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Sheelan Anwar Omer, a shy 7-year-old Kurdish girl, bounded into her neighbor's house with an ear-to-ear smile, looking for the party her mother had promised.
There was no celebration. Instead, a local woman quickly locked a rusty red door behind Sheelan, who looked bewildered when her mother ordered the girl to remove her underpants. Sheelan began to whimper, then tremble, while the women pushed apart her legs and a midwife raised a stainless-steel razor blade in the air. "I do this in the name of Allah!" she intoned.
Widespread Female Circumcision Highlights the Plight of Kurdish Women
Seeded on Tue Dec 30, 2008 7:58 AM EST
Article Source: The Washington Post- Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.
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"This is the practice of the Kurdish people for as long as anyone can remember," said the mother, Aisha Hameed, 30, a housewife in this ethnically mixed town about 100 miles north of Baghdad. "We don't know why we do it, but we will never stop because Islam and our elders require it."
#1 - Tue Dec 30, 2008 7:58 AM ESTFemale circumcision is a terrible thing, leaving young girls mutilated, often without sensation, and sometimes infected. There are entire organizations dedicated to ending this barbaric practice and I encourage anyone who reads this to look into them and see if there's any way they can offer support.
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