Islamic State orders female genital mutilation for all females in Mosul
The Islamic State has issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, ordering that all women in the city of Mosul undergo female genital mutilation.
The Guardian reports that the decisions would affect 4 million women and girls, citing Jacqueline Badcock, a representative of the United Nations.
Female genital mutilation, sometimes called female "circumcision," involves the cutting off all the external flesh of the female genitals such as the labia and clitoris. The practice is itself extremely painful. It is more often than not done improperly and without anesthetic, resulting in severe issues with urination, infection, and other dangerous, painful side effects to a woman's health for the rest of her life.
The practice also serves to make sexual intercourse and giving birth extremely painful, as only by cutting the scar tissue that formed over the damaged flesh can the vagina again be opened.
The radicalism of the Islamic State was already making itself apparent through actions like the one in this Tweet from Al Arabiya:
#ISIS tells #Iraqi shops to veil mannequins https://t.co/A0zkbp3E7b pic.twitter.com/6JbcYoH9Oy
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) July 24, 2014
However, the decision to force a practice that is already widely condemned in most of the world may only gain the group more opposition from the international community, which may begin to rethink its apprehensions about using force areas controlled by IS. Social media was loaded with condemnation of the IS's violent new regulation.
Isis 'orders FGM' for women in Mosul. Apparently the barbarity of 'The Islamic State' has no bounds.. #ISIS #Mosul https://t.co/6iQs7gw5e8 — Drew Smith (@DrewSmithUK) July 24, 2014
Islamic State leader al-Baghdadi orders genital mutilation of 2 million girls in Mosul: https://t.co/T8AprwKWeG Beyond frightening!! :((
— Joseph Ciprut (@mindthrust) July 24, 2014
