Female Circumcision

by Abusharaf, Rogaia Mustafa

• ISBN13: 9780812219418
• ISBN10: 0812219414
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-02-15
• Publisher: Univ of Pennsylvania Pr

Summary

Bolokoli,khifad,tahara,tahoor,qudiin,irua,bondo,kuruna,negekorsigin, andkene-keneare a few of the terms used in local African languages to denote a set of cultural practices collectively known as female circumcision. Practiced in many countries across Africa and Asia, this ritual is hotly debated. Supporters regard it as a central coming-of-age ritual that ensures chastity and promotes fertility. Human rights groups denounce the procedure as barbaric. It is estimated that between 100 million and 130 million girls and women today have undergone forms of this genital surgery.Female Circumcisiongathers together African activists to examine the issue within its various cultural and historical contexts, the debates on circumcision regarding African refugee and immigrant populations in the United States, and the human rights efforts to eradicate the practice. This work brings African women's voices into the discussion, foregrounds indigenous processes of social and cultural change, and demonstrates the manifold linkages between respect for women's bodily integrity, the empowerment of women, and democratic modes of economic development. This volume does not focus narrowly on female circumcision as a set of ritualized surgeries sanctioned by society. Instead, the contributors explore a chain of connecting issues and processes through which the practice is being transformed in local and transnational contexts. The authors document shifts in local views to highlight processes of change and chronicle the efforts of diverse communities as agents in the process of cultural and social transformation.

Author Biography

Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf is Senior Research Associate at the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University. She is the author of Wanderings: Sudanese Migrants and Exiles in North America.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Custom in Question	p. 1
Local Contexts and Current Debates
"Had This Been Your Face, Would You Leave It as Is?" Female Circumcision Among Nubians of Egypt	p. 27
Male and Female Circumcision: The Myth of the Difference	p. 47
African Campaigns to Eradicate Female Circumcision
Community-Based Efforts to End Female Genital Mutilation in Kenya: Raising Awareness and Organizing Alternative Rites of Passage	p. 75
A Community of Women Empowered: The Story of Den El Barsha	p. 104
Strategies for Encouraging the Abandonment of Female Genital Cutting: Experiences from Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Mali	p. 125
The Sudanese National Committee on the Eradication of Harmful Traditional Practices and the Campaign Against Female Genital Mutilation	p. 142
The Babiker Badri Scientific Association for Women's Studies and the Eradication of Female Circumcision in the Sudan	p. 171
"My Grandmother Called It the Three Feminine Sorrows": The Struggle of Women Against Female Circumcision in Somalia	p. 187
Debates in Immigrant-Receiving Societies
The Double-Edged Sword: Using the Criminal Law Against Female Genital Mutilation	p. 207
Representing Africa in the Kasinga Asylum Case	p. 224
Afterword: Safe Harbor and Homage	p. 234
Notes	p. 243
List of References	p. 253
List of Contributors	p. 273
Index	p. 279
Acknowledgments	p. 289
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