Posted on 11/26/2004 6:06:52 PM PST by ChristianDefender
Young girls born in Europe to immigrant families from Africa are being subjected to ritual genital mutilation, and authorities are doing little to discourage it, a leading women’s rights activist warned.
Somalia-born supermodel and best-selling author Waris Dirie, who has campaigned to end the disfiguring practice she suffered at age five in her homeland, said yesterday that she estimates one in every three African families living in Europe is secretly carrying out the ritual on their daughters. No official figures exist.
The procedure – illegal in most European countries – is especially prevalent in Germany and the Netherlands, as well as in Austria, where an estimated 8,000 girls born into immigrant families have been affected, Dirie said.
“We don’t know who’s doing it and where,” because there are few initiatives to prevent it or to encourage doctors, nurses, social workers, teachers and others to report suspected cases, Dirie said. An exception is France, where there is strong awareness and education, she said.
“What good is a law if no one is paying attention?” Dirie told reporters in Austria, where she was being honoured yesterday by a Roman Catholic men’s movement for her efforts to stop the practice.
Islamic religious leaders are telling Europe’s Muslim Africans that the prophets recommend the ancient ritual, which involves the removal of the clitoris, often with a dull blade and no anaesthesia, Dirie said.
“That is a catastrophe,” she said. “Every imam who is not actively against genital mutilation is guilty. Mutilation is not a tradition – it’s a crime that must be abolished.”
Although women generally perform the procedure, sometimes called female circumcision, men are ultimately responsible because “untrimmed” young women “face great difficulties in African societies in finding a husband,” Dirie said.
Between 100 million and 140 million women have undergone genital mutilation worldwide, and two million girls are at risk each year, according to the World Health Organisation, which says the practice can lead to infection, the spread of Aids and crippling physical, psychological and sexual problems.
The practice has been on the rise not only among immigrants in Europe but also in Australia, Canada and the US, Who says.
Petra Bayr, an official with Austria’s Socialist Party, said the bloc’s women would press the government to consider genital mutilation an “act of violence” and legitimate grounds for women fleeing it to be granted asylum in Austria.
“Women who are threatened with genital mutilation or have already suffered it should not have to wait for months for an open door,” added Raimund Loeffelmann, a spokesman for the Catholic men’s organisation honouring Dirie yesterday.
So what's the big deal? After all, a culture who practices genital mutilation on dirt floors is no better no worse than a culture who builds rocket ships and skyscrapers--at least that's what they taught me in my critical thinking class.
Why does the reader have to get to the sixth paragraph to learn that it is the Islamofascists that are practicing this?
Barbarians. Religion of peace, my a**.
Western culture is adopting piercing, toungue and ear mutilation, etc. This is only the next craze.
Genital mutilation? You mean like "circumcision"? Because that's what that is!
It's good to have a hobby.
We began doing this to our males long ago when we adopted the Jewish tradition of circumcision as an alleged "health" practice in American hospitals.
Notice it's called "genital mutilation" when it involves females but when it's males, they call it "making them boys." Damned butchers and feminazies. Medical and reproductive privacy my fuzzy ass.
Next thing you know there'll be reports of mass self-mutilations with knives as part of some islammo murder festival for one of their pedophile prophets...wait a minute! These sh!t-for-brains already do this.
Never mind.
If Allah created women in a specific way, what right does any man have to alter that?
I guess this explains the lack of cajones in France.
the liberals have to believe that these third world terrorists are no worse than they are because then they arent being tolerant of other cultures. its funny because the elitists have taken their multiculturalism as being something that makes them elite. so now they just have to sit back and watch their countries being ruined.
You just don't seem to understand the real threat here. ;o) </sarcasm>
I've seen this many times. Good luck to all the multiculturists out there. Suck it up and celebrate diversity!
Uh, my understanding of female mutilation is that they CUT the whole sex organ, or clit*ris, out entirely.
This is NOT like male circumcision. This is like severing the male organ entirely.
Sorry, but female genital mutilation isn't equivalent to male circumcision. That is unless you think they cut off the entire penis when they circumcise males.
Ping...
..cutting the heads of those who do this is the best punishment if we want to be even...
...but i dont know how "Coffee" Annan would react on beheadings related to this pure example of human rights violation...
Hmm let me guess. This is something male muslims do when they are not loping off the heads of unbelievers. All followers of islam need to be thrown out of America
No wonder the terrorist are such uptight bastards. They are removing the component responsible for the female orgasm. The cannot satisfy their women.
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