When American cosmetic surgeon Ivona Percec encountered her first patient to have been subjected to female genital mutilation, a widely scorned but enduring cultural practice in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia that intentionally alters or excises the genital organs of girls and women for non-medical reasons, she was speechless with shock. Not because of the vicious scarring—as a surgeon specializing in genital reconstruction she had seen far worse—but because the woman had been suffering in silence for so long.

“It was a psychological shock that this woman had kept the burden to herself. She didn’t even let her husband see what had been done to her,” says Percec, who is associate director of Cosmetic Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. “She had lived in this country for multiple years, and had never before tried to get help.”

FGM usually takes place before adolescence, and can result in severe pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, cysts, recurrent infections, difficulty in childbirth and even death. Surely, thought Percec, there would be plastic surgeons in the United States more experienced addressing the scarred results of a procedure that has been exacted on an estimated 200 million women and girls worldwide. She is one of a rising network of doctors in the U.S. and around the globe who are offering new solutions to these often-invisible victims.

http://time.com/4707899/victims-of-fgm-see-new-hope-in-life-changing-surgery/

Crown Princess Mary of Denmark was the special guest at the world premiere on Thursday evening of Jaha’s Promise, a feature documentary on female genital mutilation (FGM) following the life story of a 26-year-old campaigner Jaha Dukureh.

The film, made by the Guardian and Accidental Pictures, got a standing ovation from the audience at the annual film festival. Dukureh, who is a Time 100 leader, survived FGM as a child in the Gambia and then at 15 was flown to New York to marry a man she had never met.

In the US the horror of what happened to her body became apparent. The film crew follow her as she confronts her past, her family, her culture, her religion, country and its leaders. Jaha becomes a lightning-rod for change in Gambia, leading to the eventual government ban on FGM and child marriage and a working relationship with the Obama administration.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/17/jahas-promise-fgm-film-premieres-at-copenhagen-film-festival

Smuggling vulva-decorated cupcakes into the Somali region of Ethiopia was one of those moments where I thought: “My work as an anti-FGM campaigner gets me into interesting situations sometimes.”

Three years earlier I’d made vulva cupcakes as part of a documentary about FGMthat I’d done for Channel 4. “We need you to bring them with you,” said Sagal Abdi, vice executive director of Maandeeq, when she invited me to an event in Jijiga, the capital of the region, part of 16 days of activism against gender-based violence.

Honestly, I was taken aback. I grew up in the UK as part of the Somali diaspora, and I’d assumed the people of Jijiga would not be ready for vulva cupcakes. But Abdi, also part of the diaspora, reassured me that the Ethiopian women had requested them. “Leyla, they watched the documentary and loved the concept of using art for campaigning,” she said.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/mar/13/my-vulva-cupcakes-were-confiscated-but-i-gained-a-sense-of-home

New figures reveal the number of women who have undergone hospital treatment after being put through “horrendous” female genital mutilation (FGM) – and how the crime can remain hidden for years.

The Advertiser has obtained figures in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from health trusts across the capital, which reveal that at least 1,600 women who have gone through FGM were admitted to London hospitals for treatment last year.

These women have suffered severe mutilation – including removal of clitoris, labia, and sealing the vagina with cuts and stitches.

Most would have endured these traumatic injuries between infancy and the age of 15 – with 10 being the accepted average age for when FGM is carried out.

However, it is common for the women experiencing these excruciating procedures to not receive hospital care until many years after their ordeal, with the practice of mutilation remaining a “hidden crime” until detected by doctors years later.
http://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/the-number-of-women-treated-for-genital-mutilation-in-croydon/story-30190225-detail/story.html

The police inspector in charge of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) investigations in London said the Metropolitan Police still does not know where young women and girls are being cut and disfigured.

Inspector Allen Davis’s comments came as the NHS revealed there were nearly 5,500 new FGM cases reported to hospitals, clinics and GPs in 2016.

No one has ever been convicted of carrying out female genital mutilation in the UK despite it being illegal in the country since 1985.

The Department of Health’s FGM Prevention Programme today revealed there were 5,484 new reports of FGM in 2016. There have been 10,067 new reports since records began in April 2015.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/met-police-fgm-32-years-no-conviction-where-happen-female-genital-mutilation-a7616536.html