Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Turning the World Downside Up
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
Focus on Child Marriage, Genital Mutilation at All-Time High
As Tuesday’s major summits here and in London focused global attention on adolescent girls, the United Nations offered new data warning that more than 130 million girls and women have experienced some form of female genital mutilation, while more than 700 million women alive today were forced into marriage as children.
Improved Access to Water May Hold the Solution to Ending FGM in Africa
Could it be possible that if women in Africa had access to water, it could save them from undergoing the harmful practice of female genital mutilation (FGM)? It seems that according to yet-to-be released research by Ugandan-based Gwada Ogot Tao, FGM and other forms of circumcision in Africa could be linked to water.
Egyptian Quacks Mutilate Millions
Saber Abd El-Mawgoud began his career castrating sheep and goats before moving on to humans. His first human experiment was a young boy he attempted to circumcise back in 1999 at the insistence of the boy’s father.Towards a Change of Culture Leading to a Gender-Balanced Approach
The past three years have been very important to scale up the movement to protect the rights and fundamental freedoms of women and girls and, particularly, to eliminate female genital mutilation worldwide.
Support for FGM Slowly Eroding, Global Report Finds
The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF released a report Monday that gives the most complete picture of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) ever published.
Q&A: How One Woman Demands Answers and an End to FGM
Bogaletch Gebre knows exactly what women in her Ethiopian community are going through. Along with her sisters, the women's rights activist was a victim of female genital mutilation (FGM) when she was a child in a part of Ethiopia where the practise was carried out on every girl.
Somalia’s ‘Cultural Shift’ Means Less-Severe Form of FGM
Seven-year-old Istar Mumin lies on a bed, motionless, in one of the rooms of her family home in Mogadishu’s Hamarweyne district. She has just gone through the horrifying ritual of “the cut,” which was carried out by a local Somali nurse.
Girls Take Charge in the Fight to End Female Genital Mutilation
Some girls among the Pokot community in western Kenya are bravely defying what is considered cultural and traditional by refusing to be circumcised. More and more mothers, fathers and the women whose job is to do the cutting are beginning to support these girls’ right to bodily integrity.
The Girl Who Couldn’t Herd Goats Now Saves Lives
When she was nine years old, Jane Meriwas, a Samburu from the Kipsing Plains in Kenya’s Rift Valley region, was considered of no use by her father. After all, nine of his goats had been eaten by hyenas under her watch.
Sex Educators Struggle to Break Taboos
Liberian journalist Mae Azango says she spent a year living “like a bat, going from tree to tree” with her daughter in order to escape religious fanatics who were threatening to kill her for exposing the practice of female genital mutilation in her home country last year.
Q&A: “A Pastoralist Woman Is Like a Working Machine”
"In some communities, you can’t talk about violence against women," says Agnes Leina, executive director of Il'laramatak Community Concerns (ICC), a group that promotes the human rights of pastoralist communities in northern and southern Kenya, with a special emphasis on women and girls.
Q&A: FGM Is About Culture, Not Religion
The fight against female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) continues to gain traction around the world.
Kenyan Men Turning the Tide Against FGM
For the Samburu community in northern Kenya it was bad enough that Julius Lekupe had not sired a son - it was even worse that his eldest daughter refused to be “cut”.
Q&A: It’s the Beginning of the End for FGM
Journalists can play a crucial role in helping to shift traditional attitudes within societies where the cruel practice of female genital mutilation is an everyday reality.
Q&A: Global Ban Another Tool in the Fight Against FGM
For the estimated 140 million girls and women living with the consequences of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), it is already too late. But since a global ban on FGM was passed at the end of last year, activists hope many more will now escape this brutal practice.Next Page »
