JAKARTA: governo vuole la fine delle FGM

The Jakarta Post December 2012

Govt told to stop female circumcision

As the United Nations has adopted a resolution urging member states to ban female genital mutilation, the government has been told it has no choice but to revoke a Health Ministry regulation issued in 2010 that condones female circumcision.

National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) deputy chairwoman Masruchah said that the 2010 ministerial regulation runs counter to the UN resolution because it legalizes a practice that is harmful to the sexual and reproductive health of women.

The UN General Assembly unanimously approved the resolution, which is not legally binding, on Thursday, urging its 193 member states to enforce legislation that prohibits female genital circumcision.

The 2010 Health Ministry regulation stipulates that female circumcision is allowed as long as it is performed by licensed doctors, nurses or midwives.

“We have consistently pushed the ministry to revoke that regulation because it abuses the reproductive rights of women. This practice stems from the erroneous interpretation of cultural and religious teachings,” Masruchah told The Jakarta Post.

Many Indonesians, she said, believed that female circumcision could control the sexual desires of girls.

Instead of providing health benefits, female genital mutilation can cause severe bleeding, urination problems and can lead to complications during childbirth, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The Health Ministry website claims that female circumcision, as stipulated in the regulation, cannot be categorized as female genital mutilation.

The regulation stipulates that “female circumcision is an action of incising the skin that covers the front part of clitoris, without harming the clitoris”.

The Indonesian Doctors Association chairman, Zaenal Abidin, said that the association would study the UN resolution and that they would issue a recommendation related to female circumcision.

“The association cannot make any recommendations unilaterally. We will involve religious scholars and communities in the deliberations. We will also study the suggestions from the WHO and international doctors’ associations,” he said.

...

Indonesian General Practitioners Association member Enrico Renaldi, who believes that female circumcision is unnecessary and harmful, said that medical practitioners in the country were facing challenges in preventing the practice.

“It is hard for doctors to be agents of change. There are strong pros and cons in the matter. Indonesians, particularly those in rural areas, see female circumcision as a necessity,” Enrico said.

Iffah Ainur Rochmah, the spokesperson for the Islamic group Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), rebuffed the negative assumptions about female circumcision practices in Indonesia.

“This is a part of our culture rooted in Islamic teachings. The practice should be carried out through procedures that will not cause health implications,” she said.

Iffah called on the global community, including the UN, to not liken Islamic female circumcision with the unhygienic and inhumane practice of female genital mutilation.

She explained that Islam teachings regulated female circumcision as a minor incision of the skin that covers the front part of the clitoris.
...

EASTERN CAPE: 15 morti nell'ultimo mese

EASTERN CAPE: Circumcision deaths resume: 15 this season

Eastern Cape officials to meet on circumcision deaths

Officials from the national department of health will meet with local leaders and officials on Friday to discuss the deaths of young boys after circumcision.

The department will meet with the Eastern Cape MEC for health Sicelo Gqobana, the Eastern Cape House of Traditional Leaders and local government departments in Bhisho, said provincial health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo.

This meeting follows the death of a boy in Mzimvubu this week.

He was the 15th boy to die as a result of a botched circumcision this season. [Apart from his death, how was his circumcision different from one that wasn't "botched"?]

In June, a total of 49 boys died while undergoing initiation in the mountains.

"The national department of health is expected to present a plan to the province and then there will be discussions that will seek to bring an end to the problem," Kupelo said.

FONTE: http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2012/12/2...umcision-deaths

Buon Natale a tutti

UN: circoncisione non previene hiv

UNITED NATIONS: Circumcision not important in preventing HIV

New H.I.V. Cases Falling in Some Poor Nations, but Treatment Still Lags

By Donald G. McNeil

New infections with H.I.V. have dropped by half in the past decade in 25 poor and middle-income countries, many of them in Africa, the continent hardest hit by AIDS, the United Nations said Tuesday.

The greatest success has been in preventing mothers from infecting their babies, but focusing testing and treatment on high-risk groups like gay men, prostitutes and drug addicts has also paid dividends, said Michel Sidibé, the executive director of the agency U.N.AIDS.

“We are moving from despair to hope,” he said.

Despite the good news from those countries, the agency’s annual report showed that globally, progress is steady but slow. By the usual measure of whether the fight against AIDS is being won, it is still being lost: 2.5 million people became infected last year, while only 1.4 million received lifesaving treatment for the first time.

“There has been tremendous progress over the last decade, but we’re still not at the tipping point,” said Mitchell Warren, the executive director of AVAC, an advocacy group for AIDS prevention. “And the big issue, sadly, is money.”

Some regions, like Southern Africa and the Caribbean, are doing particularly well, while others, like Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East, are not. Globally, new infections are down 22 percent from 2001, when there were 3.2 million. Among newborns, they fell 40 percent, to 330,000 from 550,000.

The two most important financial forces in the fight, the multinational Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the domestic President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, were both created in the early 2000s and last year provided most of the $16.8 billion spent on the disease. But the need will soon be $24 billion a year, the groups said.

“Where is that money going to come from?” Mr. Warren asked.

The number of people living with H.I.V. rose to a new high of 34 million in 2011, while the number of deaths from AIDS was 1.7 million, down from a peak of 2.3 million in 2005. As more people get life-sustaining antiretroviral treatment, the number of people living with H.I.V. grows.

Globally, the number of people on antiretroviral drugs reached 8 million, up from 6.6 million in 2010. However, an additional 7 million are sick enough to need them. The situation is worse for children; 72 percent of those needing pediatric antiretrovirals do not get them.

New infections fell most drastically since 2001 in Southern Africa — by 71 percent in Botswana, 58 percent in Zambia and 41 percent in South Africa, which has the world’s biggest epidemic.

But countries with drops greater than 50 percent were as geographically diverse as Barbados, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, India and Papua New Guinea. [...where circumcision is not prevalent.]

The most important factor, Mr. Sidibé said, was not nationwide billboard campaigns to get people to use condoms or abstain from sex. Nor was it male circumcision, a practice becoming more common in Africa. There is no scientific evidence that male circumcision cuts Hiv infection risk .

Rather, it was focusing treatment on high-risk groups. While saving babies is always politically popular, saving gay men, drug addicts and prostitutes is not, so presidents and religious leaders often had to be persuaded to help them. Much of Mr. Sidibé’s nearly four years in his post has been spent doing just that.

Many leaders are now taking “a more targeted, pragmatic approach,” he said, and are “not blocking people from services because of their status.”

Fast-growing epidemics are often found in countries that criminalize behavior. For example, homosexuality is illegal in many Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa, so gay and bisexual men, who get many of the new infections, cannot admit being at risk. The epidemics in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are driven by heroin, and in those countries, methadone treatment is sometimes illegal.

Getting people on antiretroviral drugs makes them 96 percent less likely to infect others, studies have found, so treating growing numbers of people with AIDS has also helped prevent new infections.

Ethiopia’s recruitment of 35,000 community health workers, who teach young people how to protect themselves, has also aided in prevention.

...

Medici stranieri vogliono circoncisione rituale

Medici stranieri chiedono al governo: “Circoncisione in strutture pubbliche e tra prestazioni del servizio sanitario nazionale”

Tra le proposte avanzate dall’Associazione Medici Stranieri (Amsi) al governo, avanzate al ministro per la cooperazione Andrea Riccardi e al presidente della Camera Gianfranco Fini, c’è anche l’inserimento della circoncisione tra le prestazioni del servizio sanitario nazionale. I medici stranieri, tramite il presidente Foad Aodi, chiedono che la circoncisione possa essere effettuata “presso strutture autorizzate a garanzia dei bambini e delle loro famiglie, dietro pagamento di un ticket”.

L’Amsi, con un appello sostenuto anche da Comai (Comunità del Mondo Arabo in Italia), aveva già chiesto a dicembre al ministro della Sanità Renato Balduzzi di “dare la possibilità ai genitori stranieri che vivono in Italia di rivolgersi alle strutture pubbliche per effettuare la circoncisione sui loro piccoli”.

I medici stranieri in Italia sono circa 14.500. Ma pochi sono assunti negli ospedali pubblici perché i concorsi sono riservati a cittadini italiani e della Comunità europea. Lavorano quindi soprattutto come privati.

FONTE: http://www.uaar.it/news/2012/03/21/medici-...ario-nazionale/

 

 

Cassazione: “Circoncisione, mancato ricorso al medico è scusabile”

La Cassazione, con la sentenza 43646/11 ha sancito che è un “errore scusabile” non ricorrere al medico per far circoncidere un bambino causando a quest’ultimo una emorragia grave. La Corte ha trattato il caso di una donna di origine africana che ha fatto praticare la circoncisione del figlio ad un uomo, che non era medico. Il neonato, di otto mesi, aveva perso molto sangue ed era stato portato all’ospedale. Dove la donna aveva candidamente ammesso le sue responsabilità.

Ma la Cassazione non ha ritenuto la madre colpevole del reato di esercizio abusivo della professione medica. La donna era stata condannata anche in appello. Ha fatto quindi ricorso in Cassazione, che le ha dato ragione, scriveva ieri Il Sole 24 Ore. Per la Corte, la donna non aveva la percezione né un grado di cultura tale da farle comprendere che stava compiendo un reato. Occorre inoltre considerare il “difettoso accordo che si determina in una persona di etnia africana, che migrata in Italia, non è risultata essere ancora integrata nel relativo tessuto sociale e l’ordinamento giuridico del nostro Paese”. Rispetto all’infibulazione, la circoncisione secondo la Corte non incide nella “intimità e nella decenza sessuale della persona”.

Valentino Salvatore

FONTE: http://www.uaar.it/news/2011/12/06/cassazi...co-e-scusabile/

Onu, risoluzione contro le mutilazioni genitali femminili

Onu, risoluzione contro le mutilazioni genitali femminili

L’assemblea generale dell’Onu ha approvato ieri la risoluzione per mettere al bando le mutilazioni genitali femminili. Gli stati membri sono esortati ad adottare tutte le misure necessarie per proteggere le donne e le ragazze da questo “abuso irreparabile e irreversibile” e a mettere fine all’impunità. Secondo Amnesty International, circa 3 milioni di giovani subiscono mutilazioni di questo tipo ogni anno. La proposta è stata depositata dal gruppo dei paesi africani e sottoscritta dai due terzi dell’assemblea. Dall’Onu arriva quindi un risultato importante e apprezzabile, un passo avanti per salvaguardare la salute e il corpo delle donne, quindi il rispetto dei loro diritti.



Le forme di mutilazione genitale maschile non vengono tuttavia prese in considerazione da questa risoluzione, in un periodo storico in cui diversi paesi occidentali hanno sollevato critiche verso la circoncisione rituale. C’è ancora quindi tanto da fare per arginare l’imposizione ai bambini di pratiche rituali, fortemente radicate a livello culturale e anche religioso.

FONTE: http://www.uaar.it/news/2012/12/21/onu-ris...tali-femminili/

Ministro salute malese vuole escissione medica

MALAYSIA: Health Ministry wants "medical" female cutting

Malaysia storm over female circumcision

Audio: Activist Azrul Mohamad Khalib speaks to Connect Asia about female circumcision in Malaysia (ABC News)

www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-07/acti...connect/4415044

Debate is raging in Malaysia over Muslim female genital mutilation as the country's health ministry reportedly develops guidelines to reclassify it as a medical practice.

In 2009, the Fatwa Committee of Malaysia's National Council of Islamic Religious Affairs ruled that "female circumcision", as it has become known, was obligatory for Muslims but if harmful must be avoided.

Human rights activist Azrul Mohamad Khalib has written a scathing commentary calling for abolition of the practice.

He says it has no religious or medical benefits.

But according to the results of a university survey the practice is widespread, with more than 90 per cent of Malay Muslim female respondents reporting they have been circumcised.

Azrul Mohamad Khalib told Radio Australia's Connect Asia: "It certainly is a surprising figure, really. The study involves more than 1,000 female respondents and when we look at it, around 90 per cent or so are Malay Muslims."

Disappointing
Azrul Mohamad Khalib is also communications and resource mobilisation adviser of the SPRINT project with the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

He said that to have anecdotal evidence "captured" in the study is really "both surprising and a little bit disappointing".

What about the suggestion that the health ministry may be about to register the practice?

He said: "One of the things I find quite alarming with regards to this development is that the Ministry of Health is actually depending on a fatwa, a religious opinion that was actually issued by the national fatwa council, in which they made it obligatory, or 'wajib', for all Muslim women to be circumcised.

"It seems that the Ministry of Health is now (instituting) that fatwa.

"So, in contrary to quite a number of best practices as well as a WHO (World Health Organisation) advisory, the Ministry of Health is taking steps now to sort of make it standardised, or medicalised, in such a way that it might be applied to all public health-care facilities."

At the moment the practice is carried out generally by traditional practitioners, as well as private health practitioners, the activist said.

"One of the things that those working on gender issues in Malaysia have come to realise is that a barrier when we deal with these sort of issues is the lack of awareness - the 'why' of such practices and how harmful it can be.

"Certainly when it comes to female circumcision, the position that has been taken is that if it does do no harm why not do it? Well . . . if there are no benefits to doing it, why do it?

"One of the first steps that we are trying to push out forward is that we are very much trying to spread awareness that such practices are unnecessary.

"They're not required by religion, they're not having any medical benefits whatsoever and certainly when we look at it it's strictly cultural in its entirety.

"But as you mentioned, it is going to be extremely hard if more than 90 per cent of the Malay Muslim population already practising it."