Female Genital Mutilation

Culture

Sami Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh. To Mutilate in the Name of Jehovah or Allah: Legitimization of Male and Female Circumcision. (Translation by Frederick M. Hodges, D. Phil. (Oxon)) Medicine and Law, vol. 13, no. 7-8 (July 1994): pp. 575-622.

Medical Society Statements

World Medical Association. Statement on Condemnation of Female Genital Mutilation, Adopted by the 45th World Medical Assembly, Budapest, Hungary, October 1993.
American Medical Association, Council on Scientific Affairs, Report 5 (I-94): Female Genital Mutilation, Chicago, 1994.
Commitee on Medical Ethics. Guidance for doctors approached by victims of female genital mutilation. London: British Medical Association, 1996.
Committee on Bioethics, American Academy of Pediatrics. Female Genital Mutilation (RE9749). Pediatrics 1998; 102(1):153-156.
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Female Circumcision/Female Genital Mutilation (FC/FGM) Fact Sheet.

Links to Organizations

Amnesty International: Female Genital Mutilation Information Pack
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Africa (Link to new Web site by noted author Hanny Lightfoot-Klein)
Prisoners of Ritual: An Odyssey Into Female Genital Circumcision in Africa by Hanny Lightfoot-Klein
Female Genital Mutilation Research Home Page (Marianne Sarkis)
The Tahara Project. From filmmaker Sara Rashad
Research, Action, and Information Network for the Bodily Integrity of Women (RAINBOW)
Deutsch-Afrikanische Frauen Initiative
Rising Daughters Aware
PATH Female Genital Mutilation page
FGM Network
Women's International Network

Some Scholarly Journal Articles On The Internet

Pieters G, Lowenfels AB. Infibulation in the horn of Africa. N Y State Med J 1977;77(5):729-731.
Hrdy DB. Cultural practices contributing to the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus in Africa. Rev Infect Dis 1987;9(6):1109-19.
Mohamed Badawi. Epidemiology of female sexual castration in Cairo, Egypt. Presented at The First International Symposium on Circumcision, Anaheim, California, March 1-2, 1989.
Fran P. Hosken. Female genital mutilation: strategies for eradication. Presented at The First International Symposium on Circumcision, Anaheim, California, March 1-2, 1989.
Lightfoot-Klein, H. The sexual adjustment of genitally circumcised and infibulated females in the Sudan. J Sex Res 1989;26(3):375-392.
Lightfoot-Klein H, Shaw E. Special needs of ritually circumcised women patients. JOGNN 1991;20(2):102-107.
Dirie MA, Lindmark G. The risk of medical complications after female circumcision. East Afr Med J 1992;69(9):479-482.
Menage J. Post-traumatic stress disorder in women who have undergone obstetric and/or gynaecological procedures. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology 1993; 11:221-228.
Hanny Lightfoot-Klein. Erroneous Belief Systems Underlying Female Genital Mutilation in Sub-Saharan Africa and Male Neonatal Circumcision in the United States: a Brief Report Updated. Presented at The Third International Symposium on Circumcision, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland May 22-25, 1994.
Black JA, DeBelle GD. Female genital mutilation in Britain. BMJ 1995;310:1590-1592.
Gallard C. Female genital mutlation in France. BMJ 1995;310:1592-1593.
Meniru GI, Meniru MO, Ezeh UO. Female genital mutilation. BMJ 1995;311:1088.
Menage J. Professionals should not collude with abusive systems. BMJ 1995;311:1088-1089.
Hamilton J. UN condemns female circumcision. BMJ 1997;314:1145.
Brady M. Female genital mutilation: complications and risk of HIV transmission. Aids Patient Care STDS 1999;13(12):709-16.
Ciment J. Senegal outlaws female genital mutilation. BMJ 1999;318:348.
Abboud P, Christian Quereux C, et al. Stronger campaign needed to end female genital mutilation. BMJ 2000;320:1153.
Welch J. Caring for Women with Circumcision: A Technical Manual for Health Care Providers. BMJ 2000;320:1481.
News. Concern mounts over female genital mutilation. BMJ 2000;321:2.
Scherf C. Women in Africa have many other problems besides genital mutilation. BMJ 2000;321:570.
Avshalom Zoossmann-Diskin. Male genital mutilation in any society is surely abhorrent too. BMJ 2000;321:570.

Some Law Resources on the Internet

Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985, United Kingdom
Female Genital Mutilation: A Report to the Attorney-General, prepared by the Family Law Council June 1994 (Australia).
Criminalization of Female Genital Mutilation Act. Pub. L. No. 104-208, § 645, 110 Stat. 3009, 3009-708 (1996) 18 U.S.C. 116. (United States)
Prohibition of female genital mutilation act, New South Wales, Australia
Section 268, Criminal Code of Canada, 1997.
Abbie J. Chessler. Justifying the Unjustifable: Rite v. Wrong, 45 Buffalo L. Rev. 555 (1997).
Doriane Lambelet Coleman, The Seattle Compromise: Multicultural Sensitivity and Americanization, 47 Duke L.J. 717, 739 (1998).
Dena S. Davis. Male and Female Genital Alteration: A Collision Course with the Law? 11 Health Matrix: Journal of Law-Medicine 487 (2001).
Christine Mason. Exorcising excision: medico-legal issues arising from male and female genital surgery in Australia, 9 J Law Med 58 (2001).

International Human Rights Instruments

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, G.A. res. 217A (III), U.N. Doc A/810 at 71 (1948)
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), (U.N.T.S. No. 20378, vol. 1249 (1981).
African [Banjul] Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, OAU Doc. CAB/LEG/67/ (1981).
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), A/RES/44/25 (1989).
Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women G.A. res. 48/104, 48 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 217, U.N. Doc. A/48/49 (1993).

Bibliographies

National Child Protection Clearing House Bibliography
World Health Organization Bibliographic Data Base
Amnesty International Female Genital Mutilation Bibliography

Female Circumcision in the United States

Dawson BE. Circumcision in the female: Its necessity and how to perform it. American J Clin Med 1915;22(6):520-523.
McDonald CF. Circumcision in the female. GP 1958;XVIII(3):98-99.
Rathman WG. Female circumcision: Indications and a new technique. GP 1959;XX(3):115-120.
Duffy J. Clitoridectomy: A nineteeth century answer to masturbation. Presented at The First International Symposium on Circumcision, Anaheim, California, March 1-2, 1989.
Linda Burstyn. Female circumcision comes to America. The Atlantic Monthly 1996;276(4):28-35.
Celia Dugger. Congress bans genital rite. New York Times, October 12, 1996: A1.
Christopher Baughman. Doctors Testifies Surgeon Secretly Circumcised Woman. The Advocate, Baton Rouge, October 30, 1996.
Barbara Crossette. Mutilation Seen as Risk for the Girls of Immigrants. The New York Times, March 23, 1998.
Michelle Milholland. Woman circumcised by ex-husband awarded $35,000. The Advocate, Baton Rouge, 10 April 2001: 1B-2B.

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