Egypt Outlaws Female Genital Mutilation

Male procedure just as backward as reviled female version

(NEWSER) - Virtually everyone in the Western world seems to agree that female circumcision is horrible. It greatly reduces sexual pleasure, violates individual autonomy, and provides no discernible health benefits. Well, all that is true of male circumcision, too, writes Ethan Epstein, yet the CDC is considering a plan to “promote routine circumcision” for infant boys. It’s “as degrading as it is illiberal.” More»

African, Middle Eastern immigrants arrested after mutilations abroad

(NEWSER) - Scandinavian countries are hitting perpetrators of genital mutilation with heavy fines and prison sentences, even when the act is committed in other countries, Global Post reports. African and Middle Eastern immigrants who take their daughters abroad for genital mutilations—which are considered normal and even necessary in some cultures—are coming home to handcuffs in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. More»

(AP) - A 25-year-old Egyptian man cut off his own penis to spite his family after he was refused permission to marry a girl from a lower class family, police reported today. After unsuccessfully petitioning his father for 2 years to marry the girl, the man heated up a knife and sliced off his reproductive organ. The young man came from a prominent family in the southern Egyptian province of Qena, one of Egypt's poorest and most conservative areas. More»

Guidelines will encourage counselors to promote safe sex

(NEWSER) - Britain's Boy Scouts may soon be as prepared for healthy sex as they are for camping and woodworking, reports the Guardian. Counselors will discuss sexual health with Scouts, may even hand out condoms to prevent unprotected sex, and take their boys on visits to clinics under new guidelines to be issued today by the Scout Association primarily for boy ages 14 to 18. The association has some 400,000 members, 85% of them boys. More»

Citing further danger, AG gives woman second shot at asylum

(NEWSER) - In an extremely rare move, the US attorney general has stepped into a low-level immigration case and ordered that a victim of female genital mutilation be given another chance at asylum, CNN reports. AG Michael Mukasey slammed a previous decision that said the African woman had no reason to fear further persecution, citing an earlier case in which a woman was mutilated multiple times. More»