(( VaginaPagina ))

This is a link to the FORWARD website. FORWARD are the Foundation for Women's Research and Development, they focus on FGM and other women's issues it's run by my mummy. http://www.forward.dircon.co.uk/ I hope this is helpful.

FGM is extremely emotive, try and put your audience in the minds of a young girl about to face this horror. Talk about the fear, the pain and the futility of it all, before going on to facts and figures.

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prosodic.livejournal.com

I am in total agreement with this. I was actually going to suggest the same thing.

Find a story out there...there are many, about a woman who has dealt with this problem and her feelings during that time. Or just write up a fictional story based on true experiences that you've read. It would be the best way to introduce your paper.

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skeletalremains.livejournal.com

did you know this past year Georgia outlawed any forms of female genital mutilation including piercing. I think their motives were to abolish the female circumcision but they tossed in piercing for good measure, i guess.

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i dont think it passed. my piercer would have told me. im pretty sure the whole sexist against women thing stopped it.

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skeletalremains.livejournal.com

ok, good. I remember hearing about it months ago and after that I hadn't heard anything. I'm glad that didn't pass.

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well, it passes the house and the senate, but after it was amended to include female genital peircing it had to go back. i have yet to read anything new on it. (looking now) and im sure my piercer will be pissed (i have a clitoral hood piercing, and i want a triangle eventually when i get up the guts and money)

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i dont know much about fgm, and i certainly wouldnt want it performed by me, but i do know that is another culture, and who am i to say they cannot practice their traditions. change must come from the inside of a community in order for it to be rightly inforced. telling a community they cannot do what theyve done for ages, and believes is right is only going to make it be done in private and less safe (as ive read that usually fgm is done in hospitals now under clean circumstances instead of with broken glass and no anestesia) but i also think its beautiful that a lot of african tribes still practice cutting for young boys as a right of passage into manhood.

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I can't believe you think fgm is ok if it is done in a hospital and that it is beautiful to cut young boys as a right of passage.

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its other peoples CULTURE. culture is important. just like me getting my ears pierced was a right of passage. i think that culture is a beautiful thing. if that is what a community holds as a standard then who am i to decide what is *better* for them.

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Whether female or male it is wrong to cut something off a child's body just for a rite of passage.If an adult wants to get their body pierced or tattoed or their genitals mutilated then fair enough but nobody should force such things on children.How many adult women would chose to have their clitoris cut off? or even the tip of it? how many adult men who have a foreskin chose to cut it off? .These body parts are meant to be there and it is obviously mutilation to remove them.

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furthermore, do you think circumcision is mutilation? it too decreases sexual sensitivity.

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do the women who are having it done want it to be broken? because if so i would imagine they wouldnt be the ones taking their daughters and granddaughters to have it performed. if its not done in a clean environment, then it should be. but i know of many tribes in africa where the women dominate the men, and still practice fgm. (im getting this from a reliable source, as he is the prince of his tribe in africa) i will read the link, but id like to see some information by someone who is part of communities that practice fgm, not just people who believe they are superior to these "barbaric" tribes. social norms are social norms for a reason. in many countries women stretch their (and each others) labia, they stretch their earlobes, bottom lips, necks, cut patterns, endure PAINFUL and dangerous tattooing. but this is the way they live their lives, and its just the way things are. now, if in these tribes the women feel like they are being wronged, then i agree that it should stop, but im certainly not one to tell an entire group of people that their lifestyle is wrong.

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I am African. I am from Ghana, FGM is performed in parts of Ghana. So believe me, I know what I'm talking about.
I can understand why you would be hostile to outsiders making decisions for others, as though we are superior, the benign child and all that guff. But believe me, that's not where I'm coming from on this.
Has your reliable source ever told you why FGM is practiced? Princes in Africa are dime a dozen, (my own father was one), and fake ones are even more common. Social norms come from traditions and attitudes that change and evolve over time. In the year 2004 eight year old girls should not be having their vaginas mutilated, they should not be kept from education, purely because no man would marry an open or educated woman.
My mother helped set up the FORWARD charity almost twenty years ago, I've met women who have had this done to them and they think that it should stop. But I've also met women who have had this done to them, know it's wrong, yet are not entirely sure that they wouldn't subject their daughters to it, because they want them to marry well. Maybe I'm just as indoctrinated as these women, maybe I'm wrong, but I strongly believe that if you wouldn't do it to your family or loved ones, you shouldn't accept that people do it to theirs. Society has swung from one extreme to the other in some cases, people are so scared of a repeat of colonialisation that they accept the most awful practices of other cultures, just because they have been practiced for eons. I think a change needs to be brought about.

I'm repeating myself. I'll stop now.

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no i appreciate your comments. there are a lot of parts of culture that i would not want my daughters to participate in. i wouldnt want my daughters to have to wear clothing from head to toe and follow behind their husbands two steps back and one to the left (or whatever) but in some cultures this is the norm and i dont believe it should be outlawed. i know that fgm is a drastically different, more painful and dangerous practice. ive never been presented with a non american point of veiw that its wrong, and needs to be stopped. ive never heard of cases of women who had it done, and wanted it to stop except on television shows where its OBVIOUS there was a spin. thank you for shedding new light on this. are there any other links that you can direct me to? or books? id like to learn more. preferably not just an american one. (i love this country but we sure are opinionated and closed minded at times)

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Some links, with info. Some is useful, some wont be.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3564203.stm

http://www.studentbmj.com/issues/0504/life/204.html

http://www.sourceuk.net/indexf.html?04402

http://www.forwarduk.org.uk/

I hope some of those will be helpful. The last link should be a list of publications about FGM from the viewpoints of professionals and other African women. Read Alice Walker's 'Possesing The Secret of Joy'. I hope at least some of this helps, and I'm sorry a lot of the links have comments from my mother.

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dont apologize. were all entitled to our opinions, and im sorry that im so ignorant on the practices myself. your mother seems wonderful. thank you for the links, and discussing this with me rationally.

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Thank you for listening, and for making me realise that my mum is actually wonderful.

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For your information:
FGM is not practiced in hospitals for the most part. It is done with razors, shards of glass, knives etc..these things are not sterilized or cleaned and can pass on diseases such as HIV. Girls, and I say girls because this is not done to grown women who can choose, die from this, they die from the shock, the pain, the bloodloss. They are forced into this.

Why should a girl have her vagina sewn shut? Why should she have to menstruate and urinate through a hole the size of a kernal of sweetcorn? Why should a woman have her clitoris removed? The reason given is to protect these girl's purity, but isn't there a better way of doing it? Men will not marry woman who haven't had this done, and mothers insist so that their daughters are marriageable. But why should this happen? This is not beautiful, it's a tradition that MUST be stopped. Even if it's made safe it still isn't right. It's akin to chopping of your daughter's arm when she's 8, because men wont marry her if she has two. Senseless and wrong. I agree that culture is mportant but there are parts of every culture that are seemy and outmoded. There is no sensible reason for this to carry on.

It is illegal in England to perform FGM. It is illegal for British citizens to be taken out of the country to be mutilated. This is wrong, I can't stress that enough. It's just wrong. Imagine it was done to you, and you had no choice, your whole life was pain, every month your period came and it was pain, everytime you pee, pain. Think about it really hard and then tell me that it's wrong that we try and stop it. Tell me that you would be happy for your daughter, sister, cousin, neighbour, friend to go through that forever.

I feel just as strongly about circumcising boys. Why is it beautiful for African tribes to cut young boys? Imagine the pain. Even on a baby boy it's awful, I've seen the pain on my cousin Cameron's face from that. I've seen his tiny, red, inflamed penis and it made me wince and cry. He wont remember the pain when he grows, but doing that to a young man is even more barbaric.

My last comment to you was awful and I apologise. This one is more measured. I'm sorry for any offence caused. Please think about what I've said and use the link in my first comment. xxx

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unkai.livejournal.com

(as ive read that usually fgm is done in hospitals now under clean circumstances instead of with broken glass and no anestesia)

Where did you read that? In one anthropology class alone, I read about half a dozen fairly recent stories that suggest the opposite.

Regardless, I think that the human rights of the women who undergo this mutilating "surgery" far outstrip the rights of the culture to continue practicing FGM.

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my question is, do these women feel like their rights are being violated??? we think its a horrible practice, but do the people who do it believe the same thing? if not then let them live their lives in the fashion they so choose. thats my whole point.

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But they aren't choosing. They are children, their parents' attitudes are being visited on them and then they cannot make up their own minds because they see no other option availiable to them when their own girls grow.

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Children aren't given the choice and even if they were they are too young to make such a big decision.
You know most countries have an age of consent for sex and it is illegal for an adult to have sex with a child under that age even if the child wants to.It is called statutory rape because the child can't make an informed choice about whether it is a good thing to do or not.The same should apply to genital mutilation.Kenya has a law now that forbids mutilating girls under a certain age( I think 17) but women over that age can choose to have it done. I think that many of them will choose not to have it done but if they decide of their own free will to do it then thats up to them.Under no circumstances should they be mutilated without their consent.

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i agree with this. im first and foremost about choice. i think that if its done in unsanitary conditions, without consent of the woman having it done then action should be taken to make sure of such.

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beautiful to cut boys?

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i think the practice of cutting is beautiful. i dont think it should be forced upon any individual.

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