Female Circumcision In Africa

To ban excision in Meru, Kenya, Lynn Thomas

This unique volume focuses on the psychosexual and social effects of female genital mutilation, an ancient, deeply entrenched custom saturating the larger part of Africa. Over a period of six years, Author Hanny Lightfoot-Klein trekked through outlying areas of Sudan, Kenya, and Egypt, where she lived with a number of African families. What she learned by way of in-depth personal interviews and firsthand observation has enabled her to add a previously unknown and often astonishing dimension to our knowledge of ritual practices and human sexuality. This valuable book will be extremely helpful to professionals and scholars in women's studies, social psychology, psychotherapy, psychiatry, gynecology, sexology, as well as cross-cultural and African studies. It should also interest anyone who is concerned with male circumcision in the United States.

Bolokoli, khifad, tahara, tahoor, qudiin, irua, bondo, kuruna, negekorsigin, and kene-kene are a few of the terms used in local African languages to denote a set of cultural practices collectively known as female circumcision. Practiced in many countries across Africa and Asia, this ritual is hotly debated. Supporters regard it as a central coming-of-age ritual that ensures chastity and promotes fertility. Human rights groups denounce the procedure as barbaric. It is estimated that between 100 million and 130 million girls and women today have undergone forms of this genital surgery. Female Circumcision gathers together African activists to examine the issue within its various cultural and historical contexts, the debates on circumcision regarding African refugee and immigrant populations in the United States, and the human rights efforts to eradicate the practice. This work brings African women's voices into the discussion, foregrounds indigenous processes of social and cultural change, and demonstrates the manifold linkages between respect for women's bodily integrity, the empowerment of women, and democratic modes of economic development. This volume does not focus narrowly on female circumcision as a set of ritualized surgeries sanctioned by society. Instead, the contributors explore a chain of connecting issues and processes through which the practice is being transformed in local and transnational contexts. The authors document shifts in local views to highlight processes of change and chronicle the efforts of diverse communities as agents in the process of cultural and social transformation.

Female "circumcision" or, more precisely, female genital cutting (FGC), remains an important cultural practice in many African countries, often serving as a coming-of-age ritual. It is also a practice that has generated international dispute and continues to be at the center of debates over women's rights, the limits of cultural pluralism, the balance of power between local cultures, international human rights, and feminist activism. In our increasingly globalized world, these practices have also begun immigrating to other nations, where transnational complexities vex debates about how to resolve the issue. Bringing together thirteen essays, Transcultural Bodies provides an ethnographically rich exploration of FGC among African diasporas in the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. Contributors analyze changes in ideologies of gender and sexuality in immigrant communities, the frequent marginalization of African women's voices in debates over FGC, and controversies over legislation restricting the practice in immigrant populations.

Infibulation is the most extreme form of female circumci- sion. It plays an important role in the Islamic societies of northeastern Africa. Until now, the social significance and function of this practice has been poorly understood. In this volume, Hicks analyzes female circumcision as a cultural trait embedded in a historically traditional milieu and shows why it cannot be treated in isolation as a single issue destined for elimination.

This report provides an explanation of the practice of female circumcision - its extent, practice, historical antecedents, contemporary practice, medical and social consequences, and campaigns against it (legal, medical and social) in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

This open access book shows how the adoption of global justice, such as eradication of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), has given rise to controversy, resistance, and transformation at the national, regional, and grass-roots levels in African and Asian countries where FGM/C has been practiced. It provides readers with up-to-date information about the effects of the campaign to eradicate FGM/C and the present situation of those countries, to which preceding books on FGM/C have scarcely referred. Adopting “zero tolerance” as a policy of eradication, WHO and other UN agencies have opposed any type of FGM/C, and many African countries have criminalized the practice. Although the campaign is based on the human rights discourse which is shared globally, the controversies concerning eradication of FGM/C on the national level and the responses of communities on the local level in those countries are diverse and complicated. Various actors such as NGOs, government officials, religious leaders, medical workers, and local inhabitants are embroiled and negotiate with each other concerning its eradication. With this book, readers are provided with an in-depth analysis of the complicated controversies and responses of local communities, referring to their particular historical and social backgrounds. The book provides two chapters on FGM/C in Asian countries, where not many studies have done yet. It also presents readers with a study of the arguments and responses to FGM/C of African immigrants by Australian health-care professionals as well as a study of male circumcision eradication campaigns, which have been carried on in tandem with FGM/C eradication campaigns but still not have been successful. With its many elaborate case studies, this book is highly recommended to readers who seek an in-depth and up-to-date integrated overview of the FGM/C studies as well as studies on the applicability of global justice to local communities.