Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting and female circumcision, is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons."2] FGM is practised as a cultural ritual by ethnic groups in 27 countries in sub-Saharan and Northeast Africa, and to a lesser extent in Asia, the Middle East and within immigrant communities elsewhere.8] It is typically carried out, with or without anaesthesia, by a traditional circumciser using a knife or razor.9] The age of the girls varies from weeks after birth to puberty; in half the countries for which figures were available in 2013, most girls were cut before the age of five.5]
The practice involves one or more of several procedures, which vary according to the ethnic group. They include removal of all or part of the clitoris and clitoral hood; all or part of the clitoris and inner labia; and in its most severe form (infibulation) all or part of the inner and outer labia and the fusion of the wound. In this last procedure, which the WHO calls Type III FGM, a small hole is left for the passage of urine and menstrual blood, and the wound is opened up for intercourse and childbirth.10] The health effects depend on the procedure but can include recurrent infections, chronic pain, cysts, infertility, complications during childbirth and fatal bleeding.11]
Comments
Are you reading some kind of medical journal tonight Karen? ..... Constipation and Circumcision, whatever next ... more C's or a D ??
Didn't we have a thread from you similar to this a short while ago, Karen?
Surely you're not starting to run out of material?
How about a thread on protecting the rights of gay animals, or whether outer mongolia should be allowed into G8, or maybe just go for something really obscure instead...
Having said that, I missed you when you didn't post for a few weeks.
Karen you really do have an obsession.
I never got a reply as to what you were actually Googling when you found out about the man with the dog in a very obscure local online newspaper but I'm still wondering.
I'd just like to say the word clitoris gratuitously at this point
To me, this is the same as that post the other week about child brides - it is abhorrent to us herre in the west, but it will continue to go on. Unfortunately it is part of their cultures and the only way to change attitudes is by re-education, BUT it will still go on as it has done for hundreds of years - The west can be judgemental about it - but until the people themselves can be re-educated it won't stop.
clitoris?
only unknown to around half of them I think.
Ooh matron!
That's not quite true Nick. I walked into a bollard once and almost performed my own
Except it isn't. There are British girls that get sent abroad to have it done and the suspicion is that it is also happening here but there is a conspiracy of silence around it.
I bet she has to clear her cache every night.
Fnar Fnar...
Not from personal experience...
Hooray!
Good points, are you for real how could there be a positive spin on cutting away parts of a person's body against their will, we should stop portraying it as a badly advised tradition and let it been seen for what it is stupid prehistoric and barbaric
Barbaric, yes, prehistoric, no: prehistory assumes a point before recorded human history began.
Point taken, call it primitive then
Yes I think we can agree on that.
Female circumcision is barbaric, simple. It's mutilation. It should be pointed out, of course, that many millions of male youngsters have their genitals mutilated unnecessarily in the name of religion and/or culture and few protest about it.
I agree with you, but usually once it's done, it's done and there are no ill effects. It doesn't tend to cause lifelong heath problems in the way FGM does.