International Women's Day. Stop Female Genital Mutilation!

March 8th we celebrate International Women's day. Women have influenced life since the dawn of mankind, whether anyone wants to admit this or not. We have been suckled, nurtured protected and loved at one time or another in our lives. We are influenced every day by women. Be it our Mothers, sister, friends, neighbors or strangers. So let us think about the women in our lives and what they have done for us and what they bring to our world.

FGM. Do you know what these three letters stand for? Female Genital Mutilation. A horrible mutilating disfiguring of women done because it is believed by many to ensure a man's progeny was his and also to insure women were not sexual beings. This is not known to be truly the whole reason and is open to speculation.

Female Genital Mutilation is usually done to girls between the ages of three and six, although the age can vary, and are done by the women of the family and village. It is performed in secret and leads to disfigurement and problems for the girl later in childbearing years. In order for a girl to have sex most often surgery is needed. In order to give birth more surgery is needed. More than 100 million women and girls are estimated to have had FGM.

What does this say about the women of the world? Are they so expendable? Are they worthless in the eyes of so many? Some say uncut women are considered more likely to be promiscuous, unhygienic and prone to diseases such as Aids. Attempts have been made to justify this horrific practice on religious grounds. Some die hard Muslims insist that women must undergo genital cutting to remain faithful to the purest teaching of Islam, even though it not mentioned in the Koran and only in uncertain expressions in the Hadith (a collection of oral traditions about the life of the prophet Mohammed).

It is known by a variety of names, the most common being female genital mutilation (FGM), female circumcision, or simply "cutting". It involves removing part or all of the clitoris, the surrounding labia, and then sewing up of the vagina, leaving only a small opening for urine and menstrual blood. There are no anesthetics involved, just a little girl held by her legs, spreading them apart and then using a piece of glass, a rusty razor blade or filthy knife and then cutting off the clitoris and labia and ending by sewing the raw edges together. A pack of mud and herbs are then put on the wound and the girl is held in isolation until she has healed, usually several weeks.

The real unsettling story is the fact that this practice is still happening in Britain today! By conservative estimates there are 66,000 women and girls living in Britain that have been mutilated. Because of the secrecy, finding and punishing the cutters, who are often flown in from their home countries is extremely difficult. The families have had the ways of cutting in their cultures for hundreds of years and to eradicate this belief is damn near impossible.

I cry as I write this because of the complete ignorance in this matter. You hear of it, possibly you have seen pictures but who has any idea of long term results of this practice. Genital mutilation may leave a lasting mark on the life and mind of the woman or child who has undergone it. The psychological complications may be submerged deep in the child's subconscious and may trigger behavioral disturbances. In the longer term,
women may suffer feelings of incompleteness, anxiety, depression, loss of trust, chronic irritability and frigidity. Many women and girls, traumatized by their experience but with no acceptable means of expressing their fears, suffer in silence. I urge all women to stand up and say enough is enough!

This year lend your voice. Help educate these women and help them see what they are doing and how wrong it is. If this is their choice then let them choose as adults, not be forced as very young children who have no say so in this cruelty. There are charities out there who are trying to stop this barbaric custom. Stopfgmc is one such site that warrants a look.

Here is a petition that you can sign.
This website has some good information.
More info here.
Another source of info

A Charity Worth Looking, At Freedom from Hunger

Freedom from Hunger remains one of my favorite charities. They do not just give food or money to people, they do so much more. They give dignity where there was none. They give chances to people who thought they had none. They give a hand to those who need support.



Founded in 1946, Freedom from Hunger brings innovative solutions and helps in the fight against chronic hunger and poverty. Freedom from Hunger is funded by a grant from Bill and Melinda Gates of $5.6 million dollars. This is only one of a handful of organizations experimenting with health care microfinancing. When looking into the impact on these loans it was discovered that people were not using the loans to grow a business, but were using the money to pay for a sick kid. In 2007 FFH started it's microfinance and health protection program at institutions in five nations and offers discount doctor visits, health care savings accounts, affordable medicines and emergency health care loans. In most cases, customers were required to attend health care classes in order to get the small business loan.

The theory is the healthier the borrowers, the better bank customers they will be. Loans will be repaid and they will come back for bigger loans making their business start ups better and their families will thrive. 15,000 families are now getting basic medical care. When doctors were first approached about offering discounted care only 7 signed up. Now there are 51.Women are attending health seminars and using health care loans to pay for eyeglasses and minor surgeries Freedom from Hunger will continue it's experiment in 2009. Think of how the money you give can impact one families life.

Here are some of the ways you can help.

Genocide In Rwanda Part 3

Politics in Rwanda were dominated by the Tutsi which was just 17% of the population and virtually all the rest of the population was Hutu with 1% aboriginal Twa. Starting in 1959 during the transition to independence the Tutsi were abandoned by their Belgian colonial sponsors, which allowed the Hutu to seize control, setting in motion the idea of throwing off hundreds of years of Tutsi oppression.

The new Hutu rulers targeted former Tutsi officials and their supporters for retaliation forcing several thousand Tutsi to flee the country. The first refugees left Rwanda in 1959 for neighboring Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire. Sometime in 1969 some of these Tutsi refugees started calling themselves inyenzi ("cockroach" to signify their persistance) and attempted to return to power in Rwanda and reinstall the Tutsi mwami or king. Attacks were launched from bases in Uganda and Burundi which in turn caused Rwanda's hard line Hutu nationalist government to retaliate by escalating oppression of, and attacks against, Tutsi within the country.

The most successful attacks occurred in 1963 when Tutsi from Burundi came within ten miles of the Rwandan capital, Kiqaali. This then triggered the most intense outburst of reprisal killing against Tutsi in Rwanda. Though horrific, this proved effective in reducing the inyenzi attacks, which stopped in 1967. All told from 1959 to 1967, 20,000 Tutsi were killed and 200,000 were driven from the country as refugees. The Tutsi population now dropped from 17% to 9%. After the inyenzi invasions the remaining Tutsi of Rwanda were spared major outbursts of violence for over two decades, with the exception of one minor occurrence in 1973 when the failing regime of Rwanda's first president tried to win popular Hutu support by scapegoating the Tutsi. This was quickly cut off by the overthrow of the regime in July of that year by a Hutu army officer from northwestern Rwanda, Juvenal Habyarimana.

Once Habyarimana seized power, Hutu from his northwestern region came to dominate Rwanda garnering resentment from both the Tutsi and other Hutu. The Tutsi were also given quotas for education and other government benefits as part of an affirmative action program on behalf of the historically deprived Hutu. Habyarimana also blocked the return of Tutsi refugees which he saw as a potential threat to his power. In the absence of any further invasions by Tutsi refugees, the Rwandan Tutsi were spared any organized violence for 17 years.