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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Female genital mutilation rampant in Iraqi Kurdistan |
| 2005-04-15 |
| I thought this barbarism was mostly a North African problem. The article prefers the term "circumcision," but "castration" is truly a more appropriate analogue. EFL. [A]ccording to a 2004 survey of women from the Kurdish-controlled Iraqi areas of Erbil, Dohuk and Sulaimaniyah, a staggering 75 per cent of 40,480 respondents were found to be circumcised. The Kurdish method of circumcision involves the removal of a girl's external genital organs. The procedure is usually carried out by women who are not trained in surgery. There is no anaesthetic and little attention to hygiene. As a result, there is a high risk of infection and haemorrhaging. Women with disfigured genitals commonly have problems with urination, intercourse and childbirth. In Iraqi Kurdistan, uncircumcised women are often looked down upon. ... "Our friends told us that if a girl isn't circumcised, the water from her hand is unclean and not fit for drinking and that God is angry with her. So we decided that the three of us should go to Hamdia's, a friend of ours, and circumcise one another." Muslim clerics in northern Sulaimaniyah declared a fatwa on the practice in 2000. Muhammed-Amin Abdul-Hakeem Chamchamali, the head of the Kurdistan Religious Scholars Union, said the "common belief that uncircumcised women are dirty or unsuitable for marriage is unfounded" and they "are not guilty of anything in the religious sense". Do you feel his implacable outrage? No, me neither. Roonak Agha of the Kurdistan Women's Union has launched a campaign to educate mothers against circumcising their daughters, which she says has begun to lower the incidence in some areas. "We held symposiums and seminars, and have made a concerted effort to stop circumcision. We have held talks with religious scholars here so that we can persuade mothers to put an end to this phenomenon." Islam? Thanks to projects like these, circumcision is on the wane in the larger cities of Kurdistan. But in smaller towns and villages, the practice is more difficult to eradicate. C'mon, repeat after me, class: "Take a look at our own culture, first! We condone baggy pants, nipple-piercing, and Britney, and so we're Just As Bad™." Absolutely; American mothers pin their daughters down and force them, under penalty of honor killing, to dress like skanks; it's obvious equivalence. Unbelievable. While some progress is being made in tackling female genital mutilation, many victims of the practice continue to suffer the consequences. Sairan Muhammed said her husband took a second wife because of her sexual frigidity. That sound? Yeah, I need a new monitor ... and a new fist. One consolation for her, she said, is that her four daughters will not have to experience what she went through. I'm not a religious man, but 'Thank God' nonetheless. What unimaginable self-loathing could possibly push Muslim women to such lengths just to accommodate the boundless sexual insecurity of Muslim men? Imagine for a moment restraining your own daughter or younger sister, ignoring her screams, knowing that at best, at best, she's doomed to life as a eunuch ... if she survives. And all so her groom, some bewhiskered old turd, won't feel like he wedded "a whore." Sub-human, soulless fucking barbarians. My inner struggle between "nuke 'em all" and "give them time" tilts yet again. Sorry, Fred, if my comments warrant deleting this. |
| Posted by:Rex Rufus |
| #19 Tribalism is the ultimate root of collectivism. And any place you find either, you find stupid things like this happening. The cure is a combined injection of knowledge and liberty, and the destruction of the tribalist/collectivist inertia. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-04-15 11:34:30 AM |
| #18 Tribalism is the ultimate root of collectivism. And any place you find either, you find stupid things like this happening. The cure is a combined injection of knowledge and liberty, and the destruction of the tribalist/collectivist inertia. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-04-15 11:34:30 AM |
| #17 don't give men a pass by blaming it on Islam. They can/should do better. The misogynist attitudes they perpetuate do damage, but all it takes it as mass-awakening to the damage done to women, and boys buggered by mullahs (yes, I'm RC and our priests need to pay for their crimes as part of a cleanup), to know this is a seriously f*&ked up |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-04-15 7:36:16 PM |
| #16 I just want it all to stop. You know I usually write about women's issues and Islam, but I think that what Islam does to men is very ugly and debilitating. Islam insults the creation of life by intentionally causing pain, harm, destruction-they do it physically, through terrorism, honor killings and female genital mutilation, and they do it mentally and emotionally, too. It seems like a desecration of a gift, to me. |
| Posted by: jules 2 2005-04-15 7:22:25 PM |
| #15 As a guy with a unit (i.e. extra brain) - it causes me pain to recommend societal removal of same in Islam, but it would cure a lot of worldly ills, wouldn't it? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-04-15 7:05:07 PM |
| #14 Frank G-Yep. The wrong starts with the shaming of men for their life force and finishes with extinguishing the offending "root cause"-females in sexual ecstacy. And I accidentally stumble again on a word that keeps coming up in arguments around Islam-"root causes". Where there is no free will, people have no recourse-just doom from "root causes" in life. How incomprehensible and then ,when encountered, how completely shocking our political AND personal freedom must seem to those who do not believe in free will. |
| Posted by: jules 2 2005-04-15 6:58:53 PM |
| #13 You insensitive brute! |
| Posted by: Abu Bruce 2005-04-15 6:47:36 PM |
| #12 ok so honor killings and this genital mutilation shit has to stop. Start with our allies teh Kurds, if it's happening (I have my doubts on the extent of both - once is too much) then step it up on the world stage. Why are we not bombarding the world's airwaves with ridicule of muslim men's insecure sexualities and the horrors that result from same? Start with rapes in Paris, Belgium, etc....Make these losers international pariahs as they should be, and awaken women to the general use that kitchen carving knife can come to when necessary! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-04-15 6:12:47 PM |
| #11 Honor Killings are also quite common in the Kurdish rural regions. |
| Posted by: Paul Moloney 2005-04-15 5:44:25 PM |
| #10 The Kurds are not the blameless heroic democrats of Islam. The Turks used the Kurds to massacre Greeks and Armenians back in the 1900-1920 ***Sufis are not harmless either. They've done Jihading in India |
| Posted by: sea cruise 2005-04-15 12:52:16 PM |
| #9 Ok I have googled a bit about it and I stumbled upon this http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=5327 The source is Kurdish and NOT recent (I discarded page dated April 12, 2005 as suspect, ie could have been made by the "peace" group). So it seems the peace moonbats were right for once |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-04-15 12:35:08 PM |
| #8 Tribalism is the ultimate root of collectivism. And any place you find either, you find stupid things like this happening. The cure is a combined injection of knowledge and liberty, and the destruction of the tribalist/collectivist inertia. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-04-15 11:34:30 AM |
| #7 Regardless of the extent this has occured in the past, its noteworthy that no one is quoted as defending the practice and the Kurds are clearly making good progress in eliminating it. Judge people not by what has happened in the past but by what they are working to achieve now. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-04-15 11:32:30 AM |
| #6 There probably are some primitive, tribal remnants of this in Kurdistan, but the scale certainly seems way off. Where woman-hating religions and superstition are strongest is where this practice is most widespread. Seems to me the stopping of this might be a point of leverage for the US. "This practice needs to be outlawed in Kurdistan, or else..." Still, nothing can compare to the infibulation in parts of Africa and the Arabian peninsula. Remove anything that could remotely be connected to pleasure, sew it up, and cut it open when you want in or baby wants out. Human beings can certainly be disgusting creatures when they want to be. |
| Posted by: Jules 187 2005-04-15 11:29:21 AM |
| #5 ..IWPR is led by senior journalists and peace researchers,.. Peace researchers. That sets off warning bells right there. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-04-15 11:19:40 AM |
| #4 "...staff drawn from established media such as the BBC, The Guardian and Reuters..." Well, that's the trifecta of credibility, right there. Salt, anyone? This needs a grain of it the size of a cattle lick. |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2005-04-15 10:24:01 AM |
| #3 Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting An international media development charity, IWPR is led by senior journalists and peace researchers, with staff drawn from established media such as the BBC, The Guardian and Reuters. The Institute is a partnership between the London-based charity established in 1991, and the recently formed IWPR (US), based in Washington, DC, 501(c)(3) charitable status pending. I think JFM gets credit for a hit. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-04-15 9:54:33 AM |
| #2 Ok, I never, never, ever heard of female genital mutilation outside of Africa and some parts of Yemen. AFAIK, even in Saudi Arabia it is more or less unheard off, let alone in a land who is much farther of Africa, where Islam is taken with a grain of salt (remember that the Kurds don't want Islam being the soure of Iraki law) and whose traditions give much more liberty to women than between Arabs. And it doesn't fit with what I have seen of Kurdish women with their unveiled faces and freely dancing with men and looking quite joyous (has anyone seen an Arab woman laughing?). So I will bite the bullet. I think it is a lie, a smearing campaign of the LLL aimed at denigrating a group who is relatively friendly to the US and at implying that women were better in times of Saddam. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-04-15 9:34:04 AM |
| #1 Rex, your comments are spot on. It is barbaric, there is no other word for it. I know we can't fix everything at once, but at some point we need to put some sharp, quiet words to the Kurds and start changing practices there. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2005-04-15 9:14:51 AM |