Apr 15 2009
Female Circumcision in Kurdistan
Iraqi Kurdish four-year-old Shwen screams during her circumcision in Suleimaniyah on April 14, 2009. The parliament in Iraq’s northern autonomous region of Kurdistan is preparing to outlaw female circumcision, according to a woman MP and a doctor who had long battled to halt the widespread practice. The German non-government group Wadi carried out research in 201 villages in the autonomous provinces and in the predominantly Kurdish Kirkuk area in September. It found that 3,502 out of 5,628 women and girls surveyed had been mutilated — an average of more than 62 percent. While widespread in the African continent, it is not known how female circumcision was introduced into northern Iraq. The practice, encouraged by some clerics, does not appear to exist in other parts of the country. By Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images. (Thanks to Andrew Sullivan)
5 responses so far
[...] I’m glad you brought up circumcision, because the KRG is working to outlaw this heinous practice: Iraqi Kurdish four-year-old Shwen screams during her circumcision in Suleimaniyah on April 14, 2009. The parliament in Iraq?s northern autonomous region of Kurdistan is preparing to outlaw female circumcision, according to a woman MP and a doctor who had long battled to halt the widespread practice. The German non-government group Wadi carried out research in 201 villages in the autonomous provinces and in the predominantly Kurdish Kirkuk area in September. It found that 3,502 out of 5,628 women and girls surveyed had been mutilated ? an average of more than 62 percent. While widespread in the African continent, it is not known how female circumcision was introduced into northern Iraq. The practice, encouraged by some clerics, does not appear to exist in other parts of the country. By Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images. (Thanks to Andrew Sullivan) Source: Edna Hospital of Somaliland Female Circumcision in Kurdistan [...]
How could that person just stand there and take the photo? How could they? As a mother, I would have felt and overwhelming urge to first slap her mother across the face, and ask her WHY, why are you doing this to your baby, who you are supposed to protect from harm? YOU ARE NO MOTHER!!! A mother isn’t just an animal who gives birth, a mother nurtures and protects. A gorilla could do a better job with that child than she! I’d then take that knife from the circumcisers hand and tell her if I ever see her harming another child again, I’ll send her to God for judgment.
I wonder what the screams of 3,502 plus, since we know that there are really thousand more female children and adults that are mutilated, would sound like? How many decibals? Do people know the outcome of this practice? About the constant infections to the bladder and uterus. The odour of urine results in the women being shunded and thrown into isolation, no sanitary means given. Fistulas that weep and cause humiliation and again shunning. This is all done for the male and to prevent women from pleasure during sex which their culture says is taboo for them but not men. Perhaps if the knife was turned the other way changes would occur faster. Perhaps not, there just might be an increase in male genitalia mutilation. It seems that the date is not 2010 but year 10!
I just watch Tyra Banks show,there was 2 women who talked about this..
I’m a mother of 2 kids,girl 5 and a boy 2,I just can’t imagine allowing this to happen to my little girl…
How can a mother,hold your child like that and don’t care?
God made us like that,not for others to take away,because they feel like it,but for us and our husbands to enjoy….Why ruin a child’s or women’s life just to prevent sex before marriage?
That’s why there is books and you as a parent to educate your children about sex…
My wish for 2010 is that this will STOP!
This is wretched, galling agony, and the psychosis level it must take to be able to watch this ritual is just unthinkable. Let me leave you with this thought to ponder, however. Do you think that it is any better for a boy to be mutilated by circumcision? I would like you to look up “Jewish Rabbi Mohel” or Just the word “Mohel, Sucking the blood from a baby penis on Google images.” I hope that this world and all of the violent pedophiles who mutilate children die.