NoFGM
is Hilary Burrage's website to
- *promote information and opinion from and by campaigners, researchers and writers*
who share her concern to eradicate female genital mutilation (FGM) and other gendered violence and discrimination in the UK and beyond. Potential contributors are invited to email Hilary to discuss proposals for this website.
Most of the articles on female genital mutilation (FGM) below are generously contributed by expert guest contributors with particular professional or personal knowledge and experience.
Hilary Burrage (editor of this website) has also posted many pieces on aspects of FGM, in conjunction with research for her books, Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation: A UK Perspective (a textbook) and Female Mutilation (narratives from survivors and campaigners globally). To read more about FGM, please see here: Hilary Burrage / FGM.
A Legal Vacuum in French Law on Sexual Harassment
In this piece the advocate Pierre Mury, a member of the Paris bar, reports on inadequacies in French law when dealing with cases of sexual harassment. He describes one specific case involving a prominent politician, and raises concerns about the propriety of the legal principles now determined in this matter, given the acknowledged proximity to the accused of some who made these decisions.
2,000 prosecutions for sexual harassment were dropped as a result of the legal principles established….
Child Rape: An Open Letter to the French Courts
Re: Urgent Change in French Law Defining Rape
We write to express our deep concern, abhorrence and outrage following the outcome of two cases in France where perpetrators raped two girls aged 13 and 11 respectively. In both cases the perpetrators were not convicted. The galling revelations and recent warped legal verdicts effectively sanction sexual contact with a child and highlight the lax attitude by the government that enables predatory sexual behaviour to carry on.
Why Did My ‘Mom’ Do This To Me? FGM in Egypt…
It is the recovery room in a hospital in Egypt. She is a six or seven years old girl. She comes slowly to consciousness from anesthetic and feels unbearable indescribable pain. Her mother is happy and so are all who surround her and do not feel her pain. Her sister is on the other bed and does not utter a word.
Still the girl does not understand what is going on or what happened to her…..
FGM in the Bohra Communities of India and Pakistan
The practice of female genital mutilation in India and Pakistan remains little known – not least because the Bohra communities which continue with it insist on silence about what they call ‘Khatna’ (male or female ‘circumcision’) or ‘Khafz’ (explicitly the female version). But slowly this harmful traditional practice, like child and early ‘marriage’ (licensed rape of a minor) in wider South Asian societies, is being exposed.
#WOMENCLINICS, Where Women Help Other Women Thrive
Michael Ahabwe Mugerwa writes:
Five small rural communities in Africa that operate solely on the kindness of others are pitching their ideas such as handmade sanitary towels for girls, organic coffee farming, basket-making and promoting maternal health, thereby changing their communities. This amazing team of 500 women donate 10 hours a week each, to help other women thrive through community #WomenClinics.
A Cry for Help
This is a deeply alarming account of female genital mutilation (FGM), female subjugation and the consequences of extra-marital sex in a village near Cairo, the capital of Egypt. The tale Sabha (Siba) Azeez shares here reaches back to the 1980s, and the level of oppression and cruelty experienced then by women such as the narrator is distressing. But even today FGM and other gendered violence continues almost unabated in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Susan Masling spoke on 15 October 2016 at the Third Annual Walk to End FGM in Washington DC, supporting the great work of the Global Woman Peace Foundation, and representing the Department of Justice and the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section.
This is her address, which offers an update of the work by that Department , and across other US agencies, on Female Genital Mutilation, and which also makes it clear that the correct term for this harmful procedure is indeed ‘Mutilation‘.
Health, Advocacy and Art: A Panel Discussion on Ending FGM (London, Friday 22 July 2016)
Friday 22nd July, 6:00pm – 8:30pm
Rivington Place (off Rivington Street), London, EC2A 3BA (visitor information below). Free.
Part of Aida Silvestri’s solo exhibition Unsterile Clinic, join us for a free panel discussion marking the 2nd anniversary of the Girl Summit which was co-hosted by DfID, UNICEF and the Home Office in 2014 to mobilise domestic and international efforts to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
Tears of Resilience: a book that focuses on female genital mutilation, by Michael Ahabwe Mugerwa
TEARS OF RESILIENCE
A book by Ugandan author and activist Michael Ahabwe Mugerwa that focuses on the realities of Female Genital Mutilation and teaches women how to reclaim their bodies as a source of power and significance.
The Ring: a look at early marriage in Iran
A new book, The Ring, about early marriage in Iran, was published in Persian recently in Iran. The book, written by Rayehe Mozafarian, has opened a campaign to stop early marriage in Iran.
This book and campaign are intended to find and reveal the facts related to child marriage and to look at the causes of this issue.
No FGM 