Where, What, Who and How of Female Suppression

Female genital mutilation is a growing, rather than a declining practice. An estimated 110 million women have undergone genital mutilation in the world.

Africa

Female genital mutilation is practiced in: Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Egypt, Uganda, Tanzania, Djibouti, Central Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Senegal, the Gambia, Mauritania, Liberia, Togo, Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Zaire, Chad, Niger, Libya, and Angola.

Asia

Female genital mutilation is practiced in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Yemen, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.

Europe

Female genital mutilation is practiced in France, Britain, Holland, Italy, Germany, and Czechoslovakia.

Female genital mutilation is practiced in Australia.

South America

Female genital mutilation is practiced in Peru and Upper Amazonia.

North America

Female genital mutilation is practiced in Mexico, Canada, and in the USA, where approximately 13,000 girls are at risk of genital mutilation.

Immigration Spreads Female Genital Mutilation

Daughters are being mutilated no matter where they live. The practice is purportedly attributed to the Islam religion or some other tradition; whether it is practiced depends on the community's beliefs, not a nationality.

Continues Under Protection of Religion

Senator Nancy Kassenbaum, Kansas, in a powerful committee meeting addressing USA support of the United Nations Convention to End All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, stated something to effect that we could not interfere with the religious practices of other peoples.

This despite the fact that every other industrialized country has signed on to the Convention, bringing the total over 135 countries. Noticeably the country with the most prolific patriarchal religions, through that Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate, did not deem it "politically correct" to sign.

No Historic Foundation in Islam

So worldwide female genital mutilation is one of the inhumane acts our government condones because the Senate committee considered it a religious practice. The Convention was not brought out of committee for open discussion before the Senate. Excision, or clitoridectomy, is viewed as an act of purity, demanded by men before they marry. But nothing in the Koran explicitly mandates excision.

Male Circumcision and Female Excision

These acts of circumcision have become viewed as taking "spirits" that inhabit both girls and boys, a necessary step of primitive cultures towards sexual maturity. The major differences between the circumcision is that male circumcision is a modification, while female excision is castration.

Circumcision of the Clitoris

This act of female genital mutilation is done with knives, razor blades or scissors. The very tip of the clitoris is cut off. No anesthesia is available in most cases. In parts of Mexico and South America, the sign of the cross is cut lightly on the clitoris of the baby when she is just a few days old.

Excision

This act of female genital mutilation is the removal of the clitoris, all or part of the inner vascular connective-tissue folds bounding the external parts of the genital organ and sometimes part of the outer fatty folds as well.

Infibulation

This act of female genital mutilation is the removal of the clitoris, the inner folds and much of the outer folds; then, the remaining sides are stitched together, sometimes with acacia thorns, to close up the vagina, leaving only a small opening.

Brainwashing by Patriarchy Must be Overcome

Infibulation, which has nothing to do with any religion, constitutes the most eloquent expression of the control exercised by the patriarchal system over female sexuality. Mothers and grandmothers are the immediate carriers of this "sexual disease" forcing girls to endure the offensive and humiliating butchery for economic "reasons." Women already submerged in ignorance imposed upon them by the poverty, inadequate nutrition and hopelessness in their lives believe the demands of men for virgin brides.

Global Communication of Sisters

At the Fourth United Nations Conference On Women in Bejing, researchers brought renewed consciousness in the form of stories where young girls are viciously forced to undergo infibulation just before menstruation begins to assure that they will be "virgin" therefore, fit to marry. The reality is that men now rape the younger girls before the procedure because "we have to relieve ourselves." Men, too, have been brainwashed by religions. Their "seed" is holy and needs a vessel to receive it. Through God's permission they can, in fact, must, use women for sexual release.

Male Sexual Release

The bible says "Do not spill your seed upon the earth." If men do not want to, or cannot find, a suitable consenting female, another alternative comes to mind. Because their "seeder" is easily available they could embark upon immediate and disease-free hands-on sexual release if they get right down to it. Use of the word, masturbation, will take us all to hell. For instructions, call Doctor Ruth.

For more complete description on these atrocities against women write for the paperback "Facts About Female Genital Mutilation."

My thanks to Kathryn Woods and Meghan Clouse, for the information in "Facts About Female Genital Mutilation" published 1994, by

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Last Modified: Friday, 16-Sep-2005 13:10:57 EDT