Female Genital Mutilation Essay

womanly venereal mutilation includes all military accomplishments that involve partial tone or total removal of the external effeminate genitalia, or opposite injury to the feminine individual genital organs for non-medical reasons (WHO). The World bring toth judicature states that 140,000,000 misss and women beingwide argon currently living with the consequences of feminine genital mutilation. The mapping loafer be carried out on babies as young as two weeks old and on woman in their twenties. The age at which girls ar cut can vary widely from country to country, and until now within countries. Most often, female genital mutilation happens before girls reach puberty (Womens wellness). In Africa, in that respect is an estimated 101,000,000 girls 10 years old and preceding(prenominal) that generate nethergone female genital mutilation. The procedure is generally performed without anesthesia by an older woman who acts as the local midwife and it is often conducted in the girls home. However, there are a few villages that boast all the girls lay next to each different and the circumciser cuts all of them in a row.The World Health Organization recognizes four types of female genital mutilation. typecast 1 and Type 2 are closely related. Type I is the removal of the clitoral hood, which is rarely, if ever, performed alone. Type 2 is called a female circumcision. This procedure is the partial or total removal of the clitoris and inner labia, with or without the removal of the outer labia. In a 1998 report from the World Health Organization, they wrote the clitoris is held between the thumb and index finger, pulled out and amputated with one cut of a sharp object. The sharp object can be a lingua, pair of scissors, cut glass, sharpened rocks or fingernails. Medical strength are usually not involved. However, in Egypt, Sudan and Kenya, these procedures are carried out by health professionals (Pruthi). Type 3 is called infibulation. This is the process of removing all external genitalia and the fusing of the accidental injury, leaving a small hole for passage of urine and catamenial pedigree. A pinhole is created by inserting well-nighthing (usually a twig or rock salt) into the wound before it closes. The wound may be sewed with surgical thread, and in some casings agave or acacia thorns are used to hold the sides together. Then, the girls legs are tied together from hips down to her ankles and left to heal for 2-6 weeks.The infibulated womans vulva is opened for sexual intercourse by her hubbys penis or a knife. This creates a tear which they piecemeal rip more and more until the opening is sufficient enough to declare the penis. In some women, the scar tissue is so hardened and exceed with keloidal formations that it can only be cut with very sharp surgical scissors (Lightfoot-Klein). If the woman gets pregnant, they volition cut her open with a knife in time to give birth. After they give birth, many women inquire to pass the infibulation restored.Skoll World ForumType IV is unclassified and it includes pricking, cutting or incising of the clitoris and/or labia stretching of the clitoris and/or labia cauterant of the clitoris and surrounding tissue scraping of tissue surrounding the vaginal opening or cutting of the vagina introduction of corrosive substances or herbs into the vagina to manage bleeding or for the purposes of tightening or narrowing it and any other procedure that falls under the definition of female genital mutilation supra (Reyners).The origins of the practice are relatively un cont hold backn. Theres no authority of knowing the origins of FGM (female genital mutilation), it appears in many different cultures, from Australian primal tribes to different African societies, states medical historian David Gollaher, president and CEO of the calcium Healthcare Institute. There is a reference to it on the sarcophagus of Sit-hedjhotep, dating back end to the Eg ypts Middle Kingdom. The inscription says But if a man wants to know how to live, he should recite (a magical spell) every day, after his flesh has been rubbed with the b3d (an unknown substance) of an uncircumcised girl and the flakes of skin of an uncircumcised bald man (Knight, pp317). The English explorer William countenance reported in 1799 that infibulation was carried out on the slaves, coming from Egypt, to prevent pregnancy. Traders obviously paid a higher price for women who were infibulated. Slave patterns crossways Africa bet for the patterns of female genital mutilation found there. Egypt and Africa are not the only continents that have a history of female genital mutilation.Gynecologists in 19th cytosine Europe and the United States would remove the clitoris for various reasons, including treating masturbation, because they believed that masturbation caused corporeal and mental disorders (Rodriguez, p323) Isacc Baker Brown was an English gynecologist who beli eved that the unnatural pique of the clitoris caused epilepsy, hysteria and mania. A paper that was written in 1985 and published in the Obstetrical and Gynecological Survey says that the last clitoridectomy was performed in the United States in the 1960s to treat hysteria, erotomania and lesbianism (Cutner, p135) The practice of female genital mutilation is most common in the western, eastern, and north-eastern domain of Africa, in some countries in Asia and the Middle East (WHO). There are currently 27 countries in sub-Saharan and Northeast Africa, and immigrant communities, which still perform female genital mutilation. Countries such as Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan are predominantly Type 3. The list of health complications that arise from female genital mutilation is very extensive.There are no health benefits and it rooted in gender inequality, ideas close purity, and is an attempt to instruction a womans sexuality. Immediate complications can include fra cture pain, shock, bleeding, tetanus or sepsis, urine retention, open sores in the genital region and injury to nearby genital tissue. African Women.Org state that the long experimental condition consequences from the procedure are Repeated urinary infection because of the narrowing of the urinary outlet which prevents the complete emptying of urine from the bladder. Extremely painful menstruum due to the buildup of urine and blood in the uterus leading to excitation of the bladder and internal sexual organs. Formation of scars and keloid on the vulva wound. The increment of dermoid cysts which may result in abscesses. Formation of fistula the rupture of the vagina and/or uterus.Vulval abscesses.Severe pain during intercourse which may consist of somatogenic discomfort and psychological traumatization. Difficult child birth which in case of long and obstructed labour may lead to foetal lineinal and brain damage of the infant. In the case of infibulation acute and chronic pelvic infection leading to infertility and/or tubal pregnancy. Accumulation of blood and blood clots in the uterus and/or vagina. Physical short term and long term complications are not the only result from female genital mutilation. Mental anguish can result from this brutal procedure. When Waris Dirie was about five years old, she was left in a makeshift cling to under a tree for several days to recover from her operation. She was told that God wanted her to do this and she wondered wherefore God hated her so much. When she was thirteen, her father wanted her to marry a man in his 60s.Waris ran across the dessert to Mogadishu where she lived with relatives until she made it London and lived with her aunt. Whilst in London, a photographer spotted her and she became a supermodel, appearing in Chanel campaigns and was in the James get film The Living Daylights (Saner). Wariss popularity and status helped to give her a articulatio and she went public in 1997 in a magazine interv iew, to tell the world about what happened to her and her aspiration to stop female genital mutilation. Waris means forsake Flower, a flower that can endure even the roughest of climates. She started a foundation garment named Desert Flower that seeks to end the crime of female genital mutilation by raising public awareness, creating networks, organizing events and educational programs. Her foundation Desert Flower in any case supports victims of female genital mutilation. Last month, in Berlin, she opened the first of what will be several medical centers to offer help to women who have suffered from female genital mutilation. Waris Dirie isnt the only one that is opposed to female genital mutilation. Others, such as the World Health Organization, have been working to get up woman on their rights to their own bodies. Many laws have been enacted to protect these women, barely few abide by these laws.Eighteen countriesBenin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Cte dIvoi re, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Togohave enacted laws criminalizing female genital mutilation. The penalties pluck from a minimum of three months to a maximum of life in prison. Several countries as well as impose monetary fines. The Prohibition of pistillate Circumcision cloak of 1985 made female genital mutilation unlawful in England and in Wales. However, there is evidence that people used a loophole to take young girls afield temporarily to carry out the procedure. In the United States, Cornell University Law develop teaches that Except as provided in subsection, whoever knowingly circumcises, excises, or infibulates the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both. There are those out there that are for female genital mutilation. Many people from communities that practice it say that it is rooted in local culture and that the tradition has been passed from one generation to another.Culture and the saving of cultural identity serve as the underlying impetus for go along the practice. Many women will be social pariahs if they dont go through the ritual. They cannot attend any public outing or funeral. If they children, they withal will be outcast. Some of those who support female genital mutilation also justify it on grounds of hygiene and aesthetics, with notions that female genitalia are dirty and that a girl who has not undergone the procedure is unclean. The women that oppose the end of female genital mutilation compare it breast enlargements or rhinoplasty. They ask why is okay for these women to change and shape their bodies to look the way that they want them to? The answer, simply, is that these procedures are a womens choice. They are eighteen years old and chose to have these procedures done to t hem. Female genital mutilation is child abuse and a infraction of the basic human rights of women. The more we know about this procedure, the more we can do to put an end to it.ReferencesConsequences of FGM. African Women Organisation. N.p., 2009. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. . Cornell University Law rail 18 USC 116 Female venereal Mutilation. LII. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. . Cutner, L.P. Female genital mutilation Pg 135. July 1985. Web. 18 Oct. 2013 http/ww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov Female Circumcision. Skoll World Forum. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2013. . Female venereal Cutting occurrence Sheet. Womenshealth.gov. N.p., 15 Dec. 2009. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. . Female Genital Mutilation. WHO. World Health Organization, Feb. 2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. . Gollaher, David Discovery News. DNews. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2013. .Knight, Mary. Curing Cut or Ritual Mutliation. scratch Journal 92.2 (2001) n. pag. JSTOR. June 2001. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. . Lightfoot-Klein, Hanny Erroneous Belief Systems Underlying Female Genital Mutilation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Template. University of Maryland, 22 May 1994. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. . Pruthi, Priyanka. Child auspices from Violence, Exploitation and Abuse. UNICEF. N.p., 22 July 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. . Reyners, Marcel. Health Consequences of Female Genital Mutilation. Health Consequences of Female Genital Mutilation 4.4 (2004) 243. Health Consequences of Female Genital Mutilation. Dec. 2004. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. . Rodriguez, Sarah W. view MUSE Rethinking the History of Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy American Medicine and Female Sexuality in the Late Nineteenth Century. Rethinking the History of Femle Circumcision and Clitoridectomy 63.3 (2008) 323-47. see MUSE Rethinking the History of Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy American Medicine and Female Sexuality in the Late Nineteenth Century. July 2008. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. . Saner, Emine. Waris Dirie Female Genital Mutilation Is Pure Violence against Girls The Guardian. N.p., 14 Oct. 20 13. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. .