USA/AFRICA: African Women's Rights Discussed at Conference

The agenda for the recently held African Women in the Diaspora Conference included lectures on gender issues, human rights issues with regard to sex and labor human trafficking, and widowhood.  But perhaps the most often discussed topic was the practice of female genital cutting.

Melissa Nambangi, executive director of Minnesota African Women’s Association (MAWA) pulled together an informative, participatory conference held at the University of Minnesota’s School of Law in Minneapolis over June 11 and 12. This was the conference’s third year, but unfortunately, the lowest in attendance.

“Attendance down this year because of timing conflicts with World Refugee Day and Juneteenth,” Nambangi explained. “The same people interested in the MAWA conference were also interested in the other events.  Also, the timing of the conference, in June, took place when schools were finished for the summer.”

YEMEN: More Yemeni Women Favor Female Circumcision, Shows Study

SANA'A, July 04 (Saba)- A recent study has showed a quarter of Yemeni women have been subjected to circumcision and 71.4% of the Yemeni women favored female circumcision while 48% of the Yemeni men support continuing the process of the circumcision.

Among five provinces of the county, Hodeidah and Hadramout provinces were ranked first in the number of the circumcised women by 97.3%, while the prevalence of female genital mutilation in the provinces of Aden and Maharah reached 96.5% in each and in the capital Sana'a has hit 45.5%, according to the study.

GERMANY/TOGO: German NGO Backs Fight Against Female Genital Mutilation in Togo

A group of seven organisations working to promote women's we lfare in Togo is to receive assistance from "INTACT", a German NGO, in their efforts to stop female genital mutilation in the west African country.

An agreement to this effect will be signed next month between the group and INTACT.

According to INTACT's chairperson, Christa Muller, the NGO, originally working with three organisations, based in the Plateaux and Centre regions, has admitted four more organisations to strengthen its fight against female circumcision which has a prevalence rate of 6 to 7 per cent.

Under the new partnership, the parties will take their campaign to areas where the practice is still taking place -- 19 of the country's 31 prefectures.

UK: Ruth Rendell Speaks Out Against Female Genital Mutilation

When Chief Inspector Wexford, one of Britain's most beloved fictional policemen, is called to investigate his latest case - a body discovered in a trench - he finds his attention diverted by a crime yet to be committed, but one that he knows he is powerless to prevent. It creates a terrible dilemma for the old-fashioned, peaceable, claret-drinking detective.

On the case: Ruth Rendell addresses the issue of female circumcision in her latest novel

UGANDA: Genital Mutilation - Women Grapple With a Deadly Tradition

IN the scorching afternoon sunshine, Philis Yapchemusto stands in the compound of a tiny building that houses the headquarters of Reproductive, Educative and Community Health (REACH) programme.

The community-based programme was established in Kapchorwa to improve reproductive health conditions and stop female genital mutilation.

Yapchemusto is talking to students from different universities in Uganda about a subject very close to her heart - female genital mutilation. This refers to partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genitals for cultural or other non-medical reasons.

She points in different directions, waves her arms and even pats herself in a manner that suggests a passionate description of events. "I was a few days away from the knife," she tells the attentive group as I join in the conversation. "It was by God's grace that I survived..." she adds and then keeps quite.

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Study Guide for "Born in the Big Rains" by Fadumo Korn

To view the reading guide, click on this link To purchase the book, click on the book image in the next column

Reading Group Choices, an online reading group has provided a reading guide for BORN IN THE BIG RAINS: A Memoir of Somalia and Survival by Fadumo Korn. This autobiographical book traces Fadumo's life from Somalia as a child where she was subjected to FGM, to her arrival in Germany, and eventual campaign against FGM. It's a gripping book, full of sadness, tears, and many laughters as Korn shares her rebellious antics with readers, and demonstrates that although she was victimized as a child, she is much more than just a victim.

BOOK REVIEW: “Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan” by Janice Boddy

September 24, 2007 Wendy McElroy iFeminists.com Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan is the latest book by Janice Boddy, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. The book is a self-conscious attempt to alter the terms of debate on an explosive issue: female genital mutilation (FGM). The issue is so explosive that fierce arguments surround the very question of what to call it. Those who defend or remain neutral on the practice tend to prefer the label ‘female genital cutting’ (FGC). In “Civilizing Women,” the index entry for ‘female genital mutilation’ reads “see female genital cutting.” In this review, when presenting my critique, I use the acronym FGM because nothing in Boddy’s book has softened my conviction that the practice is brutal child abuse. Out of respect for the author, however, I use FGC or other neutral terms when presenting her views. Boddy’s purpose in “Civilizing Women” is two-fold. First, she constructs a broad historical context through which to understand FGC as it was practiced between the years 1920 to 1946 in northern Sudan; these were years of British imperialism. Boddy asks the intensely interesting question, how did British colonialism and the practice of FGC affect each other?

PUBLICATION: Cutting to the Core

Book Description When the benefits of surgery do not outweigh the harms or where they do not clearly do so, surgical interventions become morally contested. Cutting to the Core examines a number of such surgeries, including infant male circumcision and cutting the genitals of female children, the separation of conjoined twins, surgical sex assignment of intersex children and the surgical re-assignment of transsexuals, limb and face transplantation, cosmetic surgery, and placebo surgery.