Word: fgm
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These are busy times for Pakhshan Zangana. Head of the women's caucus in the Iraqi Kurdish parliament in Arbil, she is on the verge of pushing through a piece of legislation that is the first of its kind in the Middle East - a law criminalizing female genital mutilation (FGM). "Sixty-eight out of 120 deputies signed our bill, so we could have got it passed by ministerial decree," Zangana says. "But law-making is the job of parliament, and we want everybody to debate this issue openly." The bill received its first reading on Dec. 3 and is likely...
...Affecting up to 90% of women in Egypt, Sudan and Somalia, FGM is widely seen as an African phenomenon. But it also happens to a lesser extent throughout the Middle East, particularly in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq...
...city of Sulaimaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan's second city. "The Hanbali [school] says it is obligatory only for men." Personally opposed to female circumcision, Gaznei in 2002 issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling for imitation of Hanbali practice. He has since appeared on a short film about FGM shot by a Kurdish filmmaker that WADI medical teams now take with them when visiting villages...
...great was the taboo surrounding FGM until recently that even the Iraqi Kurdish authorities, largely supportive of campaigns against it, have sometimes been tentative in their resolve to take action. Since 14,000 people signed an April 2007 petition for a law against FGM, though, the mood has changed radically. Both the region's main parties have given their blessing to the law, and FGM is now openly discussed by the local media. Back in parliament, Pakhshan Zangana knows the law represents only the end of the beginning of this struggle. Her aim now, she says, is to end FGM...
...elders continue to encourage circumcisions because the custom provides an important social and economic role. Families in the Sabaot tribe in Kenya, for instance, receive cows upon the circumcision of their first girl. And alternative ceremonies can cause problems of their own. Julie Maranya, coordinator of a Kenyan anti-fgm group, says that because young girls are being taught sex education as part of their alternative initiation, "they think they are now free to engage in pre-marital sex. That's why we have made many tiny mothers...