Home » 2013 (Page 4)
Yearly Archives: 2013
UNICEF research on FGM reason for concern
26.07.2013
This week, UNICEF issued a report on female genital mutilation (FGM). It stresses the importance of continuous data gathering to inform policymakers and programmes, as a vital part of all efforts to eliminate FGM. German NGO Wadi and Hivos welcome the amount of exposure this report has received and fully endorse the need, amongst others, for further research on the prevalence of FGM, particularly in the Middle East. This is the more pressing in the light of a discrepancy between the findings of UNICEF and Wadi.
In Kirkuk for example, Wadi and its partner Pana documented in 2012 that FGM exists in areas outside Kurdish communities of Iraq. Surveying 1212 women in Kirkuk, field workers obtained the first empirical proof that women in the Arab and Turkmen communities of Kirkuk practiced FGM, proving that this is an issue the entire nation needs to confront. 38.2% of interviewees reported they have been mutilated. 118 of these victims were Arabs. A further 56 were Turkmen.
UNICEF stated that ‘data from Iraq show that FGM is only practised in a few northern regions, including Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, where the majority of girls and women have undergone the procedure’, concluding that ‘it is practically non-existent in other areas of the country.’ This observation stands in contrast with findings in Kirkuk from Hivos partners Wadi and Pana.
“Studies by Wadi as well as interviews with medical professionals indicate that the practice is much more prevalent than previously thought, including in non-Kurdish areas”, says Wadi director Thomas von der Osten-Sacken.
The UNICEF surveys in 29 countries show that girls are less likely to be cut than they were some 30 years ago. On the other hand they show that the practice remains almost universal in Sudan and Egypt. “This underlines the fact that we should remain very concerned and continue to step up efforts to eradicate FGM”, says von der Osten-Sacken.
Download the Open Letter Wadi has sent to the UN in March 2013 questioning some of the the results of their MICS research in Iraq.
FGM Debate Continues in Muslim Lands
Gatestone Institute 18.07.2013, by Irfan Al-Alawi
While overshadowed apparently by the general civil conflict over the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) regime in Egypt, the spreading problem of female genital mutilation (FGM) has recently shaken the land of the Nile.
Yet the mass upsurge against the tyrannical fundamentalism of the MB is related, however obscurely, to the protests against FGM.
Late in June, British media reported that Suhair Al-Ba’ta, an Egyptian girl aged 13, died during an FGM “operation.” She reportedly perished from blood loss while subjected to FGM in a village north of Cairo. The latest terrible “death by FGM” of a girl in early adolescence provoked widespread outrage at the practice. Disregarding public opinion, representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), defended FGM as “Islamic.”
FGM has been illegal in Egypt since 2007, after the death in an anesthesia overdose during the mutilation of a 12-year-old girl, Budour Ahmad Shaker. The Egyptian government previously attempted to suppress FGM in 1996, and to reinforce the injunction against it in 1997. Egyptian officials affirmed in 1997 that FGM was not justified by Islam, and were supported in condemning it by scholars from the Al-Azhar Supreme Council of Islamic Research, based in Al-Azhar, the preeminent university in Sunni Islam. The Al-Azhar authorities stated that cutting female sexual organs — even partially– has no foundation in Islam, is medically harmful, and should not be carried out.
Dr. Naglaa El-Adly, research director for Egypt’s National Council for Women, has argued that the Muslim Brotherhood used its influence to prevent enforcement of the laws against FGM. Dr. El-Adly, like other experts, asserts that FGM is an ancient pagan custom in the region, with no basis in Islam. She noted the existence of the problem among Egyptian Christians, and has called on media and religious leaders “to tell people it is not related to Islam or Christianity.”
Clear Signal against FGM: Egyptian Dar Al Ifta snubs Islamists
17.7.2003 by Stop FGM Mideast
The highest religious authority in Egypt has – once again – condemned female genital mutilation. In the current climate with fears rising last year that then ruling islamists could decriminalize FGM, this is an important signal and success in the struggle against FGM. Yet, the practice remains widespread in the country.
A representative of Dar Al-Ifta, an official body responsible for issuing religious edicts based on the rulings of the religious Al-Azhar University, has told a summit in Cairo that FGM is “not a religious duty” and should be prohibited. Mohamed Wessam Khedr addressed representatives of the Egyptian government, Al-Azhar, Unicef and the Egyptian Coalition for Children’s Rights on June 20st, Daily News Egypt reported. “FGM is practised in a harmful way that makes us say that it is forbidden in Islam,” he said. The meeting was held to commemorate Egypt’s inaugural National Day to Fight FGM – established in 2007 after a girl died during the practice.
The Al-Azhar, situated in Cairo is probably the most respected Islamic university in the Muslim world, condemned FGM already in 2006. At a conference taking place at the University, theologians from different Muslim countries concluded that female circumcision is forbidden by Sura 95, Verse 4 of the Koran: “We have created man in the most perfect image.” A joint statement read: “Female genital circumcision is harming women psychologically and physically.”
The practice was criminalized in Egypt in 2008, with those found guilty standing to receive between three months and two years in prison. They can also be fined up to 5,000 Egyptian pounds (543 Euro).
Nevertheless, FGM remains widespread. More than 90% of women are assumed to have undergone the torture of FGM – not least due to the lack of law enforcement and special legal provisions (FGM is still permitted under the pretext of dubious „medical reasons“).
After the fall of Mubarak the new government dominated by religious forces as the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists raised fears, that it might come to a backlash regarding FGM, even to an abolishment of the anti FGM-Law. The official positions were to say at least ambiguous. A Salafist MP claimed the practice to be part of the propehtic Sunna and proposed a new law, Egypt Independent reported. The Muslimbrothers remained mostly tacit on the topic, yet sponsered a charity medical campaign during which FGM was performed. The recent death of a 13-year-old Egyptian girl during an FGM-operation in a private clinic led to a broad discussion.
Against this background the renewed religious ruling against the practice of FGM is not to be underestimated. It is a clear signal from within an important part of the religious establishment towards islamist forces, that the controvers discussion about FGM has finally arrived in the Muslim societies itself. The claim of radical islamist forces to define the “right” muslim answer towards FGM is contested by the highest religious authority in Egypt. This development also contains an important lesson for uncritical Western observers: The practice of FGM is not a fate for some people, based on unalterable “cultural” or “religious” traditions or beliefs. Yet it also reminds us, that ending FGM will be a long term process, which has to be monitored constantly.
FGM slowing down? The UN asserts it, the Indonesian case contradicts it
15.6.2013. Mirielle Valette explains in the French feminist magazine Sisyphe why the United Nations figures about female genital mutilations are too low. Giving details about evidence from several Asian countries, she questions why the UN does not update their assumptions about FGM.
by Mireille Vallette
The UN communication with regard to sexual mutilations is deceitful. It underestimates the number of excised girls, ignores the reality of excisors countries such as Indonesia, and maintains strict taboo of the religions role. Without it, reality would appear naked : some 300 mio Muslims are concerned by excision and without an active intervention of religious leaders, the scourge will not disappear.
Investigation and call for a mobilization !
Unicef provides annually the status about the situation of female genital mutilation.1) It is estimated that some 130 million women worldwide have endured it and that three million girls are subject annually to the circumciser’s knife or to any other kind of mutilation. Figures are far below reality.
Unicef also announced that these mutilations are decreasing everywhere. It is also false : in some countries, the scourge increases. The agency also asserts that in 25 years, mutilations will have disappeared. A dream…
The implicit assumption of these statistics is that excising countries are known and identified. Howewer, only Africa (and Yemen) fall into this accounting. Does only Africa excise ? No, but to collect representative data and integrate them, Unicef needs the approval of the governments.
What happens in the Middle East and Southeast Asia ? About the first, we do not know much and the second contradicts the findings of Unicef. In Indonesia and Malaysia, the feminine genital mutilations (FGM) are common, and rising. Moreover, they contribute to the increasing medicalization denounced by the WHO in other countries.
Egyptian girl dies undergoing circumcision
“We left our daughter with the doctor and the nurse. 15 minutes later, the nurse took my daughter out of the operation room to a nearby room, along with three other girls whom the doctor was circumcising,” Mohammed Ibrahim, a farmer, told Egyptian daily al-Masry al-Youm.
“I waited half an hour, hoping that my daughter would wake up, but, unfortunately, unlike the rest of the girls, she did not,” he said.
See also: Now: Female genital mutilation in Egypt – The tragedy of Suhair al-Bateh reopens the question of female circumcision
Fighting against Female Genital Mutilation in Iraq
31.7.2013. The British Independent interviewed the vice-president of the Pana Center in Kirkuk, Iraq – a partner organization of Wadi. The women’s rights campaigner Awezan Muri talks about her own experiences in her family and the challenges she encounters fighting FGM in Iraq. Figures from the Pana Centre show that 38 per cent of women in Kirkuk are victims.
As a nine-year-old growing up in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, Awezan Nuri narrowly escaped female genital mutilation. “My mother was 12 when she was mutilated,” says the 31-year-old women’s rights campaigner, who is also a renowned poet. “She has told me about the terrible pain, how much she bled that night and how ashamed she was to tell her family she was hurting. She couldn’t talk to her mother, because her mother was the one who’d taken her to be cut. She felt alone and scared.”
Despite the trauma of that experience, Nuri’s mother still pushed for her six daughters to undergo the same process themselves. “She thought it was the responsibility of every Sunni Muslim to do this. Logically, she disagreed with it, but there was so much pressure from society.”
It is a misguided belief among Muslim communities in dozens of countries around the world that the practice is mandated in Islam. For Nuri, it was an intervention by her father that saved her sisters from the knife – he said he did not agree with it. But most Iraqi Kurds are not so lucky. Figures from the Pana Centre – of which Nuri is vice president, in charge of the campaign against female genital mutilation (FGM) – show that 38 per cent of women in Kirkuk are victims. Among ethnic Kurds, that figure rises to 65 per cent.
“I protect women’s honour”
Kirkuk Now 4.5.2013.
Pura Gullstan is well known outside of Kirkuk city due to her profession, as she performs female genital mutilation and according to her statement, she has so many stories about FGM to tell but she does not want to let people know about them.
Photo: Hawlati
Female genital mutilation is a stain on reputation of the Kurds in their treatment of women. There are very few women agreeing with FGM, and Gullstan claims herself to be the saviour of the women when she talks about her profession. If there are not numerous clients, how has Pura Gullstan managed to continue what she has been doing for so long?
Female Genital Mutilation Still Widespread in Egypt
CAIRO — Egyptian activists are concerned that the rise of Islamist politicians could undermine years of work to discourage female genital mutilation. The practice, and the movement against it, however, have far deeper roots in the country.
To its supporters, it is a sign of purity, community and religious devotion. To its opponents, it marks the physical manifestation of a woman’s degradation. Read more
Moves to medicalize female mutilation could destroy ‘Stop FGM’ advocacy
WNN SOAPBOX 17.4.2013
By Faiza Jama Mohamed
(WNN) Nairobi, KENYA: Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a severe form of discrimination against girls. It is an extremely violent act of control and an utterly invasive and destructive assault of the female sexual organs. It promotes the idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with girls, which needs to be changed. It is often carried out for cultural or supposedly religious reasons, even though it is not referred to in any major religious text. FGM is most prevalent in parts of Africa and the Middle East. However, it is a global problem, which has already affected 100 – 140 million women and girls around the world.
One of the most worrying recent developments relating to FGM is the shift towards permitting it to be performed by medical professionals in a supposedly ‘safe’ environment. We have recently been calling for urgent action in Indonesia, one of the first countries in the world to attempt to ‘legitimize’ FGM in this way. As Indonesian girls are usually less than six weeks old when this is carried out, they have absolutely no say in this decision, which transforms their entire future. We are also concerned about recent development in Malaysia, which could see something similar happening there. The Malay Minister for Health is keen to formalize and legitimize the ‘medicalization’ of FGM, despite the fact that there is absolutely no benefit or necessity to do so. This ignores both UN and WHO guidelines, which recognize it as a severe form of violence and child abuse against girls. Read more.
Hivos and partner WADI launch website against FGM in the Middle East
17.4.2013. Hivos and our partner WADI proudly announce the launch of the ‘Stop FGM Middle East’ campaign’s website to break the silence about female genital mutilation (FGM) in the Middle East and to contribute to its full elimination.
Girls and women all over the Middle East face the practice of FGM, which constitutes a gross violation of their rights and is often condoned by various cultural, traditional and religious excuses. Credible data and statistics on the prevalence of FGM are essential if we are to break the silence and taboos surrounding the practice of FGM in the Middle East. Hivos and WADI started collecting evidence on FGM and reporting on activism against FGM in Middle Eastern countries in 2011. In January 2012, WADI and Hivos organised a conference on FGM in the Middle East in Beirut. It was the first of its kind. Experts and activists from Iraq, Yemen, Indonesia and Egypt took part laying the foundation of a region-wide network to fight FGM.
In Iraq and Yemen, FGM is known to be practised. In Iraqi Kurdistan a law criminalising FGM was adopted in 2012. In other countries in the Middle East there is only anecdotal evidence of the existence of FGM. In the Gulf region so far, only a few individuals have come forward to address the issue. In the United Arab Emirates, a student conducted a survey for her graduation project and found 34 percent of the questioned women had been circumcised. In Oman, bloggers demanded the government take action against the practice. In Saudi Arabia, a clinical study about the possible connection between female sexual dysfunction and FGM, conducted in 2007-08, found that of 260 women interviewed at a Jeddah clinic, half had been mutilated. A study in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia found 38 percent of FGM-cases among 4800 pregnant women. There is also circumstantial evidence that it is carried out in Syria and Qatar.
Although more solid data and statistics must become available, it can be said with certainty that FGM exists in the Middle East and is threatening the lives of millions of girls in the region in as much as it causes medical, psychological and sexual problems for adult women. Hivos and WADI will continue their work to break the silence shrouding these crimes against girls and women in the Middle East.
