The Huffington Post put out a story on May 17, 2014 concerning female genital mutilation. I sincerely recommend you watch the video and read this article, and I recommend you read or view all my sources.
Miss Jaha is requesting statistics be renewed, and she states government action needs taking to make this barbaric act cease.
Unfortunately, female genital mutilation is no longer isolated to backward parts of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. It is spreading with fundamentalist Islam.
This terrible practice threatens at least 150,000 to 200,000 girls in the U.S. according to the Centers for Disease Control.
In this photo taken Sunday, Feb. 16, 2014, teenage girls attend an after-school club which the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF helps fund, one of whose subjects is discussion of the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), at the Sheik Nuur Primary School in Hargeisa, Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. Child rights advocates in nearly 30 countries are fighting to reduce the number of girls subjected to the cutting of their genitalia and last month about 60 religious and civic leaders in the capital of Somaliland, a semi-autonomous region in northern Somalia that has remained largely peaceful during Somalia's decades of conflict, attended a daylong seminar and debate on the subject. (AP Photo/Jason Straziuso)
The Sanctuary for Families also concluded in their own study that female genital mutilation increased by 35 percent between 1990 and 2000.
Some of you may wonder: "What exactly is this? I get what genital mutilation means, but what is the actual process?"
I am a bit reserved in describing it. Let me just say this article isn't child friendly.
Female genital mutilation is usually performed when the victim is younger than 15. Her father rips off her underwear and, with either a knife or sharp stone, saws off his daughter's clitoris and labia.
After he has finished cutting, he stitches the vagina shut with twine only forcefully removed on her wedding night to maintain her "purity."
I can hardly bear imagining such an act.
Amran Mahamood, who has made a living for 15 years by circumcising young girls, looks into a piece of a mirror on February 19, 2014 in Hargeysa. The centuries old tradition of female circumcision, also known as female genital mutilation (FGM), is on the decline in northern Somalia, though it continues to have some of the highest rates of women who have undergone the practice in the world. AFP PHOTO/ Nichole Sobecki
According to the abhorred men in the cultures that commit this act, women are the sexually promiscuous ones who need controlling to the point of SEWING THEIR GENITALS SHUT which is, as some believe, on divine command.
However, we're leaving out someone. Young boys. What I just told you was barbaric and depraved.
Wait 'til you hear this. I am telling you this because, if you're a college student like me, then you are probably going to have children some years from now, or you have them already and may have more.
I'm about to ask you to picture something incredibly disturbing, but only to illustrate a point and the truth you deserve.
Fundamentalist Hasidic Jews even in New York are still performing traditional male genital mutilations.
Picture, if you will, an old man... sucking on the penis of an eight-day old child. Disturbing enough? Now imagine he is doing it to remove the foreskin after he mutilated the child. He spits out the foreskin and blood while the baby boy screams in agony.
This is disgusting, and it is STILL going on in 21st century New York. There are a few stories on this unbelievable act. Exhibit A: Babies are contracting herpes from the pedophile rabbis mutilating them. Exhibit B: A rabbi calls not performing this deplorable act heresy.
A rabbinical student in Berlin holds his son during a circumcision ceremony in Berlin, Germany. (Photo: AP)
Granted, I have perhaps given the worst possible example of male genital mutilation. So, I'll bring your attention around to the "normal" stuff.
Around 60 percent of male babies born in the U.S. have their genitals mutilated, without their consent, obviously. Thankfully, that number appears on the decline, but let's put a few more nails in the coffin of genital mutilation.
For those who believe this mutilation is a necessary act performed because God commands it, I cannot comprehend how you can do such a thing. How is it that you can hold your baby boy in your arms, a newborn child, the most beautiful thing you will see... How can you look at your newborn son and say, "OK, doc. Get the scalpel and do the Lord's work on my son's genitalia."
The acts of male and female genital mutilation are only possible when people believe God commands it, or if misled parents think they are doing well. A supposed divine command can make a morally normal person do horrible, insane, immoral, and disgusting things.
These religions that promote genital mutilation, in particular of women, I cannot understand. Why is there this fear of female sexuality? Or the fear of menstrual blood in Judaism? Why are the female genitals detested in that way? I have to say, I don't share their views.
However, many of you were possibly convinced by doctors that the penis needs mutilating to promote health. Does that even make sense to you, really?
Penn Jillette and Raymond Teller put together a show called B.S. where they addressed this issue. I highly recommend watching it, but I'm giving you a content warning. There is language and nudity in this episode (as in most... Don't worry, Penn's not the naked one).
We can argue 'til we're blue in the face over male genital mutilation's false benefits and obvious detriments. This is a great debate that briefly focused on this issue in this clip.
I'll give you several resources on this, and you can see what you think. Exhibit A. Exhibit B. I am clearly biased in that the sources here agree with me. This article reports there are approximately 229 deaths in the U.S. every year due to complications from mutilation.
Just my opinion, but these numbers, I would guess, are quite higher, given the way the deaths are often attributed to something else (as mentioned in a sourced article). Which makes sense when you consider that male genital mutilation is a $400 million industry.
Further, there are the multi-million dollar industries where foreskin is, without parental consent or the poor infant victim's consent, used to make products such as insulin, products for treating burn victims, and making cosmetics. All unnecessarily as materials other than the penis skin of baby boys is useable.
Think about that, ladies. How many mutilated baby penises found their utility in making your new makeup without you knowing it?
If you want to saw off the end of your penis or vagina as an adult, you're welcome to do so, but don't dare do it to a child who didn't ask for it.
The only reason the terrible act of male genital mutilation made an arrival in general American society is because Mr. Kellogg (yes the cereal guy) and Mr. Graham (yes the cracker guy) were activists in having Christians partake in mutilating their children with the all the other cool barbarians. Why? They believed it would curtail masturbation by making the penis less sensitive, and my how that's worked out.
Even if you want to believe the word of the people who benefit from the practice, that this mutilation is helpful, do we chop off women's breasts because they might get cancer? Of course not, and for that same reason, please, take your baby home intact.
This practice of stealing choice and sexual pleasure from children, male and female, is criminal and it needs recognizing and punishment in the future.
Imagine if we lived in a world where this was not the norm. What would we think of people who mutilated a baby's genitalia without consent?
What would we do to people who only downloaded pictures of this terrible act?
This is a "medical procedure" that is by definition mutilation or amputation, and it is unwarrantable.
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