Female Genital Mutilation: Two Girls Die After Circumcision.

Freetown – A teenage girl died after undergoing a botched female circumcision in Sierra Leone, police said on Thursday, just days after the death of a 10-year-old girl in Guinea.

 

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is widespread in the neighbouring West African countries, with about 90% of women in both countries undergoing circumcision.

 

Teenager Fatmata Turay died after she was circumcised in an initiation ceremony in the village of Mabolleh in north Sierra Leone and three women involved, including the girl’s aunt, have been arrested, police said.

 

“There will be an investigation into the circumstances which led to the death of this girl,” said vice minister of social affairs Rugiatu Turay.

 

The death comes just days after a 10-year-old girl in Makpozou, a forested area in the south of Guinea, died in similar circumstances, according to the country’s social action ministry.

 

The child died in a circumcision camp for young girls, the ministry said.

 

Guinea’s government urged communities that practise FGM to “stop sacrificing the girls”, and said it was committed to the fight against the “vile practice”.

 

Female circumcision is common in West Africa, where it is considered a female rite of passage and where practitioners can earn up to $50 per girl.

 

Sierra Leone recently ratified a 2003 African Union protocol that seeks to ban FGM.

Indonesia: Man Kills Wife’s Rapist, Chops Off His Penis, Cooks And Eats It

A newly-wed Indonesian couple have been arrested over claims they dined on the genitals of the woman’s suspected rapist after her husband allegedly murdered him and cut off his private parts, police said on Tuesday.

 

According to the AFP, the victim’s body was found in a burnt-out van after a suspected revenge attack sparked by claims from the new wife she was raped a week before her wedding on Sumatra island.

 

The husband, 30-year-old Rudi Efendi, has admitted murdering the man after discovering his wife was not a virgin on their wedding night in September and being told of the alleged rape, but insists he acted alone.

 

“I was so outraged,” Efendi told reporters after his arrest last month, adding that deciding to eat the victim’s genitals was “to cure my heartache”.

 

Police say that after murdering the man, Efendi took home the victim’s severed genitals, ordered his 20-year-old wife to cook them, and the pair then ate them together.

 

The victim was a driver, whom the wife used to date.

 

Sulistyaningsih, a local police spokeswoman who goes by one name, told AFP, “The case is still under investigation but we strongly suspect that this is a premeditated murder.”

 

The husband is accused of carrying out the murder, while police believe the wife acted as an accomplice.

 

The victim was found dead in early October in a burnt-out van in Tulangbawang district, Lampung province. Police later arrested Efendi and his wife.

 

Efendi had ordered his wife to contact the victim and set up a meeting, according to police. But when the victim arrived, he found only Efendi, who then allegedly stabbed him to death, cut off his genitals and set the vehicle on fire.

 

Lampung Police chief Brig. Gen. Edward Syah Pernong said that when Rudi’s wife Nency heard about the discovery of an unidentified body in a burned-out black Daihatsu Xenia in Penumangan Lama village, West Tulangbawang Regency, on Oct. 4, she believed the body could be that of her missing husband.

 

“Nency recognized the burned-out car as the one her husband drove in his work as a chauffeur for a travel agency,” Edward said, as quoted by Tribunnews.com on Monday.

 

Credit : Tribunnews.com