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Survey: Majority of religious leaders pro FGM in Kermansheh, Iran
11.8.2016. By Stop FGM Middle East. A recent survey among Sunni religous scholars in the Iranian province of Kermansheh shows that a majority of them (67%) believe that “female circumcision” is religiously obligatory or at least recommended for girls and women. In this province in the West of Iran, female genital mutilation (FGM) is practiced by Sunni Kurds who adhere to the Shafi’i law school. Many of them believe that Islam commands them to have their girls cut. (more…)
Campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan: Paying a visit to a Mullah who promoted FGM
20.5.2015. By Stop FGM Middle East. The shock was great when the Iraqi Kurdish Xelk Media Network reported about a Kurdish Mullah promoting female genital mutilation (FGM) on May 8th. Not only did Mullah Ali Kalak stress that Islam allows “female circumcision” but he demanded it to be done for the wellbeing of girls, claiming non-cut girls would enter illicit sexual affairs. (more…)
Deutsche Welle Persia: Cutting of female genitals
19.2.2015. The Persian program of the German Deutsche Welle recently aired a program about FGM in Iran. In the following we document parts of it (we did not translate some of the general explanations about FGM worldwide):
„The results of a survey show that 83% of women on the island Qeschm and 50% of women in Iranian Kurdistan are mutilated. The researchers are convinced that such practices are also prevalent in other parts of the country. (more…)
Video-Clip: At the mosque
By Stop FGM Middle East. 4.2.2015. Religious beliefs play an important role in the battle against Female genital mutilation (FGM). Clerics are part of the large-scale campaign against FGM in Iraqi Kurdistan. In this video-clip an Imam explains why FGM is not in accordance with Islam. It is one of four vidoe-clips shown regularly on Kurdish television as part of the campaign by WADI and Unicef. (more…)
Popular Saudi Sheikh Alarefe warns of the way FGM is done
6.8.2014. By Stop FGM Middle East.
Responding to a question by a caller on his Youtube program, the Saudi Sheikh Mohammad Al Arefe warned of female genital mutilation saying: “Today it’s chaos, women who do it are not experts and they ruin the girls’ vagina and impact her adult life… if we need to do it, it should be done by a doctor or else it shouldn’t be done at all (…)”. He also distanced himself from the strict Shafa’i interpretation which sees FGM as a must and he questioned the strength of the Hadith which calls FGM a good deed: “because it has been proven that it is not a good deed, and it was a habit done by Arabs pre Islam.” (more…)
FGM in Iraq: The hoax of a hoax?
29.7.1014. By Stop FGM Middle East
Last week a statement by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was circulating in Arab Social media calling female genital mutilation sunnah (the right path in Islam) and called on all Muslim women to have it done. A number of Western media outlets and international organizations reported this fatwa (religious ruling) thereby warning of its consequences for women and girls in the areas occupied by IS in Iraq and Syria.
A few days later this fatwa was unveiled as a hoax by several journalists with Spiegel online taking the lead. But was it really unveiled as a hoax? Most reasons brought forward are based on flawed information and misconceptions about the nature of fatwas. (more…)
Kurdish villages declare themselves FGM-free
13.6.2014. Hivos. For ten years, Hivos partner WADI has been campaigning against female genital mutilation (FGM) in Iraqi Kurdistan. Director Thomas von der Osten-Sacken finds that communities are slowly but surely turning away from this degrading tradition.
Not an ‘African problem’
The Iraqi-German human rights organisation WADI first came upon the harrowing consequences of FGM in the Kurdish Autonomous Region through its mobile teams. “At that time, it was thought that FGM barely existed in Iraq. FGM was seen as an ‘African problem’,” says von der Osten-Sacken. “Right now in publications people talk of about 140 to 160 million women who have been genitally mutilated worldwide. But Indonesia – the country with the largest Muslim population in the world – is not included, and it is estimated that about 80 percent of women are circumcised there. If you add Iraq, Iran, Oman, Yemen and Malaysia, you come to the conclusion that the number of victims of FGM is probably twice as high.”
Second Middle East & Asia Conference on FGM shows that new strategies are needed
16.5.2014. By Stop FGM Middle East.
On May 7th to 10th the Second Middle East & Asia Conference on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) was held in Istanbul where more than thirty activists and researchers from Iraq, Egypt, Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia and India met as well as representatives from UNICEF Iraq, Orchid Project (England) and Terre des Femmes (Germany). It was the second such conference organized by the German-Iraqi NGOs WADI and the Dutch NGO Hivos.
For the longest time FGM was regarded as an African problem, based on the African continent with some prevalence in neighboring countries like Yemen. This mantra was overcome only recently when WADI strated raising conscious, that FGM is also widespread in a Middle Eastern country like Iraq. In January 2012, the first conference on FGM in the Middle East was held in Beirut. In the last two years the STOP FGM Middle East Project by WADI and Hivos collected further evidence, that countries like Oman, Malaysia and Indonesia have a significant high prevalence rate of FGM. Therefore, this second conference widened the scope from the Middle East to South East Asia. (more…)
Ahmadiyya: Not in Islam’s Name
28.3.2014. The Ahmadiyya community is joining the struggle against female genital mutilation (FGM). Already on March 7th the Ahmadiyya Times published a fierce condemnation of FGM by Qasim Rashid calling FGM and act of terrorism. Now Farooq Aftab, a spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth writes on Your Middle East: “Not in Islam’s name, not in my name.”
Farooq Aftab‘s article:
“80% of the Muslim world do not practice FGM”
MALDIVES: Cleric calls for FGM on Islamic grounds
Lapidomedia 12th March 2014. By Vishal Arora
CUTTING OFF a piece of a young girl’s flesh might at last be getting the recognition it deserves in the West as a human rights violation, but in the Maldives it is making a return as a ‘religious obligation’.
A fatwa has been issued by an influential Islamic scholar here, citing specific hadith or sayings of the Prophet Mohammed.
FGM is one of the five things that are part of fitrah, or nature, says the fatwa by Dr. Mohamed Iyaz Abdul Latheef, Vice President of the Fiqh Academy of the Maldives, posted on www.mvislamqa.com, a website which seeks to ‘convey the true message of Islam.’ Full artcile on Lapidomedia