Can you list the tribes in Kenya still practicing FGM

[Nefertiti]

Omollo wtf*#! Bondo Women Society in Sierra Leone? 

Omollo yawa. I thought labiaplasty was fixing a FGMed woman. You're a sophisticated omera Global can't crack the jargon.

I find that knocking out 4 front teeth (e.g. Turkana) and scarring the cheeks and forehead (South Sudanese)  is more crude, cruel and prejudiced than peeling the foreskin.

I agree tradition is complex and it's unwise to simply have a blanket ban. I would insist on any procedure being medically approved and carried out by certified medics. That way "mutilation" and infections are eliminated. It's easier to teach the Somali a new way to ensure their daughters will not be promiscous than criminalizing them. Also child marriage and such negative effects of the induced "adulthood" must be outrightly illegal.

[Dear Mami]

I always watch for that red fish when discussing this issue with anybody who can be described the suffix -ist or -ism.

When you bring up the age of 10 and below, ofcourse one has to be a monster to subject his or her kid to such things. Be it vaginal rejuvenation or other invasive intervention.

Like I said we should all probably through an international convention set the age of consent for such operations on the body. I would say it should mirror the age of sexual consent. However countries like Holland allow baboons to have sex with children aged 13. They are even trying to lower it to 12! Now imagine such a country that licences paedophilia is at the forefront of criticizing Somalia and glorifying a Kenyan Somali who cons them that she is from Somalia and they even elect her to Parliament.

Double standards cannot address the issue. One sided focus on female mutilation practiced by the poor while glorifying worse practices by the Rich of the world is doomed to fail.

Iwinjo?

Actually, I am being generous when I say 10. I know for a fact that in my own community and even worse, among the Somalis, children far younger than 10 are subjected to this. Also, engaging in sexual intercourse should not be linked in any way with seriously or permanently disfiguring/mutilating the body. They are simply not like things. I think people who allow adults to have sex with children of 12 without serious consequence are insane. Most countries in the World would place the age of consent between 16 and 18. Still, this is a separate thing from mutilations that are not medically required especially when they have the effect of destroying or severely impeding normal functions of the body, like a woman's ability to experience pleasure when she is having sex. These should be available to adults only without exceptions.

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

Omollo wtf*#! Bondo Women Society in Sierra Leone? 

Omollo yawa. I thought labiaplasty was fixing a FGMed woman. You're a sophisticated omera Global can't crack the jargon.

I find that knocking out 4 front teeth (e.g. Turkana) and scarring the cheeks and forehead (South Sudanese)  is more crude, cruel and prejudiced than peeling the foreskin.

I agree tradition is complex and it's unwise to simply have a blanket ban. I would insist on any procedure being medically approved and carried out by certified medics. That way "mutilation" and infections are eliminated. It's easier to teach the Somali a new way to ensure their daughters will not be promiscous than criminalizing them. Also child marriage and such negative effects of the induced "adulthood" must be outrightly illegal.

He comes up with some really avant-garde material.

[Nefertiti]

Kadame and Pundit,  it's not so simple - where would you draw the line? Sex change for instance, medically you find the younger the subject the better the outcome. Sex transfer surgery works perfectly upto 15, when the body is not fully developed in late puberty. Intro boy hormones to a girl at 12 and he turns out foolproof. Do it later and you have a funny-looking manly woman like Caitlyn Jenner. Most transgenders wish it was done way early.

[Omollo]

Kadame

I have not said the Age of Sexual Consent is the same as the Age of Consent for Mutilations (if you will). I have simply suggested that some international convention agree on such an age. I further suggested that it could shadow the Age of Sexual Consent. If a person is considered old enough to consent to sexuak acts, s/he can also consent to such surgery.

Actually, I am being generous when I say 10. I know for a fact that in my own community and even worse, among the Somalis, children far younger than 10 are subjected to this. Also, engaging in sexual intercourse should not be linked in any way with seriously or permanently disfiguring/mutilating the body. They are simply not like things. I think people who allow adults to have sex with children of 12 without serious consequence are insane. Most countries in the World would place the age of consent between 16 and 18. Still, this is a separate thing from mutilations that are not medically required. These should be available to adults only without exceptions.

[Omollo]

Omollo wtf*#! Bondo Women Society in Sierra Leone? 

[Dear Mami]

Kadame and Pundit,  it's not so simple - where would you draw the line? Sex change for instance, medically you find the younger the subject the better the outcome. Sex transfer surgery works perfectly upto 15, when the body is not fully developed in late puberty. Intro boy hormones to a girl at 12 and he turns out foolproof. Do it later and you have a funny-looking manly woman like Caitlyn Jenner. Most transgenders wish it was done way early.

Robina, most people who experience gender disphoria at an early age tend to grow out of it by adulthood. I think I have read something like upwards of 80%. Given that fact, I consider it a gross injustice to children to allow them to so seriously alter their bodies when chances are they are simply going through a phase. Medical science has not yet found a way to separate those who won't grow out of it (lets call them the 'real' trans people) from the majority who will grow into the body they have, comfortably. Still, we might make a special case for trans people, say 15.

[RV Pundit]

Speaking for myself, I refuse to allow my wife to pierce my daughter ears until she was old enough to want it, and this year @9yrs she finally got it done - after persistently asking for it. Something like fgm ought to be out of question until one is 18yrs and probably have had experience sex - and they can decide to take off their clitoris. I bet very few women will do that. So I'd even more the age of consent there from 18 to something like 21yrs. What a waste of nerve endings!

[Globalcitizen12]

Speaking for myself, I refuse to allow my wife to pierce my daughter ears until she was old enough to want it, and this year @9yrs she finally got it done - after persistently asking for it. Something like fgm ought to be out of question until one is 18yrs and probably have had experience sex - and they can decide to take off their clitoris. I bet very few women will do that. So I'd even more the age of consent there from 18 to something like 21yrs. What a waste of nerve endings!

Male circumcision should end too..I am not cutting my boys

[Nefertiti]

Speaking for myself, I refuse to allow my wife to pierce my daughter ears until she was old enough to want it, and this year @9yrs she finally got it done - after persistently asking for it. Something like fgm ought to be out of question until one is 18yrs and probably have had experience sex - and they can decide to take off their clitoris. I bet very few women will do that. So I'd even more the age of consent there from 18 to something like 21yrs. What a waste of nerve endings!

Male circumcision should end too..I am not cutting my boys

MGM is much harder to end with the stiff tradition and the nonsense about how it reduces HIV infection.

[Globalcitizen12]

I will start the fight I want to undo my circumcision first

[Nefertiti]

Omollo must have a term for the foreskin restoration procedure. Most African men need it - kudos for pioneering.

I will start the fight I want to undo my circumcision first

[Nefertiti]

Do your future son the same courtesy with MGM aka circumcision 

Speaking for myself, I refuse to allow my wife to pierce my daughter ears until she was old enough to want it, and this year @9yrs she finally got it done - after persistently asking for it. Something like fgm ought to be out of question until one is 18yrs and probably have had experience sex - and they can decide to take off their clitoris. I bet very few women will do that. So I'd even more the age of consent there from 18 to something like 21yrs. What a waste of nerve endings!

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]