scholarly journals Towards a solution concerning female genital mutilation? An approach from within according to Islamic legal opinions

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 216-236
Author(s):  
Jens Kutscher
Keyword(s):  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Female Circumcision ◽  
Female Physician ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
Legal Opinions ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Ethiopian Jews ◽  
Female Genital

Female circumcision is a tradition that is widespread and not restricted to predominantly Muslim countries. It is prevalent among all religious groups in many parts of Africa and Western Asia, whether they are Coptic Christians, Ethiopian Jews, or Arab Muslims. Female genital cutting or—more to the point—female genital mutilation (FGM), generally referred to as circumcision, occurs in at least five different forms. Circumcision is essentially a powerful bodily sign of the human—male and female—covenant with God. In the Quran it is reaffirmed in sura al-Nahl and quoted as example in the fatwas endorsing circumcision. It seems to be true that men are hardly involved in the actual decision in favour of female genital cutting. A man should not interfere in the decision of women to be circumcised. It is practiced and transmitted among women and midwives. Only sometimes is a (male or female) physician involved. On the basis of Islamic normativity, mirrored in fatwas, this paper aims to examine a very ambivalent approach concerning female genital mutilation.

scholarly journals Female Genital Cutting: A Persistent African Health Challenge

2020 ◽  
Vol I (1) ◽  
pp. 01-06
Author(s):  
Mohamed Nabih EL-Gharib
Keyword(s):  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Female Circumcision ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Health Challenge ◽  
African Health ◽  
Historical Origin ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Female Genital

Female genital mutilation or female circumcision is a worldwide problem, though it is universally prohibited. The definition, historical origin, indications and types of mutilations, technic of performance, and complication are discussed in this article.

scholarly journals Recommendation to Prohibit, Un-Islamic and Harmful Cultural Custom of Female Genital Mutilation

rahatulquloob ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 52-65
Author(s):  
Najia Almas ◽  
Prof. Dr. Muhammad Khan sangi ◽  
Prof. Dr. Rafiq Ahmed Memon
Keyword(s):  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Female Circumcision ◽  
Complete Removal ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Genital Organ ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
The World ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Female Genital

Female genital mutilation and female genital cutting that undertakes partial or complete removal of female genital organ, is practiced in certain parts of the world in general and in African Arab countries particularly. This is not religious but cultural and Muslim, Christian and to some extent by Jew communities are involved in this custom of circumcising the girls and women prior to their marriages. On the other hand, female circumcision involves the removal of prepuce which should not be confused with FGM (female genital mutilation), for they are completely two different procedures. However, Keeping the circle of the discussion to Muslims, it is very important to mention that there is no Ayat/verse in Al-Quran which even refers to female circumcision, which is also called as Islamic Circumcision. Only weak hadiths are found to support the procedure. However, these hadiths compl-etely forbid FGM as well as Islamic Shariah scholars prohibit this procedure after in carefully conclusive analysis of the said hadiths to be performed on women. FGM dosn’t has any health benefits instead this is very harmful and leads such victims to many gynecological, psychological, emotional and mental complications.

scholarly journals Defining Gendered Oppression in U.S. Newspapers: The Strategic Value of “Female Genital Mutilation”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Wade
Keyword(s):  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
The West ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Strategic Value ◽  
Traditional Societies ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Newspaper Text ◽  
Feminist Movements ◽  
Female Genital

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.

Perversion and Perpetration in Female Genital Mutilation Law: The Unmaking of Women as Bearers of Law

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maree Pardy ◽  
Juliet Rogers ◽  
Nan Seuffert
Keyword(s):  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
New South ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Demonic Possession ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Female Genital

Female genital cutting (FGC) or, more controversially, female genital mutilation, has motivated the implementation of legislation in many English-speaking countries, the product of emotive images and arguments that obscure the realities of the practices of FGC and the complexity of the role of the practitioner. In Australia, state and territory legislation was followed, in 2015, with a conviction in New South Wales highlighting the problem with laws that speak to fantasies of ‘mutilation’. This article analyses the positioning of Islamic women as victims of their culture, represented as performing their roles as vehicles for demonic possession, unable to authorize agency or law. Through a perverse framing of ‘mutilation’, and in the case through the interpretation of the term ‘mutilation’, practices of FGC as law performed by women are obscured, avoiding the challenge of a real multiculturalism that recognises lawful practices of migrant cultures in democratic countries.

scholarly journals The Applicability of Behaviour Change in Intervention Programmes Targeted at Ending Female Genital Mutilation in the EU: Integrating Social Cognitive and Community Level Approaches

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Brown ◽  
David Beecham ◽  
Hazel Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Behaviour Change ◽  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Female Circumcision ◽  
Behavioural Change ◽  
Community Change ◽  
World Health ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Female Genital ◽  
The Eu

With increased migration, female genital mutilation (FGM) also referred to as female circumcision or female genital cutting is no longer restricted to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The European Parliament estimates that up to half a million women living in the EU have been subjected to FGM, with a further 180,000 at risk. Aware of the limited success of campaigns addressing FGM, the World Health Organization recommended a behavioural change approach be implemented in order to end FGM. To date, however, little progress has been made in adopting a behaviour change approach in strategies aimed at ending FGM. Based on research undertaken as part of the EU’s Daphne III programme, which researched FGM intervention programmes linked to African communities in the EU (REPLACE), this paper argues that behaviour change has not been implemented due to a lack of understanding relating to the application of the two broad categories of behaviour change approach: individualistic decision-theoretic and community-change game-theoretic approaches, and how they may be integrated to aid our understanding and the development of future intervention strategies. We therefore discuss how these can be integrated and implemented using community-based participatory action research methods with affected communities.

scholarly journals The Politics of Acculturation: Female Genital Cutting and the Challenge of Building Multicultural Democracies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Wade
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Model ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Female Genital

Understanding how the idea of culture is mobilized in discursive contests is crucial for both theorizing and building multicultural democracies. To investigate this, I analyze a debate over whether we should relieve the “cultural need” for infibulation among immigrants by offering a “nick” in U.S. hospitals. Using interviews, newspaper coverage, and primary documents, I show that physicians and opponents of the procedure with contrasting models of culture disagreed on whether it represented cultural change. Opponents argued that the “nick” was fairly described as “female genital mutilation” and symbolically identical to more extensive cutting. Using a reified model, they imagined Somalis to be “culture-bound”; the adoption of a “nick” was simply a move from one genital cutting procedure to another. Unable to envision meaningful cultural adaptation, and presupposing the incompatibility of multiculturalism and feminism, they supported forced assimilation. Physicians, drawing on a dynamic model of culture, believed that adoption of the “nick” was meaningful cultural change, but overly idealized their ability to protect Somali girls from both Somali and U.S. patriarchy. Unduly confident, they failed to take oppression seriously, dismissing relevant constituencies and their concerns.

Prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation among reproductive age women in Ethiopia: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Atlaw ◽  
Kenbon Seyoum ◽  
Habtamu Gezahegn
Keyword(s):  
Publication Bias ◽  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Reproductive Age ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Traditional Practice ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Pooled Prevalence ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Female Genital

Abstract Background: - Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the most common harmful traditional practice. Which is characterized by partial or total removal of the female external genitalia for non-therapeutic reasons. Globally, FGM affects about 130 million women and girls. Female Genital cutting (FGC) is a harmful traditional practice which affects the physical and mental health of girls and women. Methods: - Review and meta-analysis was conducted using the guideline of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA). Both published and unpublished articles were searched. Articles were searched from different databases like PubMed, Popline, AJOL, EMBASE and gray literature like Google scholar and Google. Articles were searched using terms like “ prevalence ”, “ magnitude”, “female genital cutting” “female genital mutilation”, and “female circumcision” . Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Critical Appraisal-Checklist for Analytical Cross Sectional Studies were used to assess the quality of the included paper. Egger’s test and I 2 statistics were used to assess Publication bias and heterogeneity respectively. Result and discussion: - About thirteen studies with total participants of 7850 were included for systematic review and meta-analysis. The pooled prevalence of female genital mutilation among reproductive age women in Ethiopia was 87.5%: 95% CI (84.25, 90.78). ). I square test statistics showed high heterogeneity (I 2 =94.4, p=0.000) and Egger’s test was done to check for publication bias, but the test has revealed that there is no statistical significant publication bias (p-value=0.374). Conclusion: - The pooled prevalence of female genital mutilation is high in Ethiopia. Subgroup analysis does not revealed significant difference among different region found in the country.

scholarly journals Female genital mutilation remains high in Senegal: an analysis of DHS 2018

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (Supplement_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
NM Sougou ◽  
I Seck
Keyword(s):  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Female Circumcision ◽  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Genital Area ◽  
Female Genital

Abstract Background Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting or female circumcision, threatens the health and well-being of millions of girls, women and their children across the globe. In Senegal, despite numerous health interventions, female genital mutilation is still a harmful practice. The objective of this study is to conduct a descriptive and analytical analysis of female genital mutilation practices in Senegal in 2018. Methods This study is a secondary analysis of the 2018 Senegal DHS. The analyses for this study were done on the Individual Records file. The DHS data covered 9414 women aged 15 to 49 years. A multivariate analysis was performed to consider confounding factors. The dependent variable was the existence of female genital mutilation in women. Data were analyzed with STATA 17 software. Results The prevalence of FGM was 17.18%. Women who had flesh removed from genital area represented 60.96% (1338), 29.39% (252) had genital area just nicked without removing any flesh, 6.88% (151) had genital area sown closed. Women who thought that FGM was justified by religion represented 11.52%. However, 80.59% of the women thought that it was a practice that should be stopped. The protective factors for the occurrence of FGM were women's empowerment factors (high level of education of the woman (primary ajOR=0.64 [0.50-0.83] and secondary ajOR=0.43 [0.32, 0.57]) and the fact that the head of the household is a woman ajOR (0.75 [0.59-0.97]); belonging to the central region of Senegal and the Christian religion (ajOr=0.05 [ 0.02-0.13]). The risk factors for female genital mutilation in Senegal were ethnicity and belonging to certain regions in the northeast and southeast of Senegal. Conclusions The prevalence of FGM in Senegal is still high. Ethnicity remains an important risk factor. Women's empowerment would allow the reduction of FGM. In the fight against FGM, politics should include women's autonomy strengthening like girls schooling. Key messages This study highlights the still significant extent of FGM. Women's empowerment factors would prevent these harmful traditional practices.

scholarly journals The socio-cultural-symbolic nexus in the perpetuation of female genital cutting: a critical review of existing discourses

Afrika Focus ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Tammary Esho ◽  
Steven Van Wolputte ◽  
Paul Enzlin
Keyword(s):  
Female Circumcision ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Unintended Effects ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Female Genital

Female Genital Cutting (FGC), also known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Female Circumcision (FC), continues to be a prevalent practice in many parts of the world and especially in Africa. This is somewhat perplexing given the concerted efforts aimed at eradicating this practice. This article argues that the perperuation of FGC is due to the unintended effects of marginalization experienced by individuals and groups of women as a result of the approach of some of the anti-FGC global discourses and policies put forward to eradicate the practice. This, we argue, happens when the social structure that provides such groups and individuals with a sense of identity and belonging breaks down. Therefore, the attack on what practicing communities consider to be of crucial cultural value causes a re-focus on the practice resulting in a re-formulation and re-invention of these practices in a bid to counter the feelings of alienation. FGC is thus reframed and reconstructed as a reaction against these campaigns. This article intends to investigate the socio-cultural-symbolic nexus surrounding the practice of FGC, its meaning and implications with respect to its continued existence. It draws examples mainly from communities in Kenya that practice FGM as a rite of passage into adulthood. Herein, perhaps, lies the driving force behind the practice in this contemporary age: it carries a lot of significance with respect to transformational processes, and it is seen as crucial in the representation of the body, identity and belonging. The aim of this article is not to defend FGC’s continuation, but rather to explore the interplay between its changing socio-cultural dimensions as a counter-reaction to the eradication discourse and policies. In this way we will try to explore some of the factors that lay behind its perpetuation.

scholarly journals The socio-cultural-symbolic nexus in the perpetuation of female genital cutting: a critical review of existing discourses

Afrika Focus ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammary Esho ◽  
Steven Van Wolputte ◽  
Paul Enzlin
Keyword(s):  
Female Circumcision ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Female Genital Cutting ◽  
Unintended Effects ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Genital Cutting ◽  
Female Genital

Female Genital Cutting (FGC), also known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Female Circumcision (FC), continues to be a prevalent practice in many parts of the world and especially in Africa. This is somewhat perplexing given the concerted efforts aimed at eradicating this practice. This article argues that the perpetuation of FGC is due to the unintended effects of marginalization experienced by individuals and groups of women as a result of the approach of some of the anti-FGC global discourses and policies put forward to eradicate the practice. This, we argue, happens when the social structure that provides such groups and individuals with a sense of identity and belonging breaks down. Therefore, the attack on what practicing communities consider to be of crucial cultural value causes a re-focus on the practice resulting in a re-formulation and re-invention of these practices in a bid to counter the feelings of alienation. FGC is thus reframed and reconstructed as a reaction against these campaigns. This article intends to investigate the socio-cultural-symbolic nexus surrounding the practice of FGC, its meaning and implications with respect to its continued existence. It draws examples mainly from communities in Kenya that practice FGM as a rite of passage into adulthood. Herein, perhaps, lies the driving force behind the practice in this contemporary age: it carries a lot of significance with respect to transformational processes, and it is seen as crucial in the representation of the body, identity and belonging. The aim of this article is not to defend FGC’s continuation, but rather to explore the interplay between its changing socio-cultural dimensions as a counter-reaction to the eradication discourse and policies. In this way we will try to explore some of the factors that lay behind its perpetuation. Key words: body practices, female genital cutting, female circumcision, femininity, cultural identity 

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