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Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and female circumcision, is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. The practice is found in some countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and within their respective diasporas. UNICEF estimated in 2016 that 200 million women in 30 countries—Indonesia, Iraq, Yemen, and 27 African countries including Egypt—had been subjected to one or more types of female genital mutilation.
Adelaide Abankwah was a pseudonym taken by Ghanaian Regina Norman Danson when she tried to gain asylum in the United States, claiming to be fleeing female genital cutting and seeking political asylum.
Kurdish women have traditionally played important roles in Kurdish society and politics. In general, Kurdish women's rights and equality have improved dramatically in the 21st century due to progressive movements within Kurdish society. However, despite the progress, Kurdish and international women's rights organizations still report problems related to gender inequality, forced marriages, honor killings, and in Iraqi Kurdistan, female genital mutilation (FGM).
The Tahirih Justice Center, or Tahirih, is a national charitable non-governmental organization headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, United States that aims to protect immigrant women and girls fleeing gender-based violence and persecution. Tahirih's holistic model combines free legal services and social services case management with public policy advocacy, training and education.
Layli Miller-Muro is an American attorney and activist. She is the founder and executive director of Tahirih Justice Center, a national non-profit dedicated to protecting women from human rights abuses such as rape, female genital mutilation/cutting, domestic violence, human trafficking, and forced marriage. Tahirih's holistic model for protection combines free legal services and social services case management with public policy advocacy, education, and outreach.
The United States recognizes the right of asylum for refugees as specified by international and federal law. A specified number of legally defined refugees who are granted refugee status outside the United States are annually admitted under 8 U.S.C. § 1157 for firm resettlement. Other people enter the United States as aliens either lawfully or unlawfully and apply for asylum under section 1158.
International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is a United Nations-sponsored annual awareness day that takes place on February 6 as part of the UN's efforts to eradicate female genital mutilation. It was first introduced in 2003.
Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting (FGC), is practiced in 30 countries in western, eastern, and north-eastern Africa, in parts of the Middle East and Asia, and within some immigrant communities in Europe, North America and Australia. The WHO defines the practice as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons."
Togo, a small country in West Africa that was labeled "Not Free" by Freedom House from 1972 to 1998, and again from 2002 to 2006, and that has been categorized as "Partly Free" from 1999 to 2001 and again from 2007 to the present, has very serious and longstanding human-rights problems. According to a U.S. State Department report based on conditions in 2010, they include "security force use of excessive force, including torture, which resulted in deaths and injuries; official impunity; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; lengthy pretrial detention; executive influence over the judiciary; infringement of citizens' privacy rights; restrictions on freedoms of press, assembly, and movement; official corruption; discrimination and violence against women; child abuse, including female genital mutilation (FGM), and sexual exploitation of children; regional and ethnic discrimination; trafficking in persons, especially women and children; societal discrimination against persons with disabilities; official and societal discrimination against homosexual persons; societal discrimination against persons with HIV; and forced labor, including by children."
Human rights in Iraqi Kurdistan refer to the human rights issue in the autonomous area of Kurdistan Region.
Prosecution of gender-targeted crimes is the legal proceedings to prosecute crimes such as rape and domestic violence. The earliest documented prosecution of gender-based/targeted crimes is from 1474 when Sir Peter von Hagenbach was convicted for rapes committed by his troops. However, the trial was only successful in indicting Sir von Hagenbach with the charge of rape because the war in which the rapes occurred was "undeclared" and thus the rapes were considered illegal only because of this. Gender-targeted crimes continued to be prosecuted, but it was not until after World War II when an international criminal tribunal – the International Military Tribunal for the Far East – were officers charged for being responsible of the gender-targeted crimes and other crimes against humanity. Despite the various rape charges, the Charter of the Tokyo Tribunal did not make references to rape, and rape was considered as subordinate to other war crimes. This is also the situation for other tribunals that followed, but with the establishments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), there was more attention to the prosecution of gender-targeted crimes with each of the statutes explicitly referring to rape and other forms of gender-targeted violence.
Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision or female genital cutting, includes any procedure involving the removal or injury of part or all of external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. While the practice is most common in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, FGM is also widespread in immigrant communities and metropolitan areas in the United States, and was performed by doctors regularly until the 1980s.
Female genital mutilation in Sierra Leone is the common practice of removing all or part of the female's genitalia for cultural and religious initiation purposes, or as a custom to prepare them for marriage. Sierra Leone is one of 28 countries in Africa where female genital mutilation (FGM) is known to be practiced and one of few that has not banned it. It is widespread in part due to it being an initiation rite into the "Bondo," though initiation rite-related FGM was criminalised in 2019. The type most commonly practised in Sierra Leone is Type IIb, removal of part or all of the clitoris and the labia minora. As of 2013, it had a prevalence of 89.6%.
In New Zealand, female genital mutilation (FGM) was made illegal in 1996 through an amendment to the Crimes Act 1961 when s204A was added. FGM is an issue in New Zealand because of the number of migrants from countries where FGM is commonly practised settling in New Zealand. FGM is referred to as procedures that, for non-medical reasons, intend to cause harm to female genital organs. The procedures may have negative health impacts by causing problems such as urinating, infections, severe bleeding and complications during childbirth. Procedures are normally carried out on girls from infancy to 15 years old. FGM is predominantly practised in countries throughout the Middle East, Asia and in Africa.
Aminata Diop is a Malian woman who in 1989 fled to France to escape a female genital mutilation (FGM) procedure. She applied for asylum in October 1990, and is believed to have been the first woman to cite FGM as a reason for seeking refugee status. Both Diop's initial application and an appeal in September 1991 were denied on technical grounds, as she had failed to seek help from the Malian government before fleeing the country. However, she was subsequently allowed to stay in France.
Fauziya Kassindja, also known as Fauzia Kasinga, is the author of Do They Hear You When You Cry? an autobiographical story of her refusal to submit to kakia, the Togo ritual of female genital mutilation, and a forced marriage. She fled Togo and traveled first to Germany, where she obtained a fake passport, and then to the United States where she immediately informed immigration officials that her documents were false and requested asylum.
Sahiyo is a non-governmental organization founded in 2015, to advocate for girls' and women's rights and oppose the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Asian communities, with a focus on the Dawoodi Bohra community in India.
In the case of Meadows v Minister for Justice, Equality, and Law Reform [2010] IESC 3; [2010] 2 IR 701; [2011] 2 ILRM 157, the Supreme Court of Ireland found that the proportionality test should be used when reviewing administrative actions that implicate fundamental rights protected by both the Irish Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. While the case concerned an application for judicial review of an asylum decision, the decision was described as carrying “implications for the whole body of Irish administrative law”.
The legal status of female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting (FGC), differs widely across the world.
Jane Frances Kuka is a Ugandan educator, anti-Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) activist, politician and former Member of Parliament for Kapchorwa in Uganda's sixth parliament and was replaced by Gertrude Kulany. She was the Minister of State for Gender and Development from 1996 to 1998, a State Minister for Disaster Preparedness in 1999 and later appointed Resident District Commissioner for Kapchorwa District in 2007 replacing Tezira Jamwa.
References
- ↑ Dugger, Celia W. "Asylum from Mutilation". The New York Times . 16 June 2006. Retrieved 8 August 2008.
- ↑ Dugger, Celia W. "June 9-15; Asylum From Mutilation",The New York Times, 16 June 1996.
- "In re Fauziya KASINGA, file A73 476 695, U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review, decided 13 June 1996.
- Dugger, Celia W. "Woman's Plea for Asylum Puts Tribal Ritual on Trial", The New York Times, 15 April 1996.
- ↑ "Global feminism at the local level: Criminal and asylum laws regarding female genital surgeries". Journal of Gender, Race and Justice. 3: 45–62.
- ↑ "Staff & Board | Center for Gender and Refugee Studies".