Female circumcision and women's health
Baasher, T.
Draper Fund Report 9: 19-20
1980
ISSN/ISBN: 0191-3905 PMID: 12262094 Document Number: 448891
WHO (World Health Organization) and a number of professional, national, regional, and other international organizations recently intensified efforts to discourage the practice of female circumcision still extant in several African countries and in isolated areas of the Arabian Peninsula, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Female circumcision is an operation frequently performed on females, between the ages of 5-10, in accordance with religious and cultural traditions. The operaton involves the complete or partial removal of either the clitoris prepuce, glans clitoridis, the clitoris, the labia minora, and labia majora. The operation can result in serious psychological and health problems for the young girls. Immediate complications include surgical shock, hemorrage, infection, tetanus, and damage to the urethera or anus. Late complications include infertility, keloid formation, dermoid Cyst dyspareunia, pelvic infection, and pregnancy complications. In 1976 WHO focused special attention on the problem and in 1979 the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office of WHO included a discussion of the problem in the agenda of a Seminar on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children. Seminar participants recommended that countries where female circumcision was still practiced should 1) abolish the practice by statute if necessary; 2) establish national commissions to deal with the problem; and 3) educate the public about the dangers of female circumcision. Somalia recently established a national commission on the problem, and the Cairo Society of Family Planning developed a set of recommendations for combating the practice.