Netherlands: Doctor calls to allow light form of female circumcision

Jannes Mulder, former internist and oncologist, writing in the Dutch medical journal Medisch Contact, says that girls are still being circumcises, even though the procedure is banned.

The Dutch Council for Public Health estimates that at least 50 girls are circumcised every year, mostly in the Somali community.

In his article, 'A drop of blood', Mulder suggests that since banning the procedure doesn't work, a symbolic form of the practice - pricking the clitorial hood - should be allowed. This would prevent more serious forms of female genital mutilation, and allow medical oversight of the procedure.

His idea was immediately dismissed by Monica Van Berkum, head of Pharos, an information center about preventing and dealing with female circumcision. Van Berkum says that no compromise should be made regarding the integrity of a girl's body. Even a little prick give a completely wrong message, as if that's needed to make a girl fit.

Sources: HLN, Medisch Contact (Dutch)

See also: Netherlands: Imams against female circumcision, Belgium: Female genital mutilation

16 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm beginning to think Muslim men should all be castrated as they seem to have such a self-control problem. Leave little girls alone. God created them perfectly and as he wished them to be.

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Mark Lyndon said...

How come people are so keen to prevent even symbolic female circumcision, yet male circumcision is allowed to continue?

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Mark Lyndon said...

The form of circumcision they're talking about doesn't remove any tissue or even make an incision. I'm not defending it, but if "no compromise should be made regarding the integrity of a girl's body", then why do we allow boys to have the most sensitive part of their penis cut off?

The fastest way to end female circumcision will be to end male circumcision at the same time.

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Anonymous said...

Oh come now ladies, where is that spirit of "cultural relativism" and multiculturalism that is suppose to be so important to the continental Europeans?

Are people starting to get the idea that "cultural relativism" is a concept whose idea should be abandoned? The idea that a muslim man should be able to have 4 wives, beat them, divorce them at any time by saying "I divorce you," starting to dawn on you as uncivilized?

About time, and I certainly hope so!

All cultures are not equal. Much that is embraced by islam is uncivilized. Islam is not a religion its a cult and its about control.

Just for the record, I totally agree that FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) is barbaric at the least.

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Anonymous said...

What they often do in Indonesia is a symbolic circumcision whereby the swipe the little girl's clit withy alchohol or betadine. That's acceptable, since it's actually not mutilation in any way except nominally. Also, people need to stop calling it 'circumcision.' It's MUTILATION. Period. People who do it should be made to feel like the sickos they are. Screw the victims, who defend it anyway. And how gay do you have to be to find female genitalia gross the way it is? Being gay is cool, but closet cases who marry women just to prove something are just plain sick. And most men from African Muslim countries are then gay by definition, if you ask me. And what is the Muslim obsession with virginity about? Like, how insecure can those men possibly be and have no shame about it? We've seen the Abu Ghraib pics and we know what that's about, so stop kidding yourselves, because we're not buying it. Sorry to sound insensitive, but the most shocking thing about those pics was the unbelievably extreme anatomical inadequacy of those men's sex organs. Someone had to say it.

A prick of an idea said...

No Muslim girl should have to put up with a little prick in her genitals. In a democracy every girl is entitled to her choice of prick size.

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Anonymous said...

Female genital mutilation, in ANY form, must be eradicated.

Hard to believe a doctor is encouraging this. Maybe he should have a light form of castration and see how he likes it.

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