Orchid Project: FGC in Iraqi Kurdistan
22.12.2014. by Orchid. On November 13th 2014, the Kurdish and Middle Eastern Women Organisation (KMEWO) held an event to promote their campaign titled ‘The Campaign: Stop FGM in Iraqi Kurdistan’. The event was held in correspondence with their annual general meeting, as KMEWO sought to bring together an array of people to discuss FGC in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Active since 1999, KMEWO seeks to promote issues that affect women, in particular regarding FGC; child and early forced marriage; honour killings, and domestic violence. They provide advice, hold education courses to teach women English and human rights, advocate to the government through lobbying and campaigning, and hold FGC awareness workshops across London. ‘The Campaign: Stop FGM in Iraqi Kurdistan’ is therefore only a branch of KMEWO’s work, however in the era of growing knowledge and awareness to FGC, they have decided to focus on gaining a deeper understanding of the practice. They subsequently held this event to share their knowledge and actively promote discussions on FGC in Iraqi-Kurdistan.
Iranian Film tackles Female Genital Mutilation
15.12.2014. By Stop FGM Middle East. The short film “Almond” tells the story of Awat a young Kurdish woman in Iran who is struggling with the consequences of female genital mutilation (FGM). When she has to marry, she stops talking entirely which soon becomes the main subject of the village talk. The director Mokhtar Masoumian spent six months to collect information about FGM in Iran, consulting and taking advice from experts and spend over 16 thousand dollars personally to realize the project. (more…)
FGM in Iran: Blade of Islam or patriarchal custom – an interview with scholars, activists and survivors
4.12.2014. by Stop FGM Middle East. The Iranian “Radio Farda” aired a 30-minutes special on female genital mutilation (FGM) happening in Iran on November 25th. It is the first time, that a radio in Iran tackles this topic and the journalist Roja Karimi Majd does so with great insight and her interviewees answer in remarkable openness. A mother who feels incredibly sad she had let this happen to her daughter says: “It ruins the life of people. Most divorces are because if this. Couples hate each other.” Her daughter talks about the effect it had on her last relationship: “When intercourse happened I could not show any reaction, I was cold. In the end my partner thought that he was the problem and this is how our relationship broke up.” The sociologist Rayehe Mozafarian explains why she calls it the blade of Islam while the activist Parvin Zabihi sees patriarchal society at the root.
Kurdish FGM-Free Village invited to Talkshow
3.12.14. By Haje Keli. Kurdistan’s first FGM-free village as talk show guests on ‘Binewshe” (KurdSat TV) to discuss the village’s commitment to ending FGM.
As a part of WADI’s Stop FGM campaign, the village of Tutaqal vowed to end FGM among their inhabitants. This week WADI was invited to appear on the very popular TV-show ‘Binewshe’ as part of the awareness around the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (November 25). Instead of inviting “experts” and doctors Ms Suad Abdolrahman, head of Women’s Projects at WADI thought it was more rewarding to invite the villagers of Tutaqal as guests on the show as they can better relay their message of why it was important to end FGM in their village. (more…)