Religion News Service
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) International rights groups, churches and activists are escalating campaigns against female genital mutilation now that a new practice has emerged in which girls are checking into hospitals to have the procedure.
In what being referred to as the medicalization of FGM, doctors, nurses and other health practitioners are secretly performing the procedures at the request of families.
“Like abortion, they are performing FGM for the money in hospitals and other places,” said the Rev. Richard Nyangoto, a Roman Catholic priest in Kisii County, an area in the country’s southwest where FGM is widely practiced.
“Taking it to hospital does not make it right,” added Nyangoto. “It’s evil.”
Health care providers now perform up to 18 percent of FGM cases and the trend is growing, according to the World Health Organization. . . [Full Text]