CANADA: Activist MD Says Women Need to Support Each Other

Women around the world share the pain of abuse, and need to support each other, the founder of War Child Canada said in Winnipeg at the annual fund-raising breakfast for a charity that helps women who've suffered abuse.

Dr. Samantha Nutt was the keynote speaker for the breakfast to benefit the Laurel Centre, a non-profit organization that offers counselling and guidance to women who have experienced childhood or adolescent abuse.

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Dr. Samantha Nutt was the keynote speaker for a breakfast to benefit the Laurel Centre. (Ken Gigliotti / Winnipeg Free Press )

"The universality of the feminine experience transcends language and culture," said Nutt, who has worked in war-torn countries around the world. "I've seen it over and over again."

SIERRA LEONE: Paramount Chief Supports FGM

Paramount Chief of Nongowa chiefdom, Kenema district has declared his support for the controversial female genital mutilation (FGM) locally referred to as 'Bondo' society practiced by women in Sierra Leone.

PC Amara Bonya Vagahun who was reacting to an April 17 publication of Premier News newspaper which quoted him as saying "Bondo is against the law', said he has never made such pronouncement and that the author of the article did not confirm his report before publishing the story.

According to the publication the chief was speaking on the problems of quack doctors in their communities during a stakeholders' meeting on blood transfusion and obstetric practices outside the hospital complex at his court's barry on April 1 this year.

FRANCE: Alps-Riviera Province in France Seeks to Eradicate Female Circumcision

(PARIS, France) - According to the Ministries of Education and Health, nearly 60,000 women and girls are circumcised or threatened to be in France. Among those listed are about 3,000 in the Provence-Alpes - Côte d'Azur regions, according to estimates by the National Institute of Demographic Studies, based on populations of migrants.

In the Alpes-Maritimes, where the number of females excised or threatened to be is estimated to nearly 500, maternity hospitals have received their form and the investigation has already begun.

"The problem is that these women do not talk about their mutilation, they are discovered through medical examination." Dr. Nathalie Jugnet, a gynecologist in France, says that when the discovery is made at the time of delivery, it is a disaster.

USA: Speaker to Address African Health Struggles

The keynote speaker for today’s African Health Summit was once the foreign minister to the United Nations, the first lady of Somalia and the first medically trained midwife and nurse in her country.

But for Edna Adan Ismail, 70, her greatest accomplishment was the creation of the Edna Adan Maternity Hospital in an enclave of Somalia known as Somaliland. She donated her U.N. pension and other personal assets to build the hospital, where more than 7,000 babies have been born since it opened six years ago.

The health summit will “shine a light” on the contributions Ohio University students and faculty have made to health problems in Africa and will consist of two panel discussions. The summit will also present graduate programs, travel opportunities and job possibilities for graduates, said Steve Howard, director of African studies.

YEMEN: Parliament Upholds Female Circumcision

Yemen's conservatives are still in control.

After a heated debate in parliament this month, Yemeni women's rights advocates lost their battle to ban female circumcision, according to a report in the Yemen Times.

The parliament in recent days voted against a bill that would have outlawed female genital mutilation, a practice that is believed to affect almost 25% of Yemeni women.

Opponents claimed that the issue remains too sensitive among Yemeni and that no legal measure could be taken as long as there was no consensus among religious scholars against the practice.

Female circumcision is a widespread practice in the Middle East and Africa. Many Muslims believe that removing a girl's clitoris to tame her libido is a religious obligation.

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Study Guide for "Born in the Big Rains" by Fadumo Korn

To view the reading guide, click on this link To purchase the book, click on the book image in the next column

Reading Group Choices, an online reading group has provided a reading guide for BORN IN THE BIG RAINS: A Memoir of Somalia and Survival by Fadumo Korn. This autobiographical book traces Fadumo's life from Somalia as a child where she was subjected to FGM, to her arrival in Germany, and eventual campaign against FGM. It's a gripping book, full of sadness, tears, and many laughters as Korn shares her rebellious antics with readers, and demonstrates that although she was victimized as a child, she is much more than just a victim.

BOOK REVIEW: “Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan” by Janice Boddy

September 24, 2007 Wendy McElroy iFeminists.com Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan is the latest book by Janice Boddy, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. The book is a self-conscious attempt to alter the terms of debate on an explosive issue: female genital mutilation (FGM). The issue is so explosive that fierce arguments surround the very question of what to call it. Those who defend or remain neutral on the practice tend to prefer the label ‘female genital cutting’ (FGC). In “Civilizing Women,” the index entry for ‘female genital mutilation’ reads “see female genital cutting.” In this review, when presenting my critique, I use the acronym FGM because nothing in Boddy’s book has softened my conviction that the practice is brutal child abuse. Out of respect for the author, however, I use FGC or other neutral terms when presenting her views. Boddy’s purpose in “Civilizing Women” is two-fold. First, she constructs a broad historical context through which to understand FGC as it was practiced between the years 1920 to 1946 in northern Sudan; these were years of British imperialism. Boddy asks the intensely interesting question, how did British colonialism and the practice of FGC affect each other?

PUBLICATION: Cutting to the Core

Book Description When the benefits of surgery do not outweigh the harms or where they do not clearly do so, surgical interventions become morally contested. Cutting to the Core examines a number of such surgeries, including infant male circumcision and cutting the genitals of female children, the separation of conjoined twins, surgical sex assignment of intersex children and the surgical re-assignment of transsexuals, limb and face transplantation, cosmetic surgery, and placebo surgery.