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Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is routinely practiced as tradition in twenty nine countries in Africa and the Middle East nations, many of them in West Africa distributed more or less contiguously across a zone running from Senegal in the west to the east. Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo and Uganda practice FGM.

The 'medicalisation' of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) refers to the act being performed by doctors or other members of the health profession. The phenomenon is neither new nor unknown. Such acts of FGM/C are usually paid for, sometimes at a high price, on the pretext of better quality or for safety reasons. The authors have carried out reconstructive surgery on women who have been subjected to FGM/C and been able to compare the consequences of so-called medicalised practices with cutting carried out by traditional practitioners. Medicine must not be used for harmful practices; furthermore, carrying out acts without a person's consent or against their wishes is a crime. The medicalisation of FGM/C is an absolute breach of ethics that affects and tarnishes the entire health-care community. For the last 25 years, medicine has helped us understand the reality of FGM/C and its consequences. This new understanding must serve the needs of women. Adapted from the source document.

Female genital mutilation (or female circumcision) has been experienced by over 100 million women in sub-Saharan Africa and the Nile valley. Efforts to suppress the practice were made in the earlier decades of the present century, especially by missionaries in Kenya in the 1920s and early 1930s. Successful indigenous opposition to this activity led to a cultural relativist attitude toward FGM being dominant among governments and international bodies for the next half century. This situation has changed over the last 20 years as the women's movement has led an attack on the practice, so that by the mid-1990s all relevant major international bodies and governments without exception had committed themselves to its suppression. Nevertheless, efforts to counter FGM have often been weak and there has been little evidence of their success. This paper draws on a continuing research program among the Yoruba people of southwest Nigeria to show not only that FGM has begun to decline but that this occurence can be explained wholly by programs organized by the Ministry of Health and women's organizations. The focus of this paper is on the determinants of this change. These are shown to be: (1) a reduction in ceremonies associated with the practice, (2) its increasing medicalization, (3) indigenous secular campaigning based on the provision of information, and (4) a focus on individuals, especially women. There is little belief that the campaign is an assault on the culture, but rather a growing feeling, especially among those influenced by it, that it would be more appropriate once such a campaign has begun for it to be whole-hearted rather than lukewarm.

Female genital mutilation (or female circumcision) has been experienced by over 100 million women in sub-Saharan Africa and the Nile valley. Efforts to suppress the practice were made in the earlier decades of the present century, especially by missionaries in Kenya in the 1920s and early 1930s. Successful indigenous opposition to this activity led to a cultural relativist attitude toward FGM being dominant among governments and international bodies for the next half century. This situation has changed over the last 20 years as the women's movement has led an attack on the practice, so that by the mid-1990s all relevant major international bodies and governments without exception had committed themselves to its suppression. Nevertheless, efforts to counter FGM have often been weak and there has been little evidence of their success. This paper draws on a continuing research program among the Yoruba people of southwest Nigeria to show not only that FGM has begun to decline but that this occurence can be explained wholly by programs organized by the Ministry of Health and women's organizations. The focus of this paper is on the determinants of this change. These are shown to be: (1) a reduction in ceremonies associated with the practice, (2) its increasing medicalization, (3) indigenous secular campaigning based on the provision of information, and (4) a focus on individuals, especially women. There is little belief that the campaign is an assault on the culture, but rather a growing feeling, especially among those influenced by it, that it would be more appropriate once such a campaign has begun for it to be whole-hearted rather than lukewarm.

Among social activists & feminists, combating female genital mutilation (FGM) is an important policy goal. Sometimes called female circumcision or female genital cutting, FGM is the cutting of the clitoris of girls in order to curb their sexual desire & preserve their sexual honor before marriage. The practice, prevalent in some majority Muslim countries, has a tremendous cost: many girls bleed to death or die of infection. Most are traumatized. Those who survive can suffer adverse health effects during marriage & pregnancy. New information from Iraqi Kurdistan raises the possibility that the problem is more prevalent in the Middle East than previously believed & that FGM is far more tied to religion than many Western academics & activists admit. Many Muslims & academics in the West take pains to insist that the practice is not rooted in religion but rather in culture. "When one considers that the practice does not prevail & is much condemned in countries like Saudi Arabia, the center of the Islamic world, it becomes clear that the notion that it is an Islamic practice is a false one," Haseena Lockhat, a child clinical psychologist at North Warwickshire Primary Care Trust, wrote. True, FGM occurs in non-Muslim societies in Africa. & in Arab states such as Egypt, where perhaps 97 percent of girls suffer genital mutilation, both Christian Copts & Muslims are complicit. But at the village level, those who commit the practice believe it to be religiously mandated. Religion is not only theology but also practice. & the practice is widespread throughout the Middle East. Many diplomats, international organization workers, & Arabists argue that the problem is localized to North Africa or sub-Saharan Africa, but they are wrong. The problem is pervasive throughout the Levant, the Fertile Crescent, & the Arabian Peninsula, & among many immigrants to the West from these countries. Silence on the issue is less reflective of the absence of the problem than insufficient freedom for feminists & independent civil society to raise the issue. Adapted from the source document.

Family judge holds that FGM could meet the "significant harm" and unreasonable parenting tests to initiate care proceedings