entrance to the woman's body, before intercourse can occur. Some new wives experience severe physical damage at the hands of husbands unskilled at this cutting.
After childbirth, some women are reinfibulated, to make their openings "tighter" for their husbands.
Human Rights
Due to the inherent health risks and possibility of death associated with FGM, international health advocacy groups and human rights organizations have bonded to change global perceptions regarding the practices of ritual mutilation.
As there is no single religion to which FGM is attributed (in fact, the procedures are enacted upon the bodies of women within many faiths), genital mutilation cannot be viewed as simply a spiritual practice.
And, as the cultures in which FGM is most common routinely represent the practices as methods of controlling women's sexualities and gender identities, international organizations consider FGM a human rights violation.
It is unacceptable that the international community remain passive in the name of a distorted vision of multiculturalism. Human behaviours and cultural values, however senseless or destructive they may appear from the personal and cultural standpoint of others, have meaning and fulfil a function for those who practise them. However, culture is not static but it is in constant flux, adapting and reforming. People will change their behaviour when they understand the hazards and indignity of harmful practices and when they realize that it is possible to give up harmful practices without giving up meaningful aspects of their culture.
Joint statement by the World Health Organization, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and UN Population Fund, February 1996
The booklet attached details some of the principal ways in which women suffer in the Islamic world – often with religious and cultural sanction. Many of these crimes against women, such as wife-beating, are ordained by the Qur’an itself; others, such as female genital mutilation and honor killing, are praised by Islamic clerics and hallowed by Islamic culture. That feminists in the West remain silent about this deeply ingrained and institutionalized mistreatment of women, and even ally with groups that have devoted themselves to the spread of Islamic law that justifies this mistreatment, is one of the unconscionable scandals of our time.
This article is a segment of a series being run as part of our nation-wide campus effort, Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, which will be held on 200 university and college campuses on October 22-26. Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is a national effort to focus on all the victims of Islamo-Fascist Jihad -- as well as to counter the lies of the academic Left, which seeks to deny the evil, and even the very existence, of our enemy in this terror war. In this way, Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week hopes to educate American students and to enable them to rally to defend their country.
In terms of the booklet of our subject today, its cover is a still photograph that epitomizes Islamic oppression of women, and it has come to also epitomize the Western feminist non-response to it. The picture comes from a Dutch film called De Steen (The Stone), directed by Mahnaz Tamizi, and features the actress Smadar Monsinos. The Stone dramatizes the barbaric treatment of women in Islamic countries. It accurately depicts the reality of Islamic Sharia law regarding adultery: when a couple is caught in adultery, the man is jailed while the woman is stoned to death.
It is a telling indication of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Left that it has fastened upon our use of this picture to try to discredit Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, since the photo does not depict an actual event – as if women weren’t being stoned to death under Sharia law in Iran and some other Muslim countries today. In reality, eight women are currently in prison in Iran awaiting death by stoning for the crime of adultery. A mother was sentenced to be stoned to death in Iran for adultery just last week. It is typical of the Left to try to cast opprobrium not upon those responsible for these harsh realities, but upon us who are trying to draw attention to them in the name of human rights.
It may have seemed inconceivable that feminists and their allies would defend those who bury women in the earth and kill them by throwing large stones at them, but that is the ultimate thrust of the Left’s outcry against our use of this picture and against Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week in general. Such are the ironies of our troubled age.
In this booklet are realities that should be of paramount concern not just for feminists in the West and their allies on the Left, but of all those who are concerned with the universality of human rights and the dignity of every human being.
To read this booklet click the attached file.
- Attachments:
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female genital mutilation.pdf, 4.6 MB
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kathleen on -
oh my goodness... awareness has been deepened and had... I admire your work, it's fascinating... sorry for the gloating worship but I find myself imagining what you do and where you are etc... this internet can create fascinating profiles of section of the personality... I hope you are well in your life and I hope that you are safe. I also hope that you find safety for those that suffer in these ways... and peace.
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Permalink Reply by Helen Bascom on -
......................................
:-(
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Permalink Reply by Ross Naidoo on -
As an elderly Australian Prime Minister is well known for saying "Maintain the Rage" warchildbender this is a worthwhile fight my friend, i have quickly had a read through this document by spencer and chesler and it is most disturbing a positon description of woman in Islam (Johnny Lennon I think said woman are the niggers of the world). My family were involved in the antiapartheid movement in SA not just for men of colour but for "people of colour", my mother refused to permit any form of organised marriage with her daughters and permitted them full recourse to education and self determination in the selection of their careers and partners and my father pushed succesffuly for muslim girls and young woman to recieve an equal education with muslim males in southern africa - pretty damned good for the 1950's I thought. At days end it is about "Human Rights for all" not about my belief verses someone elses belief. My partner has just found my copy of the "Veiled Virgin" and she has now started reading it - I forget the name of the author but she is a black mulsim woman who held a seat in parliament in the netherlands but she makes some excellent points about what went wrong in the interpretation and application of islam with regards to woman. Keep up the good work and let us know more about this issue as it is one I hold a extra-special abhorance for and one that needs the voices of good men and woman in muslim society to speak against.
Respectfully yours: Ross
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Permalink Reply by SpIderGoAtaL on -
I didn't realise how widely spread FGM is. Thanks for the info..! Do you know of personal accounts of FGM? How do these women perceive the issue? How do they discuss it among themselves? Are they brainwashed to preceive it as part of thier culture and encouraged by thier mothers to undergo the FGM? Or do majority of the female just sliently co-operate, feeling dis-empowered?
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Permalink Reply by Ross Naidoo on
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Thanks for the download documents war child bender they are doing the rounds with the woman folk in my extended household and friends it is very much raising the awareness profile of this important issue in our secular houselhold.
Cheers: Ross Aussie side
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Permalink Reply by deliriousgirl on -
What can I do to help? Would petitions sent to people in power in the US and the UN do any good?
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Permalink Reply by Veronica on -
I signed an online petition a couple of years back in regards to this, I'm not sure if there is one still active. Here is some information about an organisation who is dedicated to stop this practice. http://www.stopfgmc.org/ There is piece of good news from this site "Ugandan community outlaws female circumcision" but still there is a long way to go. UNICEF are always having campaigns around these sort of practices. I've been following their research site http://www.unicef-irc.org/ for information about anti child trafficking and I recall they had a conference about this practice involving some political figures.
Knowing this happens, I believe, is a start.
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Permalink Reply by Gregory John O'Flaherty on -
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?...
The above URL is to an Amnesty International, petition to President Obama and Vice President Biden to have the International - Violence Against Women Act, reintroduced and passed in the next session. Please sign it.
http://www.unifem.org.au/node/12 UNIFEM
I have read the Koran several times and still haven't found anything in it prescribing genital mutilation. I have had several female muslim friends who have not been genitally mutilated and who say it is not part of the Islamic Teachings, and that where practiced it is either through cultural tradition that predates The Prophet; or where it is practiced as a part of Islam, it is through years of distortions of the teachings, and is condemned by both males and females. Unfortunatly those in control do not like being told they have been misled...
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