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NEWS & LETTERS, March 2003
Our Life and TimesAfrican conference
Women from across Africa gathered, Feb. 5, for an
international conference on genital cutting. Female genital mutilation is
practiced in 28 countries in Africa and the Middle East. Despite the efforts of
many African women to ban this inhuman practice, half of Africa's nations still
do not have any prohibitions in place. In Somalia and Ethiopia, the most extreme
form of genital mutilation is practiced, and in Ethiopia 90% of rural girls are
mutilated. In countries like Kenya where the practice is now
officially banned, some girls are bringing lawsuits against their parents for
subjecting them to this practice. In Ghana and Ethiopia, resistance to genital
mutilation is also growing. As one Ethiopian activist, Bogaletch Gebre,
expressed it: "The silence has been broken." |
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