Statement by African Women Are Free to Choose (AWA-FC), Washington DC, USA

For Immediate Release February 20, 2009 Statement by African Women Are Free to Choose (AWA-FC), Washington DC, USA. It is with great concern that we, members of the newly formed African Women Are Free to Choose movement, regard recent situations in Sierra Leone, immediately stemming from the press release issued on Feb 6th by the U.S. Embassy in Freetown. We are concerned about recent accusations of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) made against an important and (...) Full story

1. Posted by Merritt MacArthur, on 21 February 2009  at 04h18

   Please read Saharasia by Dr. James De Meo before you write further on this subject.

   After the ecological collapse of 4000 BCE that turned all of North Africa, Arabia and Central Asia into a desert, FGM was created by Arab slave traders to ensure that the black African women they sold to foreigners as breeding animals for more slaves were "virgins" so they could breed them to the people they wanted. Similarly, males were castrated so that they could not tamper with the "product."

   Over the years religious and cultural overtones were added to legitimize the male control that began with the ancient Arab slave trade, the first to treat black people like animals.

   If there is "choice" then it need to be informed choice, which is never the case with adolescents. And most experts in ritual studies would agree that although there is *some* meager case for MGM as a rite of passage, it is mostly done to ensure the control of young people by older ones. In absolutely every case brutalized children grow up to be brutal adults, so causing pain during initiations is not advised if one wants the next generation to be creative, intelligent, and loving, as the serious "dumping" of neuropeptides, particularly with FGM and its incredibly more painful than MGM. But as FGM is usually practiced on girls under 11 (who are not strong enough to struggle), it has no relationship to adolescent or pubescent rites of passage.

   Besides, the TOTAL IMPLICATION OF SUCH RITUALS IS THAT GOD SCREWED UP WHEN HE MADE WOMEN AND THAT, IN ORDER TO PLEASE MEN, OTHER WOMEN MUST TEAR APART A CHILD’S BRAIN CHEMISTRY, CAUSE EXCRUTIATING AGONY, MAIM HER FOR LIFE AND COMPLICATE CHILDBIRTH. Then there are the countless deaths.

   It should, in absolutely EVERY case be outlawed until the children in question (male and female) are FULLY GROWN and can make a choice.

   So, if YOU want to make a choice to have your clitoris cut out, then YOU should be 21 years old, able to read, and counseled before you do it.

   Do not simply demand that some 6-year-old in your country has her clitoris cut out, her labia sawed off, and an acacia thorn stuck through the remaining bloody mess because you did — or because you want to run some culturally superior number and make everybody in the West wrong because you can’t figure out what else to do with your day.

   With the soweis, the objection to the request they cease from practicing major surgery without a license is PURELY FINANCIAL, and is the tawdriest and dirtiest of all motives, tantamount to the screams of injustice issuing from the banking executives in America who can no longer get $150 million dollar bonuses from screwing Americans out of their hard-earned money.

   You are responsible for the agony of every child who is slice, cut, mutilated, or dies because of your influence.

   God did not screw up when woman was made, nor man, either. And both men and women should stop tampering with a creation that is not their own and interfering in the lives of others, to which they have no medical right.

2. Posted by Jonathan T. Boima, on 21 February 2009  at 06h16

   Its about time this issue is addressed by people who know what they are talking about, save the so called male authorities on this issue. If its anything , the women should single handedly resolve this issue without the aid of any make belief revs and self styled doctors. Why cant they mention MALE GENITAL MUTILATION beats me. Anyway it just feels good to know that we have level headed sisters out there!

3. Posted by Anthony Kamara, Canada, on 21 February 2009  at 14h01

   Anthony Kamara, Winnipeg canada.

   A very elucidative and intellectually brilliant contribution from an erudite scholar. Thank you Dr Ahmadu. For all those who did not understand, this expose provides an opportunity for all of us to save this commentary for future re-visits for better understanding and damn the madness of western donors, who do not understand African and in particular Sierra Leonean culture; instead of finding out they use a people where our culture is unknown. Our local politicians can continue to use Creoles to sound public opinion on this , but let them feel reassured that the Bondo culture cannot be a thing of the past, for it has always been a culture of yesterday, the same today and forever and shall remain intact. There is nothing that requires improvement on the procedure. They have their society experts. Dr. Ahmadu, I’m saving this contribution in my documents. I wish I had the opportunity to attend your lecture.

   Thanks

   Anthony

4. Posted by Hugh7, on 22 February 2009  at 01h32

   Wow! What a powerful indictment of cultural imperialism! I and all members of the genital integrity movement couldn’t agree more about the developed world’s double standard between male and female genital cutting. But since we believe that genital cutting of male minors (infant circumcision) is not justifiable or ethical because they can not give informed consent, a single standard means the same applies to genital cutting of female minors - or indeed, intersexed babies. (It is a mystery why anyone, male or female, should want the most sensitive part of their genitals cut off, but adults of any sex don’t have to justify their desire to modify their own body to anyone else.) I hope the world movement against the cutting of young girls picks up the challenge AWA-FC has thrown down, by joining organisations like Forward in the UK in equally opposing the cutting of boys.

   The cutting of non-consenting people remains a human rights violation, and AWA-FC has not addressed it.

5. Posted by Sowei, on 22 February 2009  at 04h25

   I’m in tears....! You have managed to articulate what so many of us are thinking and struggling to communicate to the growing list of random master-sabis (specialists) who just want to cash in on the latest donor interest. I was circumsized and I’m proud of it. I have yet to meet any parent who has put their child through this out of hatred, in fact invariably it is out of love. Typical mental slaves that most of these campaigners are, they cannot think for themselves and in the context of who they are but are forever aspiring to be something that they are not and can never, ever be. Civilisation does not mean Westernisation! FC is part of our African civilisation and in Sierra Leone it is practised as an initiation to something much, much deeper and richer Bondo. For those men who need a clitoris because they know no other way to give pleasure, go to sex school and learn or go behind the bike shed and yank! I have satisfying sex; much, much more than my uncircumcised sisters who always have to think long and hard about the last time they had an orgasm, while I smile with glee because mine was only this morning! I am also a proud mother of two who suffered nothing at all at the conception or delivery of my children (both circumcised). We ARE the majority! As a professional career woman who has worked all over the world, I am very comfortable with who I am. No false hair, no weave on, no false eyelashes or false nails, no bleached skin, no phony accent... no desire to be white/cocasian. Just a curvacious, voluptuous, intelligent, beautifully complex, proud yet circumcised African lady. Deal with it!

6. Posted by Joseph, on 24 February 2009  at 14h53

   There are many self contradictions in this statement, the most glaringly obvious one being that if the decision that a woman be circumcised has already been made for them by say, their parents and/or members of their society, no, a woman ISN’T "free to choose," as the name "Women Are Free to Choose" says.

   This statement is a direct challenge to those who are against the forced mutilation of individuals. But I say that challenges are needed, and everything needs to be questioned, and the author does a great job of bringing up the many double-standards, particularly the nerve of the self-righteous westerner who dares criticize female circumcision, but is quick to snap "mind your own business, this is a parent’s decision" when it comes to the forced male circumcision of infants happening in their own countries. This article does a great job questioning the western brand of "equality" when it comes to these matters, and for this I must commend the author.

   I will not hesitate to say, however, that I AM a human rights activist. Know this, African women reading this, that a woman’s "choice," and her right to "self determination," no, dare I say a PERSON’S choice, and his/her right to self determination, is at the crux of why movements against genital mutilation exist.

   I have absolutely no problem if an individual proudly stands up and says "I want to be circumcised," so long the individual is making a conscious choice, and it is not being forced on him/her. If a person wishes for his/her genitals to be altered, it is by all mean HIS/HER decision, and nobody else’s. I am against the forceful mutilation of ANY SEX without exceptions for race, culture, or religion, yes, even the male infant circumcision happening in my own country. My involvement in this movement stems from the simple belief that taking an individual and altering his/er genitals against his will and express wishes is a grave human rights violation. Only the individual should make this choice, and nobody else.

   But if there is something in this statement with which I agree 100%, it’s this: People who turn a blind eye on the mutilation happening in their own country because of "social custom" or "tradition," or even go as far as to say how effective it is at preventing HIV (nevermind the staggering rates of HIV in their own home countries) have absolutely no business condemning the people of Africa. They should acknowledge the problem going on in their own country(ies), THEN talk. Until then, they should keep their self-righteous mouth shut.

7. Posted by Fatima Wahab, Maryland USA, on 24 February 2009  at 23h29

   It’s been almost a year since I first read a piece by Dr. Fuambai Ahmadu on this topic in the New York Times; but, the topic seems to never be put to rest. As a proud initiate, I am simply grateful that we finally have one of our own - enlightened and empowered - to break things down and shed much needed light on this issue for the western-thinking audience. Dr. Ahmadu touches on every relevant point that is sure to debunk previously held misconceptions about female initiates. I totally agree with her that it should be a choice for the African woman - no western policy should be imposed to criminalize an essential cultural practice for many of us; we are not “mutilated”; there are no ailments that we suffer which the uncircumcised woman does not suffer from; the majority of us are proud and happy with our bodies. Part of the code of conduct for initiates is to avoid discussing our practice with non-initiates and men; this is why the discussions have been one-sided for the most part - and how can we engage in discussions with people who start off by referring to us with the “FGM” derogatory term? Come to the table with clean language and we can talk. Dr. Ahmadu puts it so eloquently and in the most constructive and intellectual form, yet there are those who are still clinging to the colonial masters’ views to back their arguments. Thank Dr. Ahmadu for giving voice to us and our matriarchal ancestors - they are all smiling at this

8. Posted by TARSHI, on 10 March 2009  at 14h49

   Hi, mi name is Tarshi. I’m doing a research essay about FC, and I have to apologize to you. I judged the procedure. I thought it was unnecessary and degrading. After reading your article i have rethought my view. You’re completely right. White America has us thinking that their idea of beauty is how everyone should look. I agree with you, if that is your way and your culture then more power to you.You’re beautiful!!!

9. on 12 April 2009  at 20h13

   Is this writing supposed to be taken seriously?

10. Posted by Sigismond (Michel Hervé Bertaux-Navoiseau) psychoanalysis researcher, on 10 June 2009  at 16h38

    My study after years of psychoanalytical work on the matter:

    THE LOSS OF YOUR CLITORIS OR FORESKIN DEPRIVED YOU OF ALL OR PART OF YOUR RIGHT TO PLEASURE, THIS IS NOT A REASON TO WREST YOUR CHILDREN FROM IT.

    SEXUAL MUTILATION AND THE MORAL ORDER, (philosophy and basic concepts of the struggle against sexual mutilation)

    “It is not worth while saying That children resemble us, That they endure the same scars And that they’re born with violence. It really suits us to say that, It helps us to educate them In our image, our image...”

    “This postulate: parents, learning, power, And underhand dictatorship That removes them from their initial beauty...” Morice Bénin

    Introduction: a definition of sexual mutilation

    The preservation of the clitoris and the foreskin is founded on six facts that illustrate the essential-to-life character of these organs. These facts define sexual mutilation: an education through violence, sexual mutilation castrates the human being (minors) from the specific organs for autosexuality, deeply - the most often unconsciously - traumatizing them, not only through the pain and terror of the operation but also through the related threats of castration and exclusion. Ritual of possessory marking of the individual by the group, it pretends to submit them and enhance their societal (and sometimes mercantile) “value” by diverting sexuality from pleasure towards reproduction, above all for women. This alleged moral, and physical for men, superiority discriminates and segregates foreigners and opponents. First fact: minors. Sexual mutilation is the most often ill-treatment of minors. However, historically, Western feminists, who have been at the vanguard of the struggle, only speak of feminine mutilation. Monopolizing the fight, they make it a contest between both sex adults and accuse the non sexist of amalgamating excision and circumcision. But one may not amalgamate violence against adults and violence against minors. The war of the sexes is a war of “adults ignoring the child within themselves” (Maud Mannoni); that of generations is war on children. Following Mrs Albagly (Director of the DDASS of the Rhône), we affirm that “The right to the respect of the physical integrity of all children is not negotiable.” (Colloquium FSM of 26.02.07 in Lyon), one must not speak of masculine or feminine sexual mutilation but of sexual mutilation. Second fact: sexual. Bearing upon the specific organs for autosexuality or the foreplay, sexual mutilation has nothing “genital”. The clitoris, notably, is the sole organ of creation intended for pure pleasure, without any other function. The matter is not impeding reproduction but lessening, suppressing or turning pleasure into pain (excision). With man, this emasculation is limited to feminine, preputial pleasure. But with women, the mutilation of masculine, clitoridian pleasure entails that of feminine, vaginal pleasure, so that the mutilation of pleasure is total in two thirds of the cases. Third fact: physical mutilation. For more than eighty per cent of the population of the planet who enjoy these organs, the particular pleasure they provide, incidentally extreme, is indisputable, for both sexes. Recent anatomical discoveries bring scientific founding to this empirical affirmation. Taylor’s one, in 1996, concerning the part of exquisite erogenous mechanism of the ring of the tip of the foreskin, ends the nonsense that the foreskin would not be an organ. Since that date, it is established that the ablation of the masculine feminine organ is genuine sexual mutilation; the preputial lid does not only protect erogeneity of the glans, it is also a highly erogenous zone, particularly appreciated in autosexual pleasure. Not having been awarded the medicine Nobel prize, this discovery remains ignored, though it has been experimentally confirmed by Sorrells’s sensitivity enquiry. At last, the third sexual function of the foreskin - that of a gliding cushion reducing friction in coitus - has also been highlighted. It explains why the African women whose partners are sexually mutilated are more hit by AIDS. Several statistical enquiries have shown that the circumcision status does not influence transmission of STDs, but for AIDS in the medium term. However, in front of mass circumcision advocated to fight it, one must recall that elementary ethics forbids mutilation for prophylactic motive, and very particularly that of children. Nobody has the right to practise circumcision of child or adult without serious medical motive. The foreskin is no more a detail of the body than gas chambers one of history. Fourth fact: the psychic trauma. Highlighted by Freud, traumas bearing on infantile sexuality provoke the formation of the unconscious and are a deep cause of mental disease. Assaulting the image of the body, the castration of the specific organs for autosexuality has strong emotional repercussion and creates a serious trauma, the most often unconscious. Autosexuality, the very first, most natural, innocent and harmless sexuality is gravely made guilty. Sexual mutilation threatens boys of total castration but even in non circumcising cultures, women suffer, unconsciously but much more than men, from the threat associated with circumcision. Indeed, if one destroys the lid of the glans with man, what then may happen to an as small and pure enjoyment organ as the clitoris, without protective nor genital function? Fifth fact: the so-called symbolical taking of possession of the individual by the group and the laying down of the law of the strongest through terrorist violence. The human sacrifice of a part of the body exploits a powerful psychological mechanism of enslavement of the person. Indeed, for the unconscious, as for fetishist, infantile or primitive soul, the part is equivalent to the whole (cf. the abuses of Voodoo that, after the prohibition of sexual mutilation by the enslavers, “possesses” its victims by cutting off a lock of hair, till forcing them to prostitution). This abuse of power finds pretexts in illusory adult learning and inacceptable possessiveness: “I know, therefore I have the right to determine what shall be done to your body.” Sixth fact: discrimination and segregation. Sexual mutilation is done in order to warrant an alleged moral superiority, isolating the ethnic group out of artificial racism, and sometimes to favour endogamy. It is also a means of enslavement through exclusion of opponents. The great social function of sexual mutilation is giving the right to wedding through certifying a passage to adulthood accomplished within submission to established order. It is a false certificate. At the contrary, one may fear that rare be the maimed ones who practically reach adult age, characterized by deep acknowledgment of the difference of sexes and of the desire of the other, an acquisition that alone enables the access of peoples to democracy. This is why we rise against sexist designations that set up one gender against the other instead of gathering them in auto- defence and defence of the toddler. Sexual mutilation is irreversible. It harms more particularly three categories of the population: children, bachelors and widowers. As long as the feministo-masculinist speech ignoring the child’s sexuality will prevail, it will not be possible to eradicate sexual mutilation.

    The agent of sexual mutilation: the moral order

    “This commandment has not been prescribed to correct a physical deficiency but a moral one.” Maimonides, XIIth century

    The Jewish philosopher Maimonides, the first, ascribed to a moral order the responsibility of sexual mutilation. We stand against this falsely moral religious order which tries to dominate and make use of the child as the adult in the name of “black pedagogy” (“Hush, it’s for your own sake!”), through terrorist corporal punishment. Under the guise of folklore and so-called “identity” or “passage” rites into adulthood, they have for sole aim to obtain the submission and the alleged moral and physical purity of the individual, through a violence and threat that traumatize them. Being relatively minor, these crimes against humanity (minors) are not punishable inasmuch as, resting upon antique customs which confer them seeming legitimacy, they are devoid of intention of harming, but on the condition that they will be stopped as soon as their damaging effects will have become notorious. These barbaric customs are not reserved to Islam, Judaism and a few primitive tribes but also existed in Asia where the Chinese married their daughters more easily through the torture of foot-binding and the Balinese would file short the incisive of young people in order, probably, at the origin at least, not to risk biting during sexual abuse. In Europe, it was defloration of young prostitutes by knife. At last, circumcision invaded Anglo-Saxon countries in the 19th century, to move back only in the 20th, and is becoming general in South Korea. These barbarities are accompanied by verbal repression that operates a mental mutilation, sole present in the rest of humanity. This sexual mutilation in the general meaning similarly subjects the individual to hypocritical puritanism. Perhaps less irreversible, mutilation of the minds through speech, Paulinian, Christian and Western, is as fearsome as physical excisions. It has the same aim of rendering the individual compliant through traumatizing them by a putting into unconscious terror founded upon the stupid decree that, without even admitting it, makes autosexuality the original sin. It is fierce and dangerous because it is a both parental and societal lie, difficult to eradicate from minds. The damage provoked by mental repression is as incalculable as that of physical repression. The discoveries of psychoanalysis (on the one hand, infantile sexuality and the unconscious, on the other hand, the emphasis upon infantile trauma put forth by Freud and Alice Miller) stand against this violence. Violence in education, rather than tender care, has catastrophic results: breeding violence, addiction or depression (neurosis, psychosis and perversion). Transcultural studies of American anthropology (cf. James Prescott - violence.de) have, with absolute statistical correlation, extended the observations of psychoanalysts to entire populations. They report that violence is inhibited by pleasure, and reciprocally, and that it stems from lack of tenderness in infancy and of the prohibition of premarital sexuality. Biology, anatomy, prophylactic medicine, psychiatry, sexology, ethics, law, sociology, ethnology, history of cultures and religions, and psychoanalysis, human sciences are unanimous in standing up for organs sometimes alleged to be redundant but actually destroyed because they are the specific organs for a taboo practice: autosexuality.

    Sexual mutilation: the height of repression of sexuality

    “Do not throw your seed amongst the thorn-bushes. Manage to circumcise yourselves...” (Jeremiah, 4: 3-4)

    More than a century ago, Freud already made himself the spokesman of infantile sexuality, including natural exhibitionism and voyeurism. By verifying its existence (manusexuality and auto-fellatio) right up inside the womb, prenatal ultrasonography today brings him strong backing. However, autosexuality is still repressed in one way or another. Indeed, imagine a being that has freely practised autosexuality in its mother’s womb. You are this being. Now imagine that once out of this Eden, while quietly being bathed, you are suddenly glowered at and harshly told: “Why is it so? You touched it?” Or else you realize that, insidiously, hypocritically, everybody around you not only condemns nudity but also disparages your act of self love by wording it through pejorative and reproachful terms. The root (manus stupratio) of the most common one denounces disturbance - like in per-turbation - and turpitude. “Autosexuality” must replace the execrable term, invented by religious, made guilty and allegedly chaste bachelors but at times revealing themselves paedophiles, which must be crossed out of the vocabulary. This is a necessary step in the fight against sexual violence and crime. Repression of the very lightly said infantile sexuality stems from this universal taboo. Minors emotionally perceive this repression as a death threat through loss of love and thus abandonment. Outlawing pleasure, such a threat can only oppose the resolution of the Oedipus complex: adherence to law. So is it likely to block children or adolescents in their growth. Perversions, notably paedophilia, the twin sister of homophilia, and rape, are the direct consequence - aggravated by the sexual fuss of the media - of the hypocritical public reprobation of what everybody gaily practises in private. Only seducers, rapists, paedophiles and homophiles “masturbate”, in their victims, granting them the same contempt they endured in their autosexuality of childhood. They will no longer need this when autosexuality will be universally accepted. A height of this repression, sexual mutilation generates particularly high violence. It does not welcome the child into a society regulated by the difference of sex and age but enlists them in warlike gangs through barbarous and military initiation. Of the ten genocides of modern times, only one did not imply sexually mutilated on one side or the other, the frequency of wars is three to four times greater in circumcising countries, the death penalty twice more frequent, and they (half of them) are the only ones to excise girls. In Norway, two per cent of the population who are circumcised commit sixty per cent of the rapes. Sexual mutilation separates the child from the mother at an age when this is the last thing to do; the result is catastrophic. It is the breeding ground of sexism, paranoia, fanaticism and group or state terrorism.

    Sexual mutilation is discriminatory and segregationist

    “An uncircumcised is not a man!”

    1) The assault on the individual and the exclusion of opponents Distinctive physical signs hurt human dignity in a way typical of the moral order: a violation of intimacy. Marking the body makes it an advertising poster and Moses and Mohammed forbade tattoos and scarring because it must not be treated like a commodity. Pulling down the trousers of the child in order to mutilate them is horrid humiliation. The above quoted African saying implies that the absence of mutilation entails casting out by the ethnic group. This systematic accessory of sexual mutilation reveals its deep meaning of measure of exclusion, of barrier to marrying outside the group through dissuading the youths from mixing up with those of neighbouring groups, one of the main concerns of the racists.

    2) The assault on the species; a double exclusion: discrimination of the individual and other ethnic groups Physical marking also attacks the human species. Founding one people’s identity upon an assault against the identity of the species is not only degrading, it is also discriminatory since it leads to illusorily believe oneself superior or even boast about it. No people may carve out for themselves a purely formal identity upon the body of their children without offending the rest of humanity. Identity founded upon mutilation is an identity of collective alienation through auto-exclusion. Intended to separate the group from others, sexual mutilation is a sectarian act, sometimes committed under the guise of religion and alleged to bring a moral and physical (hygiene), and even sexual superiority. But exclusion calls for hatred. Some great thinkers (Spinoza, Freud) denounced circumcision as a source of hatred from neighbouring peoples. Sexual mutilation is encouraged by tyrannical regimes that use it as well as initiation for their troops as sign of tribal distinction. It has the most often a sexist character. Taking for alibi the festivities of folklore, it is imposed by military and religious elites with adolescent behaviour. The community sign is always a call for nationalism, a sign of war. Tattoos, veils, burkas, forced obesity, stretched vulvar labias, scarifications, knocked off teeth, bound-feet, cut off clitoris and foreskins, the death penalty, to arms, et cetera, the escalation of the very ethnic techniques of manipulation of the minds through mutilative marking of the bodies - a great instrument of the war of generations and sexes - channels human needs at the service of the interests of dominating classes. Antisexual and antidemocratic since intending to create superior, allegedly chaste and pure beings, sexual mutilation discriminates neighbouring groups and the individuals of the group itself who refuse it. More fascist than fascism, it is unbearable by fascists themselves; this is not a reason for democrats to tolerate it.

    Conclusion

    On the one hand, the fight against excision progresses only in dribs and drabs while that against circumcision is at a standstill in Anglo-Saxon countries, on the other hand, in scandalous paradox, the medicalization of excision (often deadly; 5 to 15% immediate deaths) south of the Mediterranean is followed by that of its restoration north of it. This because one deceptively attacks the symptoms without getting to the root of the problem: guilt of autosexuality and making it guilty, and thus without attacking circumcision in the same time, which would bring real efficiency to the fight. The recommendation of abstinence in the fight against AIDS proves it. Autosexuality is considered both as debauchery and infantile behaviour, to such a point that, in certain societies, everything happens as if, facing the absence of biological sign of passage to adult age, the destruction of the specific organs for autosexuality had to be set up as a testimony of it. These human groups seem to ignore that the human being is only an aging child and that those unable to regress are also unable to progress. Sexual mutilation is not racist; it is artificial racism, more racist than racism, that, according to the welcome sarcasm of one of our contradictors, looks for making “supermen”. Excision and circumcision being committed without intention of harming, denouncing this will of discrimination and segregation under threat of exclusion of opponents is the only means to penalize them. Sexual mutilation is the tool of a particularly efficient tyranny. Founded upon a perversion of ethics distorted into moralizing morality, creating neurosis inside the people in order to give a social basis to that of the rulers, it pretends giving lessons to the people for the sole sake of those who exploit them. The abolition of this crime against humanity is a stage in the fight against the repression of sexuality and for the right of the human person to the free access to their own body and the respect of their physical, emotional and mental integrity. We demand the inscription of the right to body ownership as article 1st of the Universal declaration of the rights of the human person:

    “The right of the human person to the property of their own body is an inalienable, inviolable and sacred right.”

    Revised and without cut for lack of time version of the lecture pronounced 4th September 2008 in the University of Keele (U.-K.), at the 10th international symposium of NOCIRC, organized by NOCIRC, NORM-UK and the University of Keele school of law.

    Sigismond (Michel Hervé Navoiseau-Bertaux), HEC, Lic. Sc. Éco, DECS, a former pupil of the Psychoanalysis department of Paris VIII University, independent psychoanalysis researcher, author of “Sexual mutilation, the victims’ point of view”, for free at circabolition.multiply.com or intactwiki.org. oldsigismund@hotmail.com

11. Posted by Kika, on 16 July 2009  at 11h06

    I truly wonder, if given the opportunity to choose to have the proceedure done as ADULTS, whether or not these same women who support the practice would willingly undergo what they propose innocent young girls should? How willing would they be to subject themselves to the tortuous pain and potential for infection that it inarguably causes?

12. on 10 August 2009  at 13h24

    I think that if the procedure is done by a properly trained medical professional than FC is perfectly fine! Orthough if I may say the practice of inflabation (compleate sealing of the urinary opening and sealing up most of the of the viginal opening,leaving a hole the size of a pinhead.)is dangerous, as it can cause serious health problems.

13. Posted by RLR, on 13 May 2010  at 00h57

    The writer completely neglected to give any type of legitimate reason for female circumcision. So if the point is not to stunt female sexuality, WHAT IS THE POINT OF IT???

    It is racist to say that different people should have different treatments and different standards of justice just b/c of their race or ethnicity. These accusations of cultural imperialism are only ways of silencing opposition, and cultural pluralism is only expected in Western countries, while it’s non-Western societies’ cultural right to be as imperialistic as they want.

    Other long-standing cultural and religious traditions: foot-binding, praying for your child instead of giving life-saving medicine, and honor killings.