South & Southeast Asia: The Medicalization of Female Genital Mutilation
By Juliana Girotto, Genocide Watch
Increasingly, medical professionals, doctors and midwives, are performing FGM instead of traditional practitioners, a trend known as medicalization. There is evidence that the medicalization of FGM is taking place in at least eight countries within South and Southeast Asia. Those countries include Brunei, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The highest rates of medicalization are found in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Parents often prefer medical professionals as they seek to avoid the health risks from unsterilized equipment. Yet…