Female Genital Mutilation Research Papers (original) (raw)

Lors de la publication de l’Enfant noir en 1953, la domination coloniale française en Guinée s’essouffle en raison de la contestation de la population, des prises de position des leaders syndicalistes et des auteurs anticolonialistes. Alors que la quasi-totalité des auteurs africains « était presque unanimement orientée vers la dénonciation du fait colonial et du choc culturel qu’il engendre » , Camara Laye, lui, écrit un « livre intemporel qui s’est imposé comme un classique de notre temps » grâce à l’exclusion de toute référence au colonialisme français et au choc des civilisations. Dès lors, nous nous interrogerons dans un premier temps sur la finalité première du roman et sur les objectifs poursuivis par l’auteur et la maison d’édition. Dans un second temps, nous analyserons les éléments d’africanité qui s’opposent bien souvent à ceux hérités de la civilisation occidentale.

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- Female Genital Mutilation, Exile, French colonialism, Islamic Mysticism

Objectives To analyse the sources and reasons for referral of women who have undergone genital mutilation to a recently established specialist clinic, and to determine the consequences of the genital mutilation procedure. ... Setting The... more

- by Constantine Momoh
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- Research Methodology, Culture, Female Genital Mutilation, Developing Countries
- by Racha Awad
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- Female Genital Mutilation, Ethnopsychoanalysis, Psychologie, psychologie Clinique
- by Erick Vloeberghs and +1
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- Social Psychology, Mental Health, Female Genital Mutilation, Public Health

According to the logic of the gendered modernity/tradition binary, women in traditional societies are oppressed and women in modern societies liberated. While the binary valorizes modern women, it potentially erases gendered oppression in the West and undermines feminist movements on behalf of Western women. Using U.S. newspaper text, I ask whether female genital cutting (FGC) is used to define women in modern societies as liberated. I find that speakers use FGC to both uphold and challenge the gendered modernity/tradition binary. Speakers use FGC to denigrate non-Western cultures and trivialize the oppressions that U.S. women typically encounter, but also to make feminist arguments on behalf of women everywhere. I argue that in addition to examining how culturally imperialist logics are reproduced, theorists interested in feminist postcolonialism should turn to the distribution of such logics, emphasizing the who, where, when, and how of reinscription of and resistance to such narratives.

- by Lisa Wade
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- Africa, Female Circumcision, Gender, Female genital cutting
- by Amel Fahmy
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- Female genital cutting, Female Genital Mutilation, Violence Against Women, Egypt
- by Edna Ismail
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- Female genital cutting, Female Genital Mutilation, Medicine, Reproductive health

With a particular focus on interventions aimed at eradicating female genital mutilation (FGM) in Ethiopia, this article discusses the increased use of religious leaders as a strategy in development practice, showing that the use of religious leaders in these interventions is informed by an instrumental approach and narrow and static assumptions of power. We argue that for religious leaders to be actors of social change, a reconceptualization of power and power dynamics and a critical discussion about the consequences and limitations of instrumentalist approaches are needed. These issues are of particular importance in contexts where monological discourses and vertical structures dominate and influence interventions, local responses to them, and religious leaders’ legitimacy.

- by Marit Østebø
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- Social Change, Development Studies, International Development, Ethiopian Studies

The feminization of African international migration flows led to an increased presence of women with female genital mutilation (FGM). In Italy as well as other countries the increasing need to have more detailed information on this practice among immigrants leaded researchers to gather primary data in order to investigate topics such as prevalence in emigration, most diffused types of excision, health consequences, related socio-economic factors and attitudes on circumcision of second generation girls. According to this approach the contribute presented here has the aim to assess the determinants of mother-to-daughter transmission of FGM among African immigrants living in Italy by means of a survey including un ad-hoc module. Main results using multilevel analysis techniques indicate that once other factors (including family and community effects) are held constant, covariates like mother education and experience of FGM, family support for FGM, daughters’ year of birth and being born in emigration are strongly associated with the process of mother to daughter transmission of FGM. Strong differences are also observed across communities.

- by Livia Elisa Ortensi and +1
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- Female genital cutting, Female Genital Mutilation
- by Getnet Mitike
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- Female Circumcision, Female Genital Mutilation, Somalia, Ethiopia

Der erste Teil beschäftigt sich mit sozialen Dynamiken pluralistischer Gesellschaften, wie mit dem ökonomischen Flexibilismus, dem demografischen Wandel und Trends bezüglich Mobilität, Migration und Bürgerrechten. Der zweite Teil diskutiert "flüchtige Kategorien" am Beispiel sich auflösender Begriffe wie "fremde Kulturen", "zweite Generation", "Religion" und "Behinderung". Im dritten Teil wird der Fokus auf "Ausgrenzung" durch Stigma, Menschenfeindlichkeit und Nichtanerkennung, aber auch auf Grund- und Menschenrechte gerichtet. Was transkategoriale Kompetenz in unterschiedlichen Lebensaltern, Lebenswelten und Praxisfeldern bedeutet, wird im vierten Teil des Lehrbuchs exemplarisch in Beiträgen über Mädchenbeschneidung, Traumatisierungen, Migrationskinder und Altern beschrieben. Der fünfte Teil widmet sich der Gesundheitsversorgung mit einem besonderen Fokus auf Frauen und Männer mit Migrationserfahrung, auf Menschen mit kognitiver Beeinträchtigung und psychischen Störungen und einer Migrationserfahrung sowie der Beschreibung eines Pflege- und Versorgungsprozesses für diese komplexen Kontexte. Im sechsten Teil werden diverse kommunikative Aspekte im Umgang mit Vielfalt und Verschiedenheit erläutert. Zahlreiche praxisorientierte Fallbeispiele und selbstreflexive Übungen ebnen den Weg für einen kreativen Umgang mit Diversity im Gesundheitswesen.

- by Dagmar Domenig
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- Demography, Medical Anthropology, Human Rights, Migration
- by Barbara S . Morrison
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- Feminist Theory, Female Genital Mutilation

This paper is part of an ongoing research on Sexual and Reproductive Rights in West Africa, with a particular focus in Senegal. It starts with the assumption that the body is a signifier of local social and moral worlds, and also that it is through the body that experiences of freedom and autonomy, violence, social pressure and inequality are manifested. Individuals are socially situated through their gender but gender representations are disputed by social actors, endogenous and exogenous. The claims for social change concerning FGM/C envisions an abandonment of the practice as part of a social project that isn't always shared with practicing communities in the same lines as those set by stakeholders. Political and activist mobilisation often fails to antecipate backlashes. With this paper I want to claim that we have to cast a wider view on gender inequality, social values and norms, because both practicing and non-practicing communities share cultural representations that fuel an overepresentation of femininity, female sexuality and the female body and its link to social order and morality.

- by Ricardo Miguel Falcão
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- Anthropology, Human Rights, Female Genital Mutilation, Senegal

A comprehensive study was undertaken to investigate, explore, and analyse the existence of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) in Iran. The time span of this study began in 2005 and ended in 2014. The aim of this study was to provide in-depth data on FGM in Iran and, at the same time, provide the building blocks for a comprehensive program to combat FGM in Iran and bring this issue onto the world's agenda. The methodological approach adopted by this study was primarily participatory due to the sensitivity of the subject matter. Most parts of this research were completed by the end of 2014 and much has been achieved over a decade of studying the subject of FGM in Iran. The study included travelling thousands of kilometers and interviewing over 3,000 women and 1000 men from various areas and social classes, including key role players, community leaders, clerics and religious leaders in order to compile comprehensive data about the practice of FGM in Iran. The findings demonstrate that FGM in some locations is widespread among women and girls (around 60% in some villages of Qeshm Island in Southern province of Hurmozgan, especially in the villages of the four provinces in the northwest, west and south of Iran). FGM was not,however practiced in the northern parts of West Azerbaijan, where people are Turkish Azri and Kurmanji Kurdish speakers, nor in the Southern parts of Kermanshah and Northern parts of Hormozgan. This research study along with ashort documentary film has gained global recognition and was launched by the Guardian and BBC on June 4th, 2015 through their websites. Shortly thereafter it was discussed at a United Nationsmeeting of the Human Rights Council in Geneva,on June 19th 2015 at a session on eliminating FGM/C.Reuters also published the analysis of the research and considered it one of the rare contributions in the history of Iran.

- by kameel Ahmady
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- Gender Studies, Gender and Sexuality, Female Circumcision, Gender
- by maria cardeira da silva
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- Anthropology, Human Rights, Gender, Female Genital Mutilation
- by Gino Satta
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- Human Rights, Female Genital Mutilation
- by Barbara S . Morrison
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- Feminist Theory, Female Genital Mutilation
- by Clare Chambers
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- Multiculturalism, Feminist Theory, Liberalism, Gender Equality

A crisis is understood as one critical event or series of events that leads to major changes in the lives of the affected. It can be due to natural disasters (such as floods, earthquakes, cyclones etc) and man-made events, (conflicts, population displacements, large-scale accidents etc). A disaster is understood as “a severe disruption, ecological and psychological which greatly exceeds the coping capacity of the individual” (WHO, 1992).
This write- up pays particular attention to the response phases that follow a crisis. It is also relevant for planning and implementing responses to ongoing crises, such as continuing conflicts; health emergencies such as the HIV pandemic; environmental challenges, such as persistent droughts; and economic or political challenges that influence psychological and social well-being. It further draws on the experiences of psychosocial interventions in different countries and contexts. Examples of lessons learned are presented in three ways, as best practices, promising practices or as those best to avoid.

- by Patricia O Sukore
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- Jurisprudence, Domestic Violence, Human Rights, Women's Rights
- by Jerald Cheesborough
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- African Studies, Gender Studies, Sex and Gender, Race and Racism

En el presente texto se busca cumplir dos objetivos: en la primera parte se argumenta a favor de retomar los trabajos de ética normativa, así como de la necesidad de vincularlos activamente con las investigaciones en metaética y ética aplicada. En segundo lugar, se traza una precaución fundamental que debe ser tomada en cuenta al momento de hacer tanto ética normativa como ética aplicada, ilustrada con el caso de la ablación femenina en poblaciones africanas.

Critica ao artigo de Fisaha KG “Female Genital Mutilation: A Violation of Human Rights”

- by Débora Morais
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- Human Rights, Female genital cutting, Female Genital Mutilation

A mutilação genital feminina consiste em distintas formas de intervenções dolorosas nos órgãos genitais femininos, que são realizadas por motivos não-medicinais, motivadas pela manutenção do patriarcado. A prática caracteriza, acima de tudo, a submissão da mulher, tendo em vista que a virgindade e pureza dela devem ser asseguradas, caracterizando os símbolos existentes nessas culturas. O principal objetivo desse livro foi apresentar as divergências entre os direitos coletivos culturais e os direitos humanos das mulheres e meninas na prática da mutilação genital feminina, apresentando medidas tomadas pela ONU e legislações criadas por países para tentar erradicar com o procedimento. A problemática, nesse sentido girou em torno da divergência existente entre a prática e os direitos humanos das mulheres e meninas, analisando quais as medidas poderiam ser tomadas para se resolver o conflito. O método de abordagem foi o dedutivo, em pesquisa do tipo teórica e qualitativa, com emprego de material bibliográfico diversificado em livros, artigos de periódicos, teses e dissertações e, principalmente, por via de websites jornalísticos e até mesmo por blogs, bem como documentos e informações disponibilizadas pela Organização das Nações Unidas. Os resultados alcançados apontam para a necessidade de realização de mais políticas públicas para, posteriormente, de diálogos interculturais, a fim de que sejam ouvidas as praticantes da incisão para, então, demonstrar a elas o lado ruim do procedimento (violações de direitos humanos das mulheres e meninas, sexuais e reprodutivos, bem como do corpo). Concluindo-se que é impossível a imposição da extinção da prática para as mutiladas e mutiladoras, devendo-se tentar escutá-las e entendê-las, apresentando o ponto de vista contrário, chegando a solução de que todas estejam juntas no fim.

Il testo presenta un’analisi dell’esperienza delle associazioni interculturali di donne in Italia alla luce della critica al concetto di “sorellanza globale” operata dal femminismo postcoloniale. Attraverso un’analisi delle dinamiche di identità e alterità presenti nelle associazioni, delle pratiche considerate simbolo di diversità culturale e del lavoro domestico e di cura, il volume affronta il tema della costruzione di percorsi comuni tra donne posizionate in maniera diseguale, nella direzione di un femminismo interculturale fondato su un concetto di solidarietà femminista riflessiva.

- by Erika Bernacchi
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- Gender Studies, Multiculturalism, Migration, Critical Race Theory
- by Dr Sadiq Bhanbhro and +1
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- Gender and Sexuality, Female Genital Mutilation, Honour Based Violence
- by Ewa K. Strzelecka
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- Female Genital Mutilation, Egypt, Derechos Humanos, Mutilacion Genital Femenina

The paper studies the relationship between female genital mutilation (FGM/C) dynamics, beliefs and fundamentals across African countries. results show that socio-economic conditions are worse in countries where FGM/C is practiced. However, if we consider the dynamics of FGM/C in those countries there is no clear link between fundamentals and the abandonment of the practice, but a strong correlation is found with social expectations and social capital. Our findings support the implementation of bottom-up interventions aimed at changing both attitudes and social expectations.

- by Cristina Bicchieri and +1
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- Development Economics, Development Studies, Social Capital, Female Genital Mutilation

This article examines “excision” (a.k.a. “female circumcision,” Female Genital Mutilation [FGM] or, more recently, Female Genital Cutting [FGC]) in African Women's first-person accounts. While considering the shift from female third-person narratives to “experiential” texts, the article also outlines three steps—(1) in-passing; (2) auto(-)biography; and (3) suturing—in delineating the herstory of the representation of excision in postcolonial African literature, which in

- by Chantal Zabus
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- Cultural Studies, Law, Female genital cutting, Female Genital Mutilation

Book Abstract: In 1992, Pulitzer Prize-winner Alice Walker became the first major author to dedicate a novel "to the blameless vulva," yet, at first, the tale was not universally admired. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. identifies themes that caused trouble: "double consciousness," "divided loyalties," and a "tortured indictment of clitoridectomy that centers on the interplay between modern and traditional identities." Professor Gates also mentions the "price that patriarchy may extract in the passage from one to the other." [Gates in his preface to _Alice Walker. Critical Perspectives Past and Present_ (1993, p. XI)]. Yes, the cost of courage would be high. Although received with ambivalence if not hostility in the USA, Walker's _Possessing the Secret of Joy_ (1992) elicited gratitude elsewhere. From China, Japan, India, Uganda, Kenya, Europe and the USA, contributors to Waging Empathy. Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy and the Global Movement to Ban FGM (2014) applaud an American native daughter with international appeal. The present text presents chapter 1 by Tobe Levin.

This book chapter explores the role of the patriarchal ideology in feeding various modalities of sexual violence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), with special emphasis on rape, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, and... more

- by Dr. Erwin van der Meer
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- African Studies, Anthropology, Education, Africa

‘Women’s rights are human rights!’ This notion may seem self evident, as the international system for the promotion and the protection of human rights that was installed under the auspice of the United Nations (UN) builds on the idea of equality in dignity and rights of men and women. Yet, as was convincingly showed by critics of this system, it is not. In 1993 a lobby of women’s rights activists and organisations from all over the world gathered in Vienna at the World Conference on Human Rights to make clear to the 171 states represented there that the international human rights system ignored blatant human rights violations that occur on a daily basis in the lives of women from all over the world. The states represented at the World Conference recognised this deficiency of the international human rights system and called upon the monitoring bodies of the mainstream international human rights treaties to include the status and human rights of women in their deliberations and findings. This study examines whether two of these monitoring bodies: the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) have taken up this call. It thereby focused specifically on matters that affect women’s physical integrity. The study shows that the HRC and the CESCR make good use of the possibilities within their mandates to address issues that affect women’s physical integrity: they address not only issues like rape and domestic violence, but also for example female genital mutilation, unsafe abortions, and lack of access to contraceptives. It is in this respect interesting to note that the monitoring bodies do not consider abortion to be a violation of any human right, but, on the contrary, recommend states that have general prohibitions on abortion to amend their laws and allow for abortion under certain circumstances. Moreover, the HRC and the CESCR generally formulate obligations for states parties that take into account the gender-specific form, circumstances and consequences of these human rights abuses. But the HRC and the CESCR could and should do more. Only in a few instances do the bodies expressly link issues like rape, female genital mutilation, and trafficking of women to discrimination of women in societies. Hence, the recommendations of the HRC and the CESCR generally do not request the states parties to tackle the root cause of human rights abuses and constraints: the subordinate position of women in society. Further action is required to overcome this deficit. In this, NGOs and academics also have an important role to play, as they should make the bodies aware of the discriminatory background and nature of specific situations and issues and could present them with ideas on how best to tackle these underlying causes. What is clear is that the request of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights is not a short-term assignment for the monitoring bodies, but rather is a process that will be ongoing for as long as gender inequality exists. The commitment of not only UN agencies, but also academics, and NGOs is required to transform the international system so as to ensure that it fully accommodates and responds to human rights abuses and constraints that are typical of women’s lives, now and in the future

- by Fleur van Leeuwen
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- Contraception, Women's Rights, United Nations, Trafficking in Women
- by myriam dieleman
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- Gender Studies, Gender and Sexuality, Female Genital Mutilation
- by Robert Darby
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- Sociology of Religion, Health Sciences, Philosophy of Science, Bioethics

This paper starts with a discussion about the symmetrical aspects of circumcision of girls and circumcision of boys. In a brief overview of historical changes in the discourses on circumcision, especially regarding girls, we can see how a conceptual asymmetry was created through the activist claim, introduced in the early 1980s and prominent since then, that one of the phenomena, in whatever form, was to be labelled ‘mutilation’, the other ‘harmless’.
The paper will further discuss later developments in the form of an activist movement (the genital integrity movement, intactivists) contending that also boys without decision-making capacity need to have legal protection against non-medical procedures that irreversibly change their genitals.
Examples from the academic, medical, and political-legal fields in Europe will demonstrate a general trend in which the symmetries between circumcision of girls and boys are again being brought out, now within a children’s rights perspective.

Female sexual dysfunction is commonly considered a psychogenic condition and is commonly believed to be temporary and potentially treatable by psychodynamic therapy. However, Goldstien and Berman have written about what they call clitoral erectile deficiency, referring to a local vascular condition in some women that may be temporary and is potentially treatable through pharmacological intervention. In 2012 I proposed a neurological aspect of the absence of clitoral erection in some women that is probably permanent and untreatable. However, such neurological impairment may be easily preventable during early brain development, through adequate genital self-stimulation long before the massive neural pruning of puberty. I also proposed the label Clitoral Erectile Dysfunction as more specifically descriptive of the most obvious functional effect of that neurological impairment. In the present paper I clarify my hypothesis and confront some possible criticism.

- by Frank Adamo
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- Pedology, Pediatrics, Sexual Dysfunction, Sexuality

According to Brian Morris (2013), “Science supports infant circumcision” and “so should skeptics.” It would be more accurate to say that ‘Brian Morris supports infant circumcision,’ and that skeptics can think for themselves. In this paper, we critically assess the arguments and evidence presented by Morris in his recent article, and draw some general lessons for the ongoing debate about the science and ethics of infant male circumcision.

- by Brian D . Earp
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- Religion, Comparative Religion, History, American History

Non-therapeutic infant male circumcision is a permanent surgical alteration to the penis that may cause significant physical, sexual and psychological harm. Physical harms include unintended adverse effects of the surgery itself (e.g., complications such as bleeding, infection, excessive removal
of foreskin leaving insufficient shaft skin to accommodate erections, etc.), as well as the inherent loss of healthy, functional tissue. Sexual harms that necessarily follow from circumcision include the loss of all sensation in the foreskin itself, and the loss of all sexual functions that involve the physical manipulation of the foreskin. Additional sexual harms that may follow circumcision include reduced sexual sensation in the remaining penile structures, difficulty with masturbation, increased chafing in both the circumcised man and his sexual partner, as well as reduced overall psychosexual/psychological tension relief and subjective satisfaction. Psychological harms include short-term trauma as well as the potential for long-term emotional disturbances, including sadness, frustration, distress, and anger—akin to post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD). In this paper, the extent and severity of these various harms are considered and it is argued that they are more serious and more widespread than is commonly believed.

- by Ryan Riegg
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- Islamic Law, Economics, Family Law, Female Genital Mutilation