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Shi Huangdi
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Pittsburgh, PA
Apr 1999
time: 00:18
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http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3806689
quote:
5:14am (UK)
Genital Mutilation 'On the Increase in Europe'
Young girls born in Europe to immigrant families from Africa are being subjected to ritual genital mutilation, and authorities are doing little to discourage it, a leading women’s rights activist warned.
Somalia-born supermodel and best-selling author Waris Dirie, who has campaigned to end the disfiguring practice she suffered at age five in her homeland, said yesterday that she estimates one in every three African families living in Europe is secretly carrying out the ritual on their daughters. No official figures exist.
The procedure – illegal in most European countries – is especially prevalent in Germany and the Netherlands, as well as in Austria, where an estimated 8,000 girls born into immigrant families have been affected, Dirie said.
“We don’t know who’s doing it and where,” because there are few initiatives to prevent it or to encourage doctors, nurses, social workers, teachers and others to report suspected cases, Dirie said. An exception is France, where there is strong awareness and education, she said.
“What good is a law if no one is paying attention?” Dirie told reporters in Austria, where she was being honoured yesterday by a Roman Catholic men’s movement for her efforts to stop the practice.
Islamic religious leaders are telling Europe’s Muslim Africans that the prophets recommend the ancient ritual, which involves the removal of the clitoris, often with a dull blade and no anaesthesia, Dirie said.
“That is a catastrophe,” she said. “Every imam who is not actively against genital mutilation is guilty. Mutilation is not a tradition – it’s a crime that must be abolished.”
Although women generally perform the procedure, sometimes called female circumcision, men are ultimately responsible because “untrimmed” young women “face great difficulties in African societies in finding a husband,” Dirie said.
Between 100 million and 140 million women have undergone genital mutilation worldwide, and two million girls are at risk each year, according to the World Health Organisation, which says the practice can lead to infection, the spread of Aids and crippling physical, psychological and sexual problems.
The practice has been on the rise not only among immigrants in Europe but also in Australia, Canada and the US, Who says.
Petra Bayr, an official with Austria’s Socialist Party, said the bloc’s women would press the government to consider genital mutilation an “act of violence” and legitimate grounds for women fleeing it to be granted asylum in Austria.
“Women who are threatened with genital mutilation or have already suffered it should not have to wait for months for an open door,” added Raimund Loeffelmann, a spokesman for the Catholic men’s organisation honouring Dirie yesterday. |
This is really sad. I hope Europe will take this seriously, investigate, find the people who are doing this, and send the offenders away to prison. Have any of Poly's Europeans have heard about this practice being imported to Europe before and if so what is being done about it?
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germanos
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behind a firm ****, Rotterdam, NL
Apr 2002
time: 06:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Have any of Poly's Europeans have heard about this practice being imported to Europe before and if so what is being done about it? |
It's happening in the Netherlands, although it is thought to be done abroad (in the native country)
I'm pretty sure this practice is strictly bound to sub-sahara muslim communities (Ethiopia, Somalia etc.).
All children in primary school are checked by doctors of the health department, and if female circumcision is discovered it is reported. There has been a debate to extend this practice to secondary school pupils especially with respect to the issue of the mutulation, as sometimes the circumsicion takes place at a late age (around 12 years).
I heard from a friend of mine (who is a nurse) that in hospitals in Holland women who have been circumsised in the most severe form (where basically everything is cut away and sewn up) are beyond reconstruction, and their private parts are so messed up that after giving birth the surgeons have no option then to sew it up again.
Obviously, the practice is illigal in the Netherlands (it violates the integrety of the body, a constitutionally right). The big problem is how to ensure that girls do not fall prey to the butchers. Recently a law has been passed that makes parents of girls who are circumsised accountable for it, even if the butchering has taken place outside the Netherlands (and thus legally outside Dutch jurisdiction).
MP Hirsi Ali has been victim, and campaigns actively to end the practice. This would also include male circumcission.
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germanos
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behind a firm ****, Rotterdam, NL
Apr 2002
time: 06:18
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I think there is quite a big muslim minority in Ethiopia, but I could be wrong.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3806689
This is really sad. I hope Europe will take this seriously, investigate, find the people who are doing this, and send the offenders away to prison. Have any of Poly's Europeans have heard about this practice being imported to Europe before and if so what is being done about it? |
Yes. However it also appears to be on the rise in Canada, Australia and the United States too- so why is Europe being singled out for taking this seriously, when it already does?
'It is already an offence to send a girl abroad for the purposes of female genital mutilation in the rest of the UK following the passing of the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003.'
http://www.ippf.org/fgm
http://www.zerotolerance.org.uk/04_...aug/semutil.htm
Ethiopia's religious mix, according to the government's website is:
'Ethiopian culture and tradition have been much influenced by both Christian and Muslim religions. The Amharas and Tigreans are predominantly Christian and adhere to the Orthodox church. The Oromos, the largest ethnic group are more mixed, with Christian and Muslim communities, as well as communities who adhere to local traditions.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the largest religious group (45%), followed by Sunni Muslims (35%) and those with traditional beliefs (11%). An additional 9% are listed as ‘others’. Catholicism and Ethiopian evangelism (Mekane Yesus) are also considered to be important religions in Ethiopia.
Religion has always been a major influence in Ethiopia and no other sub-Saharan country in Africa can trace its origins as far back. Ethiopia is mentioned many times in the Bible and in the Qur’an.'
http://www.ethioembassy.org.uk/gove.../government.htm
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Monk
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I don't think we're in Brønshøj anymore
Jan 1970
time: 06:18
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In this country there have been several official attempts to establish some kind of contact with immigrants from Somalia, trying to persuade them not to carry on their traditions even using religious arguments alongside rational ones, but due to the nature of the issue, it's almost impossible to know for sure how much it helps.
Like in The Netherlands according to germanos, teachers, doctors, nurses etc. have to notify the social authorities, should they have a good reason to believe a child is going to be circumsised, or that a girl is suffering from the effects of female circumsision, but these notifications happen very rarely as far as I know. Hopefully this is because of a low degree of female circumsision, but sadly it does seem logical that many of these girls will lie and deny due to strict orders from home, or sheer shame.
Legally speaking, the current gov't tightened the rules so persons who conduct or assist a female circumsision now recieve up to six years in prison, as do those who send their daughters abroad for this purpose (possibly a grey issue in cases of countries like Somalia where the practice remains legal, but I reckon it's the best we can do).
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problem_child
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State of the Animal
Mar 2000
time: 05:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Combat Ingrid
Indeed, but we are not allowed to discuss it, because then we are racists  |
Oh please, you remind me of some whingy little rich kid who's obsessed with percieving himself as a victim.
I'm never shy to announce my grim opinion of Islam, anybody who says that's racist can go to hell, a religion (manmade) can't compare to a race (nature-made), Islam and the rest of them WISH they could honestly be seen as things like Races. But a bunch of bollocks that some people choose to believe does not compare to actual genetics giving continental groups of people specific appearences.
Besides, I myself am assimilationist, and I reckon all these immigrant problems are turning up now because of the neo-liberal divide & conquor Polotical Correctness Regime of Insincerity agenda to divide everybody as much as possible and make those differences the most important thing in their lives.
I thought the whole point of culture was to bring people together into a common reality, thus- German culture, the culture of people who live in Germany, American culture, the culture of those who live in America, etc. To Assimilate is to change, widen or expand the culture.
Multiculturalism is an agenda to make everybody feel like a victim and a foreigner in the land of their birth, and compete against everybody who doesn't look exactly like themselves. Furthermore, it makes people like Combat Ingrid ***** and moan about being seen as racist.
ps- Islam sucks, so do the others, it doesn't surprise me that such barbarism is promoted amongst them. Lets add further to the ridiculousness of the idea that saying Islam sucks (which it does) is racism, the ancestors of most of the people in the 'Muslim World' were invaded, brutally conquored, had their traditions exterminated, and the Islamic monoculture impossed upon them.
A fu hundred or a couple thousand years later (depending where you live in the aftermath of the muslim empire- er... I mean muslim world) people are called racist if they point out the nature of the chauvanistic control-freak nature-hating belief-system that calls itself 'Peace' for some inexplicable reason.
Obviously Islam isn't particularly worse then christianity, christianity is just a little more tamed and beaten into acting civil because of the Reformation, and hundreds of years of Governments that couldn't afford to indulge the religions gross excesses
Last edited by problem_child on 27-11-2004 at 19:36
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Combat Ingrid
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Satan's Majestic Empire
Nov 2001
time: 06:18
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problem_child: I'm not *****ing about being seen as a racist. I'm not a racist and if anyone wants to call me that, fine, it's their problem. I don't feel like a victim either.
I'm just fed up by the fact that you can't really debate these issues, people will just call you racist and then stop listening to whatever you may have to say. Say the PC thing or shut up, basically.
But we do have immigration related problems, such as the one this thread is about. To solve it, we need a constructive debate, not the polarised one we have today. We need to acknowledge the problems we have and try to bring up solutions that will benefit both the natives and the immigrants. Sadly, very few people seem to be interested in solving problems, they just follow their political agenda, no matter what 
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problem_child
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State of the Animal
Mar 2000
time: 05:18
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I agree, most people do care alot more about this 'Left/Right' thing then any kind of morally informed rationality.
But in this thread I notice you were the first person to mention 'racism'.
Also your terms are interesting, Native vs Immigrant? What does that mean... if someone was born in a nation, is that person immigrant or native? what if their parents were born on another continent? What about people who have no problem living in the culture in which they were born, but have to put up with other people going on about the identity crisis they're supposed to have all the time, or calling them immigrant when they've known no other culture then the one in which they were born, or having issues bracketed in 'race' when they themselves didn't even think the issue involved that?
I think some people are just over-sensitive about race. We can excpect that from Americans but, everybody else should ease off I think, and forget about Political Correctness, this divisive American-invented false-politeness amounts to nothing more then a cynical attempt at social-engineering, thought control and difference-enhancement. Also as you say, it anihilates discourse.
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Dr Strangelove
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Many states in the USA require that a child have a physical examination prior to entering school. In every state of the Union a physician is mandated by law to report suspected casers of child abuse, it is a criminal offence to not do so. Why don't the nations of Europe require that children get a physical exam at the ages of 6 and 12 and then also require that physicians report cases of FGM?
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27-11-2004 10:12
Smiley 
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