How far fucking back are we supposed to go?

I don’t have an attribution for the photo, I first used it in this post in June 2007.

It seems fitting.

***

Madman sent me this from Science Blogs Pharyngula:

The American Academy of Pediatrics has come up with a compromise on female genital mutilation.

International human rights organization Equality Now is stunned by a new policy statement issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which essentially promotes female genital mutilation (FGM) and advocates for

 ”federal and state laws [to] enable pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ‘ritual nick’,” such as pricking or minor incisions of girls’ clitorises. The Policy Statement “Ritual Genital Cutting of Female Minors”,

 issued by the AAP on April 26, 2010, is a significant set-back to the Academy’s own prior statements on the issue of FGM and is antithetical to decades of noteworthy advancement across Africa and around the world in combating this human rights violation against women and girls. It is ironic that the AAP issued its statement the very same day that Congressman Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) announced the introduction of new bipartisan legislation, The Girls Protection Act (H.R. 5137), to close the loophole in the federal law prohibiting FGM by making it illegal to transport a minor girl living in the U.S. out of the country for the purpose of FGM.

I have not poked around to find out more on this… but I suspect a disgusting accommodation to fundamentalist Muslim doctors.

P Z Myers at Pharyngula also links back to the POLICY STATEMENT of the American Academy of Pediatrics for this:

In addition, “mutilation” is an inflammatory term that tends to foreclose communication and that fails to respect the experience of the many women who have had their genitals altered and who do not perceive themselves as “mutilated.” It is paradoxical to recommend “culturally sensitive counseling” while using culturally insensitive language. “Female genital cutting” is a neutral, descriptive term.

I cannot wait for the cosy little news segments on American, Western born converts, adolescents and wives who decided this was just a fine thing to do.

News at 11:  I cover my head and I had my genitals stripped.  Or nicked.

And what of their daughters?

The thread is a mixed bag, with too much back and forth about male circumcision vs fgm – as the thread dissolves to a battle festival, of sorts… but there is this:

I am sick of “compromising” with the horrors of religion.
PZ has said he imagines reducing religion to a harmless personal hobby, like knitting or masturbating.

I used to agree, but I’m getting to the point where I am hoping for the glorious day when this social disease and mental illness, “religion”, is eliminated from human culture altogether. The sickness and evil is too pernicious to ever tame down to acceptible levels.

I’ve been following this issue half heartedly in the UK press over the past few years (I can barely stand to read about it)… where they have tried to stop immigrants taking daughters ”home” (?!) at Christmas or summer (the preferred, longer recovery time away from prying eyes at school and elsewhere in the UK) to have the surgery done… that has been illegal for several years with a stiff prison punishment… but they have never convicted anyone of this. 

Additionally, communities have a “doctor” from the home community flown in to do the work, usually on several girls.  Group price.  This is not supposed to happen either, but again, it does.

The American Academy of Pediatrics mentions that Scandinavia indicates success with immigrant communities when it is banned (and I don’t much like banning, such as the bans on the niqab and burqa),  however it seems to work in Scandinavia, with

the penalty being loss of your child.

I know, harsh.  BUT, if that works, go with it.  Because the system in the UK is obviously not working, thousands mutilated abroad and an estimate of 700 annually at home (2009 report in Times Online).  Sufficient numbers that the NHS is planning to offer reconstructive surgery as an added effort to dissuade people from the practice.  I can’t see that really working, tho some women may be helped by the reconstruction.

And the whole thing kept hidden.

corriere della serra – february – 2003

******************

About these ads