These people are a little better than cannibals!!! How can the civlised world tolerate such people?

Its Barbaric, its a bad element of culture that has to be done away with like other cultural elements that were wrong and discarded by the same society where it was practiced. In my professional life I had seen for myself the damage this causes. Please understand that this is nothing like the male circumcision where a flap of useless skin is removed. A male equivalent of a female circumcision would be the removal of parts of the penis and scrotum. The scaring destroys the lives of this young ladies with constant infections and infertility. It is in fact illegal in most countries where it was and still practiced, it still continues among the rural and poorly educated masses away from the eyes of authorities.

This practice is long over due to be outlawed ,It is barberic and belongs in the past with a lot of other things that rule lives to day. I.E the dress code in some countrys . WE are living in the in this Century not in the past were some would like us to be , They are on a power mission. Its just to satisfy their EGO`s

Some forms of female circumcision do less damage than the usual form of male circumcision. One just removes the clitoral hood (the female foreskin), so it's the exact equivalent of cutting off a boy's foreskin. In some countries, female circumcision is performed by doctors in operating theatres with pain relief. Conversely, male circumcision is often performed as a tribal practice. When circumstances are similar, so are outcomes, and 22 boys died of circumcision in Eastern Cape Province last year. Are you aware that the USA also used to practise female circumcision? Fortunately, it never caught on the same way as male circumcision, but there are middle-aged white US American women walking round today with no external clitoris because it was removed. Some of them don't even realise what has been done to them. There are frequent references to the practice in medical literature up until at least 1959. Most of them point out the similarity with male circumcision, and suggest that it should be performed for the same reasons. Blue Cross/Blue Shield had a code for clitoridectomy till 1977. One victim wrote a book about it: Robinett, Patricia (2006). "The rape of innocence: One woman's story of female genital mutilation in the USA." Nowadays, it's illegal even to make an incision on a girl's genitals though, even if no tissue is removed. Why don't boys get the same protection? Don't get me wrong. I'm totally against female circumcision, and I probably spend a lot more time and money trying to stop it than most people. If people are serious about stopping female circumcision though, they also have to be against male circumcision. Even if you see a fundamental difference, the people that cut girls don't (and they get furious if you call it "mutilation"). There are intelligent, educated, articulate women who will passionately defend it, and as well as using the exact same reasons that are used to defend male circumcision in the US, they will also point to male circumcision itself, as well as labiaplasty and breast operations, as evidence of western hypocrisy regarding female circumcision. The sooner boys are protected from genital mutilation in the west, the sooner those peoples that practice FGM will interpret western objections as something more than hypocritical cultural imperialism.

It is torture. It is also child abuse. Just because something is "traditional" does not mean it is not torture. In Britain, they used to hang anyone who stole a loaf of bread or murdered someone, they had no "let the punishment fit the crime"! That is what the book Les Miserable is all about! The punishment if you were a commoner for treason was being drawn and quartered, while beheading was for the rich found guilty of treason. Beheading was considered the easiest form of death, easier than being hung. Surely, we consider being drawn and quarted torture now! Much that was tradition is now considered criminal torture...like foot binding. I would NEVER go to a country that allowed such things and subject my child to such treatment! I would fight anyone to the death go keep from such a horror being imposed on me and mine. I think Sarkozy is right...if I have to put on a Chador if I go to Iran, then we have the right to demand that people respect OUR values just as well.

Just as barbaric as circumcision carried out on newborn children. This painful and completely unnecessary procedure is practised by Jews, most Islamic cultures and even some African Christian churches on obscure and ridiculous religious pretexts. It shows how little we have actually progressed since we lived in caves!

What better way to control the human being, than, at birth or whenever, to use OUR SEXUAL ENERGY to enslave the mind. Torture, mind control, etc., to | of | for children --- is the number one tool of control, by the so-called "richest rulers of earth," for their families' ensured capture of masses of future generations of THEIR common stock. Animals, obviously (not the commoners). How difficult is it to understand the agendas of those who figure out how to harvest the brain of humans - it is not, just follow the idea of how a brain | mind | soul/spirit can be broken-molded-formed-controlled. Humans since the beginning of time have been, unfortunately, turning more towards barbarism and cannibalism than enlightenment. This is truly not rocket science. NO NO NO 'foreskin' mutilation MALE OR FEMALE - an 'energy' which has been co-created by an energy that absolutely no human being can even begin to actually define WHOLLY (sexual energy in the physical body) - decided as useless or unnatural, AND, the decision/s of mutilation and worse are formed in minds not balanced, by humans in control who think this is a natural or 'normal' idea. In other words, there is absolutely not one good reason or purpose to mutilate the physical body, which is the greatest creation known to our species! Obviously, we have yet to figure out just how we become a human being. Maybe it is time to contemplate how the mind-body-spirit becomes manifest and therefore, take the Mengele of our species and carefully corral this miscreant-type thinking so the miracle can take care of itself without the modern scientists of eugenics mutilating the competition for their own families of clear DNA corruption, distortion and now it is becoming evident our best interest for the future, is not in the hearts and minds of those in control of decision-making for the human physical body.

So-called female circumcision is torture and illegal. The intention is to remove a woman's pleasure when making love, the idea being that if a woman has any pleasure from this act, she is certain to commit adultery. This is part of the larger idea that men cannot help themselves when committing adultery and that women are to blame for encouraging men (even in cases of rape). As far as culture and tradition go, in most of Western Europe, it used to be customary to torture those who were not Catholics until they admitted the crime of heresy whereupon they would be executed for their sin. No doubt, Muslims in Western Europe are glad that Catholics no longer follow such barbaric customs. It took many wars for Western Europe to free itself from the rule of the Catholic empire and it's violent oppression - we are not about to tolerate the same from Islam. I think those involved in female genital mutilation should be locked and the key thrown away.

I think this is the most barbaric thing I have ever heard and i can't belive that this is being allowed to happen in some countries, it needs to be outlawed, it is immoral and wrong. Women have the right to feel pleasure and have the option of having kids, making them infertile and allowing those girls to be open to so many infections is just ridiculous. Circumcision on a male is completely different, doing so does not make a man infertile or take away his right to feel pleasure, it takes the foreskin off to help decrease on infection and in some cases is an appearance issue. they are not the same thing, and whoever thinks that is just uneducated.

Female genital mutilation is a barbaric practice that still is practiced in Muslim countries to remove sexual pleasure from females so they will no be tempted to commit adultery.Its a barbaric custom a crime actually and has to be condemned hy United nations and its perpetrators be arrested by Interpol and be punished.The islamic torture of females ,after 1400 years must end!

When people use god as a reason to commit such barbarity, it scares me to the core. Any person who commits this barbaric act, ROT IN HELL!

This is so embarrassing, at least to Muslims. I mean seriously, women in hijab performing female circumcision. Everyone here must realize that these women are South-Asia, not even Arabs.. so lets not make stereotypes. What's more embarrassing is that the girl's legs are being shown publicly, which is utterly immodest and not Islamically permitted, especially at the puberty age. If she did not go through puberty, she shouldn't even be covering. And what is worse is that we all realize these women cover, and therefore, one would make an assumption that they are probably Muslims. What's really distasteful about this article is that it shows images of Muslim women performing this operation, yet have no proof or verses of what the Quran or Hadith says anything about female circumcision and whether it is accepted or not. Therefore, this shows the one-sidedness of the story, and just cause ignorant readers to assume this is entirely an Islamic practice. For example, like my old friend who used to assume this same except thing, yet she has tons of Muslim friends who never went through this procedure. And already we have people like Roger J and leonidas who assumes it's entirely an Islamic practice with no cultural bases at all. Lets not forget all those Middle Age torturing methods that have nothing whatsoever to do with Islam or even the Asian countries.. Where mostly Europeans were hanging people naked, ripping breasts off of women with the breast ripping tools, and having people sit on spikes, etc. And I agree with mark, if it's for females, it's totally a mutilation but for males, it's not mutilating. I am not for female "mutilating", but I am pretty sure leonidas is wrong about "1,400 years ago", because many many distinct and minor cultures were doing it way before Islam was brought to the world. And don't be such a fool thinking that just because a few people do it, that everyone does. Days of Ignorance all over again!

I find it funny how people find some countries to be inferior because they somehow put up with a "dress code" or some of these 'free' countries with their people assume things all the time. I am pretty sure half the people here are US citizens with no knowledge of any other place of the world, just assuming everything they see on the news or reading bias articles with no religious texts to back up their information. I am a US citizen myself, and if no one has realized, Muslim women seem more oppressed and tortured in what they thought was going to be a "free country", but unfortunately, places like UK and France banned what they required most. And these countries are called free? If no one realized, these "mutilations", are forced on children. They did not choose to, and it's a cultural idea. I find it so amusing that Kenneth W. assumes that countries with "dress codes" are for satisfying "egos" Okay and is American not a country that is satisfying the majority of peoples' egos? The controversy of abortions? Dress codes in some public schools? (Joseph B. Cavallaro Middle School)? And the new century? This century just started 10 years ago. Hellooo peopleeee! According to the Quran, men and women of all color were accepted in society. Most of the famous companions of the prophet were African. And how long did it take for African Americans to get their rights in this "modernized" and "in-the-century" country? Like 40 years ago or something? How hard did women have to fight to get their rights to vote and not be the "housewife live" of the old days? And now that everyone is satisfied with the needs of American citizens and their egos, we have rape, child abuse, sex offenders, half naked women, sex selling, secret societies, drunk driving, domestic violence, etc. Congratulations for the ego?

I'm confused about whatever you're going on about, MinaJuJu, because I don't see anybody outright calling anyone inferior (I'm not disagreeing with you, I just don't understand where that came from because I take a while to catch on; sorry buddy.) And hey, Thousand, I understand it's not an entirely Islamic practice. I don't know as much about different cultures as I'd like, but, just saying. At least one other person commenting understands this *flail* Anyway, about the practice itself, I just don't support this kind of torture on anyone for any reason :( These children should be protected. Ignoring that the reasons themselves seem sexist and ludicrous in the first place, nothing but physical and emotional trauma can come out of it. Nobody should be forced to go through something like that *shudder* It really is mutilation. That's not the same thing as circumcision. I've read/heard about it before. Granted, I'm not expert, nor do I claim to be one. Only giving an opinion. I'm all for cultural differences, traditions, being proud of your heritage and all that, but this doesn't have anything to do with being proud of who you are or celebrating your heritage. It's like reducing women to animals and saying they don't even have the right to say what happens to their own bodies.

Some people need to be circumcised, cough, even though Jesus didn't like it, lamenting that it was a "New Creation not Circumcision." galatians 6:15 I'm surprised that they don't use that verse more.