Another story about the horrific practice of female genital mutilation, or FGM, now occuring with alarming frequency in the American fostered democracy of Iraq. The Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations seems to be snuffed out before it was ever lit. From the Washington Times, with thanks to JMP.
GERMIAN, Iraq – Set on the arid, pebble-strewn plain southeast of Kirkuk, Hasira looks like a place forsaken by time.
Fat-tailed sheep amble past mud-brick houses and brushwood pens. The odd sickly palm tree provides shade for children’s games. There is no electricity.
Germian and 39 other villages in this region of Iraqi Kurds have made their small place in history.
Surveyed by WADI, a German nongovernmental organization (NGO) based in Iraq for more than a decade, the region has provided the first statistical proof of the existence of female genital mutilation in the Middle East.
“We knew Germian was one of the areas most affected by the practice,” said WADI director Thomas von der Osten-Sacken. “But the results were a shock.”
Of 1,554 women and girls aged 10 or older interviewed by WADI’s local medical team, 907 — more than 60 percent — said they had undergone the operation…