week 8

Daisy and i have prepared our interview questions for both our interviewees.

We're interviewing Mike Minehan on Thursday.
Over the weekend I'm interviewing my friend and her parents who went to Kenya
last year and came across a village with girls that had refused FGM and ran away to this village.
Her mom is a psychologist and her dad a doctor and she (my friend) did aid work in Uganda,
so we thought they'd have alot of opinions on the mental and physical damages a girl
goes through after having it done.

Daisy is currently researching Somalian political conditions because we were told that there hasn't
been an adequate functioning government there for some time. So we're wondering since FGM is against the law,
that its probably impacted the prevalence rates in Somalia.

This week we'll post a bog on it.
Please tell us your opinions

What's your opinion

A New Debate on Female Circumcision

"Dr. Shweder says that many Westerners trying to impose a “zero tolerance” policy don’t realize that these initiation rites are generally controlled not by men but by women who believe it is a cosmetic procedure with aesthetic benefits."

Visually pleasing? We agree that it is done by women but it is only "visually pleasing" to men. Only men will consider them more pure and more likely to be chosen for marriage by a man. Female circumcision is run by a patriarchal society and therefore controlled by men

"He criticizes Americans and Europeans for outlawing it at the same they endorse their own forms of genital modification, like the circumcision of boys or the cosmetic surgery for women called vaginal rejuvenation."

These procedures are done in sterile conditions with trained doctors and women CHOOSE to have this done and the boys getting circumcised have no future painful intercourse, painful urination or even more painful childbearing and birth complications.

What's your opinion?

Female genital mutilation

Week 7

We're trying to get our blog linked to as many sites as we can, so this week we've emailed Amnesty International, Unicef, and World Vision to see if we can feed our blog into their sites and vice versa. So now we're just waiting on replies.

We've also started to organise our interviews. We'll be interviewing a doctor, psychologist and their daughter who travelled to Kenya and worked in a village with girls who had run away from home in order to escape the ritual. We'll also be interviewing an expert from Liverpool hospital who has dealt with victims of FGM. We'll also interview one of our uni lecturers with some viable opinions on the issue. We'll also interview a woman who has worked in a hospital in Ethiopia with fistula patients. Hopefully we'll get these interviews in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned.

We've posted an article this week too, so comment!

What we plan to do

Over the next 7 weeks, we plan to do the following the things...

• Do weekly posts on what we have done and what we plan to do next and another post on a reply to a related article.
• Find 3 different people to interview who are experts or have been effected by FGM.
• Design interview questions for each interviewee. 
• Find blogs which link to our blog and its topics.

What it is

This is just something Romy and I got from the World Health Organisation website, just to give you some idea of what Female genital mutilation (FGM), actually is.

FGM comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

The practice is mostly carried out by traditional circumcisers, who often play other central roles in communities, such as attending childbirths. Increasingly, however, FGM is being performed by medically trained personnel.

FGM is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children. The practice also violates a person's rights to health, security and physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death.

For more information on what the procedures comprise of, according to the World Health Organisation, click on the link below.

World Health Organisation