- Stop Excision! – Sini Sanuman is dedicated to stopping female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as excision, in Mali and world-wide … //
- … Six villages have collectively abandoned the practice of excision, celebrating their decisions with ceremonies that we helped them organize.
- Over 100 former excisers have agreed to give up the practice. Many of them are helping spread the word. (full text english Homepage).
Who we are; What we do (15 items); Get involved; Links;
Addresses: 1): Sini Sanuman, BP:E 4829, Bamako, Mali;
2): Healthy Tomorrow, 14 William Street, Somerville, MA 02144, USA;
Contact.
About FGM: Female genital mutilation, FGM, has been practiced traditionally for centuries. Predominantly found in Africa, it is also prevalent in parts of Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
The practice of FGM continues, perpetuated through myths, rituals and taboos, even though it has maimed or killed countless women and girls. Click here for a descrition of the four primary types of FGC, and details the potential consequences and medical complications.
Among many cultural and ethnic groups, FGM is inseparable from views of women’s social and sexual identity. Also known as female genital mutilation, female circumcision and clitoridectomy, FGM assumes varying forms of severity, the most severe being infibulation, and varying degrees of prevalence, according to culture and region.
An estimated 85 million to 110 million women and girls alive today have undergone FGM, while momentum has been building against the practice for decades. Action against FGM is now widespread in Africa and, in 1993, FGM was declared a human rights violation by international legal institutions.
Programs to eradicate FGM must be implemented by Africans, respectful of culture and tradition, and they must be designed with sensitivity, rejecting and eliminating FGM and all the associated devastating practices, while retaining and celebrating the rich African traditions that are both beneficial and central to the fabric of African life.
FGM in the Malian Context
I. Introduction:
- Most families in Mali practice what is variously known as female genital mutilation (FGM), female genital cutting (FGC), female circumcision, or excision. FGM continues to devastate women and girls in Mali, in spite of efforts by many to convince parents to stop. The consequences include the unimaginable pain of the procedure, and many gynecological, urinary and obstetric problems, with all their ensuing psychological and marital anguish.
- The socio-cultural aspects of FGM vary greatly; no homogeneous practice, types of surgeries and rationales behind them are as diverse as the people that practice them. While FGM can clearly be defined as a patriarchal institution perpetuated to control women, women almost exclusively maintain the practice. Men’s roles in its perpetuation cannot be dismissed however.
II. The Realities of Life in Mali … (full long text about FGM).