Friday, November 13, 2009

Female Circumcision

Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting (FGC), female circumcision or female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), is any procedure involving the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs "whether for cultural, religious or other non-therapeutic reasons." The term is almost exclusively used to describe traditional or religious procedures on a minor, which requires the parents' consent because of the age of the girl.
When the procedure is performed on and with the consent of an adult it is generally called clitoridectomy, or it may be part of labiaplasty or vaginoplasty. It also generally does not refer to procedures used in gender reassignment surgery, and the genital modification of intersexuals.
FGC is practiced throughout the world, with the practice concentrated most heavily in Asia and Africa. Opposition is motivated by concerns regarding the consent (or lack thereof, in most cases) of the patient, and subsequently the safety and long-term consequences of the procedures. In the past several decades, there have been many concentrated efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) to end the practice of FGC. The United Nations has also declared February 6 as "International Day Against Female Genital Mutilation".
Several dictionaries, including medical dictionaries, define the word circumcision as applicable to some procedures performed on females. Cook states that historically, the term female circumcision was used, but that "this procedure in whatever form it is practiced is not at all analogous to male circumcision and so the term 'female circumcision' gave way to the term 'female genital mutilation'" Shell-Duncan states that the term female circumcision is a euphemism for a variety of procedures for altering the female genitalia. Toubia argued, in 1995, that the term female circumcision "implies a fallacious analogy to nonmutilating male circumcision, in which the foreskin is cut off from the tip of the penis without damaging the organ itself." However, in the 1999 book Male and Female Circumcision, Toubia states that she agrees that "circumcision — that is, the genital mutilation of girls and boys — is wrong despite its widespread practice."
The term female genital mutilation gained growing support in the late 1970s. The word "mutilation" not only established clear linguistic distinction from male circumcision, but it also emphasized the gravity of the act. In 1990, this term was adopted at the third conference of the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (IAC) in Addis Ababa. In 1991, the World Health Organization (WHO), a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN), recommended that the UN adopt this terminology; subsequently, it has been widely used in UN documents. In this context, the term female circumcision was thus predominantly replaced by the term female genital mutilation.
Because the term female genital mutilation has been criticized for increasing the stigma associated with female genital surgery, some groups have proposed an alteration, substituting the word "cutting" for "mutilation." According to a joint WHO/UNICEF/UNFPA statement, the use of the word "mutilation" reinforces the idea that this practice is a violation of the human rights of girls and women, and thereby helps promote national and international advocacy towards its abandonment. They state that, at the community level, however, the term can be problematic; and that local languages generally use the less judgmental "cutting" to describe the practice. They also state that parents resent the suggestion that they are "mutilating" their daughters. In 1999, the UN Special Rapporteur on Traditional Practices called for tact and patience regarding activities in this area and drew attention to the risk of "demonizing" certain cultures, religions, and communities. As a result, the term "cutting" has increasingly come to be used to avoid alienating communities.
In 1996, the Uganda-based initiative REACH (Reproductive, Educative, And Community Health) began using the term "FGC", observing that "FGM" may "imply excessive judgment by outsiders as well as insensitivity toward individuals who have undergone some form of genital excision." The UN uses "FGM" in official documents, while some of its agencies, such as the UN Population Fund, use both the terms "FGM" and "FGC”.



FGC consists of several distinct procedures. Their severity is often viewed as dependent on how much genital tissue is cut away. The WHO—which uses the term Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)—divides the procedure into four major types[23] (see Diagram 1), although there is some debate as to whether all common forms of FGM fit into these four categories, as well as issues with the reliability of reported data.

COHABITATION

Cohibitation is a living arrangement in which an unmarried couple live together in a long-term relationship that resembles a marriage.
Couples cohabit rather than marrying for a variety of reasons. They may want to test their compatibility before they commit to a legal union. They may want to maintain their single status for financial reasons. In some cases, such as those involving gay or lesbian couples, or individuals already married to another person, the law does not allow them to marry. In others, the partners may feel that marriage is unnecessary. Whatever the reasons, between 1970 and 1990, the number of couples living together outside of marriage quadrupled, from 523,000 to nearly 3 million. These couples face some of the same legal issues as married people, as well as some their married friends never need to consider.

 

In most places, it is legal for unmarried people to live together, although some zoning laws prohibit more than three unrelated people from inhabiting a house or apartment. A few states still prohibit fornication, or sexual relations between an unmarried man and woman, but such laws are no longer enforced. Some states also prohibit sodomy, which includes sexual relations between people of the same sex. Although anti-sodomy laws are rarely enforced against consenting adults acting in the privacy of their homes, a 1986 Supreme Court case proved that such laws can be. In Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 106 S. Ct. 2841, 92 L. Ed. 2d 140, the Court held that private, consensual homosexual acts are not protected by the right to privacy and that laws prohibiting such conduct are constitutional.

The law traditionally has been biased in favor of marriage. Public policy supports marriage as necessary to the stability of the family, the basic societal unit. To preserve and encourage marriage, the law reserves many rights and privileges to married persons. Cohabitation carries none of those rights and privileges. It has been said that cohabitation has all the headaches of marriage without any of the benefits. Cohabiting couples have little guidance as to their legal rights in such areas as property ownership, responsibility for debts, custody, access to health care and other benefits, and survivorship.