Understanding the effect of COVID-19 on gender-based violence in Nigeria
By Hunter Kessous In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hidden Scars and Magool have teamed up to offer biweekly webinars that amplify the voices of the grassroots organizations working to protect girls and women at this time. On June 9th, the third installment of the Africa Led Movement series addressed the effect of the pandemic […]
How COVID-19 impacts programs devoted to ending gender-based violence, including female genital cutting
By Hunter Kessous The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the world upside down, so it is unsurprising that gender-based violence (GBV), including female genital cutting (FGC), has also been affected. Hidden Scars and Magool came together to co-host the Africa Led Movement Webinar series. In May, I had the pleasure of attending the second part of […]
An ode to every woman fighting social norms around the world
By Geethika Kodukula Country of Residence: USA (This month, Indian news reported three disturbing incidents targeting women and girls. In the first, 68 students at a women’s college in Gujarat were forcibly strip-searched to prove they were not on their period because the college’s religious administration does not allow menstruating women to enter temples or […]
‘A Pinch of Skin’ to Screen in Berlin
Sahiyo co-founder’s documentary ‘A Pinch of Skin’ will be screening at NaturFreudeJungend in Berlin on the 25th May. 25th May is also the one-year anniversary of the historic repealing of the ban on abortion in Ireland, also known as the 8th Amendment. This is especially significant as a successful contemporary feminist movement, where women of Ireland voted […]
The complexities of female genital cutting (FGC) in Singapore: Part II
Part II: Cleanliness and religious reasons for FGC By Saza Faradilla Country of Residence: Singapore This blog post is the second in a four-part series about female genital cutting (FGC) in Singapore. This second installment explains two of the five reasons raised by my interlocutors about FGC in Singapore: cleanliness and religion. (Read part one […]
Survivor of Mumbai: Plight to End Female Genital Cutting
By Brionna Wiggins (An alias was provided to protect the survivor’s identity and family.) There was once a girl who was seven-years-old in Mumbai, India. She and her mother visited a woman so that she could have her “khatna” done. Her mother was an educated woman and later a principal of a school. Today, she […]
The importance of creating a body of knowledge on female genital cutting
By Cameron Adelman My ultimate career goal is to work in sexual health with underserved populations. Access to sexual and reproductive health services is incredibly difficult in most states in the United States. It is even more difficult for people living in low-income areas, for the LGBTQIA community, for immigrants, and for people coming from […]
બધા નુક્શાનો શારીરિક નથી હોતા અને દરેક ધર્મ સંપૂર્ણ રીતે નૈતિક નથી હોતો
(This essay was originally published in English on September 21, 2018. Read the English version here.) લેખક : ઝીનોબીયા ઉંમર : 27 વર્ષ દેશ : ભારત આજે સોશિયલ મીડિયા પર અન્ય બાબતોની સાથે-સાથે મહિલાઓને સશક્ત કરવા, પોતાનો નિર્ણય પોતે જ લેવા, વ્યક્તિની ગોપનીયતાના અને તેના શરીરના ઉલ્લંઘન વિષે અને સંમતિની ભૂમિકા વિષેના વિચારો અને અભિપ્રાયો […]
Topple the system- question the microaggressions
By Priya Ahluwalia Priya is a 22-year-old clinical psychology student at Tata Institute of Social Sciences – Mumbai. She is passionate about mental health, photography, and writing. She is currently conducting a research on the individual experience of Khatna and its effects. Read her other articles in this series – Khatna Research in Mumbai. Patriarchy […]
Let there be no more victims like me
By AnonymousCountry: Sri Lanka I am a victim of Female Genital Cutting – some might want to call it circumcision, I call it Mutilation. Not quite the way that the proponents want to depict it as what always happens in Africa (infibulation) with horrific scars, but in the way, it happened to me in Sri […]