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News by Others
Indonesia denies mutilation in circumcision traditions
Thrashing wildly, five-year-old Reta wails as she is hoisted onto a bed during a circumcision ceremony in a school-hall-turned-clinic on Indonesia’s island of Java.
“No, no, no,” she cries, punching and kicking as her mother cups her tear-soaked face to soothe her.
Doctors clap and cheer encouragingly. One of them gently swipes her genital area with antiseptic and then swiftly pricks the hood of her clitoris with a fresh sewing needle, drawing no blood. Read More…
Islamic Pluralism: The Global Campaign Against Female Genital Mutilation Continues
23.3.2013 by Irfan Al-Alawi
A global campaign to eradicate female genital mutilation [FGM], often misnamed “female circumcision,” continues. While foreign NGOs have made Iraqi Kurdistan a center of the effort to do away with this practice, many observers have argued that it is not a “Kurdish” problem.
FGM is also not just a “Muslim” phenomenon. However widespread it may be among Iraqi Sunni Kurds, its acceptance in Islam is limited. According to the German relief organization WADI [The Association for Crisis Assistance and Development Co-operation], in the four provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan, only the farthest north, Dohuk, which borders on Turkey, shows little evidence of FGM at any age. Among the remaining three “governorates,” in the province of Erbil, named for the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), 63% of women have undergone the atrocious custom; in Suleymaniya, 78%; and in Garmyan/New Kirkuk, the southernmost, 81%. Read more…
“A Tiny Cut”: Female Circumcision in South East Asia
The Islamic Monthly, 12.3.2013
I am a Muslim of Malay ethnicity, who was born in Singapore, where Malays are an ethnic and religious minority today, and lived there until I was 24 years old. The Malays, of whom 99 percent are Muslim, are the indigenous people of Singapore and the Malay archipelago. Until the arrival of the British colonizers in the early nineteenth century, this area (which covers what is south Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and south Philippines today) shared many cultural and linguistic similarities.
When I was about six years old and attending a kenduri, or ritual feast, for two male cousins who had just been circumcised, I whispered to my mother, “Are girls circumcised too?” Growing up in Singapore in the 1990s, boys were commonly circumcised before puberty (around eight or nine) – making it seem like a rite of passage into adulthood. The six year-old me observed the fuss and attention they got: they were not allowed to eat certain foods, they could only bear to wear a kain sarong for up to two weeks due to the pain, and had to be fanned at night to keep the wounds dry. These ritual feasts to celebrate a boy’s circumcision are less common today, partly due to the increasing use of doctors to carry out circumcision, and usually on infants a few weeks old.
Trust Law: Activists press Indonesia to ban genital mutilation
12.2.2013. By Emma Batha
ROME (TrustLaw) – Indonesian campaigners fighting to end female genital mutilation (FGM) have told their government it must ban the practice in the light of the new U.N. General Assembly resolution on eradicating FGM.
It is believed to be the first case where campaigners have used the U.N. resolution to exert pressure on a government.
Indonesia banned FGM in 2006, but the Health Ministry issued a regulation in 2010 which allows the practice if it is carried out by medical professionals, such as doctors, midwives and nurses.
Indonesia’s National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) told an international FGM conference in Rome last week that it had written to the health minister urging him to revoke the regulation. Read more
Huffington Post: De-linking Female Genital Mutilation From Religion
by Ufuk Gokcen (Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, United Nations)
Female genital mutilation has long survived, hidden under the cloak of religious, cultural, and tribal practices, but this week, as we commemorate the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), it is time for every leader whether political or religious, whether male or female, to unequivocally stand in opposition to FGM. We can no longer allow the ignorance surrounding women’s rights and FGM to be perpetuated by traditions and rituals disguised as religious teachings.
As the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) Ambassador to the United Nations, I personally find it important to combat any notion that FGM is in the true nature of Islam. OIC Secretary General Professor Ihsanoglu recently stated that FGM “is a ritual that has survived over centuries and must be stopped as Islam does not support it.” Yet, despite statements from political and religious leaders and studies such as the Frontiers Program report put out by USAID de-linking FGM from Islam, the practice continues at an alarming rate. This can be explained by the fact that the practice takes its roots primarily in tribal culture, not religion; though some misguided local religious scholars might contest otherwise. Read more
Female Genital Mutilation: Many Pakistani women’s painful secret
A good insight into the situation in Pakistan gives the Express Tribune’s Sub-Editor Farahnaz Zahidi Moazzam. In Pakistan, female circumcision is known to be practiced by a few communities along the Iran-Balochistan border, and a few isolated tribes, as well as the Dawoodi Bohra community.
“I don’t want my daughter to have to go through it. I have been through it; my mom has been through it and so has my naani (grandmother).
We have been going through this forever.
It’s a custom – the done thing, but I can’t imagine my baby having to go through the same!
I am 34 and I still remember it distinctly. I felt humiliated even as a seven-year-old. It was not very painful, but I felt slighted at how they held me down, how embarrassed I felt. But most of all I feel resentment – even today – over the fact that we never talked about it before or after that. Everyone pretends like it never happened.”
This is the story related by a Pakistani mother whom I talked to today about Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C), practiced in her community.
Today, as the world observes the “International Zero Tolerance Day to FGM/C”, many remain blissfully unaware that this custom, often referred to as female circumcision, is also practiced in Pakistan.
According to the World Health Organisation, FGM/C is a procedure that “intentionally alters or injures female genital organs for non-medical reasons.”
The reasons are cultural, traditional and religious. Predominantly, the reason traditionally given for FGM/C is almost inconceivable – that it ensures a woman will remain chaste and guard her against promiscuity, as depending on the degree of the procedure performed, she may not be able to experience sexual pleasure as fully as a woman whose genitalia remain unaltered.
In Pakistan, female circumcision is practiced by a few communities along the Iran-Balochistan border, and a few isolated tribes, as well as the Dawoodi Bohra community. Having said as much, here it is mostly not done very invasively, as opposed to some African countries where FGM/C may involve removal of the entire clitoris and labia.
Global Post: Egypt’s top court upholds female genital mutilation ban
CAIRO, Egypt — Egypt’s top court reinforced a ban on female genital mutilation Sunday. The court rejected a lawsuit that challenged a 2007 health ministry decision to criminalize FGM, according to Al Ahram Online.
The suit was first filed in 2008 by Islamist lawyers who claimed the FGM ban violated Article 2 of the 1971 constitution and was inconsistent with the principles of Sharia Law.
FGM, according to the World Health Organization, includes procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. They can cause severe bleeding, problems urinating, and later lead to cysts, infections, infertility and complications in child birth. Read more
Muscat Daily: The issue of female genital mutilation in Oman
by Susan Mubarak
A year and a half ago I wrote a column titled ‘Woman with an incense burner’ where I tried as delicately as possible to highlight the issues concerning female genital mutilation (FGM) in Oman, and Dhofar in particular where the practice is still very common.
The feedback I received from readers and acquaintances was overwhelming. Most of them expressed how horrified they were to learn this tradition was still going strong in Dhofar. Some advised me to tread carefully, whereas others told me to keep spreading awareness.
Naturally, I also received plenty of negative feedback from relatives and colleagues claiming I was hanging Dhofar’s dirty washing for the world to see and criticising a practice that they believe is purely Islamic. I paid little attention to these criticisms because I know the practice is harmful and primitive. Read more