Last week, the Supreme Court issued notices to four ministries on a petition seeking a ban on “female circumcision”. The inhuman practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) — seen in parts of Asia and Africa, including among the 2 million-strong Bohra community in India — is currently in sharp focus worldwide. Days before the Supreme Court action, a hospital in Detroit had sacked a doctor for performing the procedure — not only putting a woman’s health in danger, but also violating her right to her body.

http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/understanding-female-genital-mutilation-the-practice-and-the-issues-fgm-4659216/

Some 28.8 per cent of education staff are concerned they may be perceived as prejudiced or racist should they report concerns regarding honour-based abuse and child abuse linked to faith and belief, it has been reported.

According to the latest survey by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), it was also revealed that 31 per cent of staff are worried about reporting female genital mutilation (FGM), honour-based abuse or child abuse linked to faith or belief, because they lack confidence in their own judgement.

Nearly a fifth of respondents also worried that reporting these types of child abuse could harm their relationship with the child or young person in question. In addition to this, 14 per cent worried about damaging their relationship with the child’s family.

https://www.virtual-college.co.uk/news/virtual-college/2017/05/reporting-fgm-and-child-abuse-staff-worried-about-being-perceived-as-racist

Federal officials recently filed charges against a suburban Detroit doctor for allegedly performing female genital mutilation (FGM) on several young girls. They say doctor Jumana Nagarwala performed female genital mutilation on two seven-year-olds from Minnesota.

The practice of FGM is illegal in the United States and two others are charged with conspiring to perform the act. Nagarwala has pleaded “not guilty,” and her attorney has said she was performing a religious ritual of the Bohra community, not genital mutilation.

The World Health Organization (WHO) describes female genital mutilation as the partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora. Some of these cuttings go further.

The practice is most common in the western, eastern, and north-eastern regions of Africa, in some countries of the Middle East and Asia, as well as among migrants from these areas.

Zehra Patwa, an activist with the group “Speak out on FGM,” joined Stateside to talk about the practice and the effort of some Bohras to end it.

http://michiganradio.org/post/bohra-activist-against-female-genital-mutilation-says-veil-secrecy-keeps-women-speaking-out

New report finds half of female genital mutilation cases are in London, with 65,000 girls at risk across the country.

The London Assembly, an elected body, has called on the city’s mayor Sadiq Khan to lead a campaign to end “the hidden crime” of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the capital.

An estimated 170,000 women and girls in Britain have undergone FGM and 65,000 preteen girls are thought to be at risk, it said in a report.

The London Assembly is a part of the Greater London Authority that scrutinises the activities of the mayor of London and has the power, with a two-thirds majority, to amend the mayor’s annual budget and to reject the mayor’s draft statutory strategies.

Half of FGM cases recorded in the country are in London, where affected communities include Somalis, Sierra Leoneans, Eritreans and Sudanese.

The ritual, done for cultural, traditional or religious reasons, involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia. In some cases, the vaginal opening is also sewn up.

“FGM remains a hidden crime – still taking place behind closed doors, with many girls still at risk,” Jennette Arnold, deputy chairwoman of the elected assembly, said in a statement.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/london-assembly-urges-mayor-lead-campaign-fgm-170425061050262.html

A case of female genital mutilation was discovered every three days, on average, by maternity staff in Wales last year.

New figures obtained by BBC Wales show 123 victims of FGM were found by midwives or maternity doctors in 2016.

A further 44 children under the age of 18 were highlighted as vulnerable to the practice.

Charity Welsh Women’s Aid said figures showed just the “tip of the iceberg”.

Campaigners have previously called for a dedicated clinic to be opened in Walesto help FGM victims.

The statistics, provided by the seven Welsh health boards after a Freedom of Information request by BBC Wales, showed the highest number of cases – 53 – were recorded by Aneurin Bevan health board.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-39630199

A female Michigan doctor was charged on Thursday with performing female genital mutilation on minor girls aged 7.

This is the first time an indictment for FGM has been filed against a doctor since FGM on minors was outlawed in the United States twenty years ago.

Jumana Nagarwala, 44, performed the procedures in the Henry Ford hospital in Detroit. If guilty, she will face up to 10 years in prison.

“Despite her oath to care for her patients, Dr Nagarwala is alleged to have performed horrifying acts of brutality on the most vulnerable victims,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth

Blanco said in a statement. “The Department of Justice is committed to stopping female genital mutilation in this country, and will use the full power of the law to ensure that no girls suffer such physical and emotional abuse.”

One of the girls was told the procedure would “get germs out of her,” while the other described pain radiating down to her ankles.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/228208

Unless the media talks about celebrities, politics, or President Donald Trump, our country doesn’t want to hear it.

But an ongoing movement is developing throughout the world to stop girls and women from undergoing female genital mutilation.

Primarily performed on girls between infancy and age 15, female genital mutilation, or FGM, entails all procedures that intentionally remove or injure female genitalia for non-medical reasons.

Though FGM is primarily concentrated in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, the United States is not excluded. An estimated 513,000 women and girls in the U.S. have undergone or are at risk of being exposed to FGM, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control Prevention.

Who would have foreseen that over half a million girls are affected by FGM in the U.S. alone?

International movement to end FGM develops

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/