EUROPE: Time For Concrete EU Action Against Female Genital Mutilation

Female genital mutilation (FGM) continues throughout the world, including across Europe. The EU needs to act and the incoming Belgian Presidency must support the European Commission in developing a strong, comprehensive and rights-based strategy to combat FGM and protect women and girls affected by this practice, writes Dr. Christine Loudes, director of Amnesty International's 'END FGM European Campaign', in an exclusive commentary for EurActiv.

AUSTRIA: African Women Fight Female Genital Mutilation

Waris Dirie, an Austrian of Somalian origin, is an inspiration to the many victims of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), especially in Africa. Born into a family of Somalian nomads, Dirie's genitals were mutilated when she was three years old. She was sold in marriage at 13 years after which she fled Africa. From the heart of the desert to the West, where she became one of the highest paid models, Dirie has come a long way. She has been chosen as the United Nations spokesperson against FGM and is a fierce crusader against the ritual of FGM, calling it one of the biggest challenges facing Somalian women.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 100 to 140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of FGM. The inhuman procedure is mostly carried out on young girls some time between infancy and post-puberty (15 years). FGM intentionally alters or injure the female genital organs and causes severe long-term medical problems.

Waris Dirie: The Ever-Blossoming Desert Flower

INDONESIA: Violence, Circumcision Among Problems Faced By NU Women

Fatayat Nadhlatul Ulama, the women's wing of the country's largest Muslim organization, reported that violence, early marriage and female circumcision are among the problems compromising the reproductive health of NU women nationwide.

Inequality in marriages, unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions are also issues Fatayat NU encountered during reproductive health campaigns it conducted in villages in 11 provinces from 2005 to 2010.

Fatayat's programs focused on reproductive health and gender mainstreaming and awareness building in cooperation with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the National Family Planning Agency (BKKBN) since 2006, as well as programs with its long-time partner the Ford Foundation.

The programs included workshops on reproductive and sexual health, and occasionally the organization held discussions on abortion and female circumcision.

It also handed out booklets on reproductive health education "for future brides and grooms".

These booklets contained information on subjects including sex, labor and sexually transmitted diseases.

ETHIOPIA: Ethiopian FGM Radio Warnings Reach Nomadic Women

Nomadic girls in the Danakil Desert of Ethiopia often skip school to fetch and carry water. But in one settled pocket, girls are going to school and mothers in the past two years have begun heeding radio warnings on female genital mutilation.

The schoolmaster at Kursawat, a rural area in the Afar region of Ethiopia, is struggling to bring awareness of the benefits of girl education and the risks of female genital mutilation.

Ethiopia outlawed female genital mutilation in 2004 but the practice is deeply rooted and nearly universal in the Afar and Somali regions. In 2005 a government health survey found that 74 percent of girls and women nationwide had undergone the ritual cutting.

"Circumcision is still going on here," Schoolmaster Kadesang Fasile told Women's eNews. "Most of the Afar are nomads so they can't be reached through educational broadcasts."

DOWNLOADABLE FILM: The Cut

PUBLICATION: Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting - UNFPA Report

Global Consultation on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting

Empathy and Rage: Female Genital Mutilation in African Literature

EMPATHY AND RAGE:
Co-Edited by Tobe Levin and Augustine H. Asaah

This collection is a first - scholars analyse this subject as a theme in literature.

In an unusual symbiosis, activism and scholarship join hands to hasten the end of this egregious
human rights abuse.

The collection examines representations in creative writing by African and African-Americans including Nura Abdi, Mariama Barry, Calixthe Beyala, Osman Conteh, Waris Dirie,
Nuruddin Farah, Fatou Keita, Fadumo Korn, Ahmadou Kourouma, Christian Mambou, Nawal El Saadawi, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Awa Thiam and Alice Walker. et al.

In their efforts to end FGM, the governments of Germany, the UK, Italy and the European Union (Brussels) have drawn on the expertise of Tobe Levin who has written many articles and chapters for
books on FGM.

Empathy and Rage - these words bracket a spectrum of feelings people confront when they think about the millions of women and girls who have undergone bolokoli, takhoundi, tukore, or gudni’in - names in local languages for a procedure that mutilates women’s private parts or Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Contributors to the collection include: Anne V. Adams, Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana, Muthoni Mathai, Marianne Sarkis and a translation from the French of contributor Herzberger-Fofana’s obituary placing it in the context of the work as a dedication to Sembene Ousmane, a true African pioneer of the exposure of this practice through film.

Tobe Levin is a Professor at the University of Maryland College in Europe, an adjunct to the University of Frankfurt, and non-resident Fellow, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University. Levin became an activist against FGM in 1977 and co-founded FORWARD - Germany, a registered charity modelled on FORWARD
UK, in 1998.

Augustine H. Asaah is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Ghana where he teaches African Francophone Literature and has pioneered research into African feminist literature and gender-based violence in African fiction.

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