Though the horrific practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) is seeing a global decline, a new report by the United Nations Children's Fund has found that it is "almost universal" in certain countries, with 98 percent of girls and women from ages 15-49 having undergone the torturous "tradition" in Somalia. As many as…
A new Facebook game inspired by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, in which players are tasked with the goal of "raising awareness" of issues like female genital mutilation, child prostitution, and sex trafficking, launches early next…
The United Nations General Assembly's human rights committee unanimously voted to enact a global ban against female circumcision, instructing the UN's 193 member states to take direct action by enacting legislation and leading education campaigns for both young women and men in order to penalize violators and protect…
For years human rights organizations have been working to put an end to the tradition of cutting off a girl's clitoris, which an estimated 92 million African women and girls have been subjected to. Particularly rapid progress is being made in Senegal, thanks to a local movement that addresses the problem with…
San Francisco's municipal ballot this year may include a measure to ban the circumcision of baby boys. Considering some of the other things banned in San Francisco, it might actually have a shot.
Alice Dreger and Ellen K. Feder from Bioethics Forum have unearthed a 2007 study in which a doctor from Cornell University defends the practice of surgically cutting girls' clitorises. Disturbing, but his follow-up treatment is even worse.
Several weeks ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a revised policy on female genital mutilation in which they suggested doctors be allowed to "nick" girls' clitorises. Today, Ayaan Hirsi Ali responds.
Mrs. Goundo's Daughter is a documentary created by local filmmaking team Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater.
After years of condemning the practice, the American Academy of Pediatrics has rewritten their policy on female genital mutilation, advocating for state laws to allow doctors to give a "ritual nick" to girls' genitalia.
Comparing male circumcision to abortion may seem like a stretch, but Freddie at L'Hote actually has a pretty decent argument.
When Senegalese activist Marietou Diarra began to tell the story of the two daughters she lost to genital mutilation, it didn't matter that almost no one else in the room spoke Wolof. You could have heard a pin drop.
[Paris, March 4. Image via Getty]
How can you make this woman any more beautiful? By excising out her clitoris, of course.
In contrast to the controversy surrounding a proposed anti-gay bill, there is some positive news coming from Uganda: female genital mutilation has been banned, with those caught in the practice facing 10 years to life in prison. [CNN]
In yet more news about the stupidity of vaginal plastic surgery, a British report finds that women who undergo the procedure may experience some of the same problems in childbirth as those who suffered female genital mutilation.
• According to a recent poll, 1 in 20 British women has never had sex sober. Also, a "staggering," 75% of women like to have a glass of wine before hopping into bed with their boyfriend or husband. •
• Antwan Maurice Pittman, 31, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Taraha Shenice Nicholson, one of the five women police suspect were murdered by a serial killer in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
Doctors in India fear that Suman Khatun, a five-year-old girl who weighs 168 pounds — at three and half feet tall — is eating herself to death.
Jennifer Hollett of Current TV's Collective Journalism project reports on a group in Sierra Leone — where nearly 90-95 percent of all women are subject to female genital mutilation — called the Amazonian Initiative Movement, which is working to end the practice of FGM. In addition to educating women about the risks,…
So... "female genital mutilation." Sorta hard to type the words without getting weak in the lungs! (Especially with the memory of the wine I consumed following Fatima's wrenching revelation she'd had her clit removed and her labia sewn together as a child last night on Top Model still so fresh in my gut; oh god, room…
"When a girl is taken — usually by her mother — to a free circumcision event held each spring in Bandung, Indonesia, she is handed over to a small group of women who, swiftly and yet with apparent affection, cut off a small piece of her genitals."
Some hope, perhaps, for victims of female genital mutilation? A new procedure being pioneered in Burkina Faso is reported to be able to begin to reconstruct the clitoris using "hidden" tissue, thus restoring sexual sensation. We wish the women undergoing this new procedure lots of luck and and hope that they and their…
Did you ever have a boyfriend that even though he went off and slept with five hookers, came back and gave you the clap, stole all your drugs and money and then slept with another three hookers before dumping you, somehow, in the aftermath, it was all about HIS pain? (Quiet there at the back, Britney!)
