LAS VEGAS, Aug. 13 – For more than a year, a completed hospital dedicated to helping victims of female genital mutilation (FGM) has been sitting empty, awaiting final approval from the country’s health minister.

To no avail, according to the women languishing on its lengthy waiting list.

“The hospital is fully equipped, and it’s probably the most modern facility in the Bobo Dioulasso area,” said Nadine Gary, spokesperson for Clitoraid, the women’s rights association that financed the construction. “The health authority signed a convention with the local managing association, AVFE, back in 2006. It stated clearly that the new hospital would be dedicated to the region’s FGM victims, who need help desperately. But that same health authority now claims to have enough hospitals there already!”

Gary said the thousands of women still awaiting the long-anticipated opening of the facility emphatically disagree.

They’re about to make their displeasure known in a very visible way,” Gary said. “On Thursday, they’ll be in the streets of Bobo Dioulasso pleading for the governor to intervene. This opening has been delayed far too long.”

Why?

“Our file was in perfect order until March 2014, when a doctor started a defamation campaign against us,” explained Banemanie Traore, president of the local women’s association AVFE. “He claimed that the Raelian religion of some AVFE members is incompatible with running a hospital. But this same doctor charges $500 for the same services the new hospital would offer FGM victims for free.”

“Is this a matter of greed or of religious hatred?” Gary asked, and then went on to answer the question. “We assume it’s a combination of both factors that is tragically preventing so many women from having the free clitoral repair surgery we offer. Our hospital is ready for the operations that would remove pain endured by hundreds of thousands of women in this region. Yet the hospital remains closed no logical reason.”

It is the FGM victims who suffer most from this obstacle, Gary said.

“The overwhelming majority of FGM victims cannot afford to pay for the surgery we’re offering for free,” she declared. “That’s why we’ll continue our actions and demonstrations in Burkina Faso and abroad until the hospital is finally allowed to open.”

LAS VEGAS, May 7 – As its annual Clitoris Awareness Week (May 3-10) continues, Clitoraid, a non-profit organization in both the United Kingdom and the United States, is denouncing Britain's repeated refusal to allow clitoral repair surgery for victims of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the United Kingdom.

“Despite its extensive, well-publicized measures to end FGM on British soil, the British government still won’t let the surgery be performed there,” said Nadine Gary, spokesperson for Clitoraid. “We’re about to open a hospital for FGM victims in the West African country of Burkina Faso, where any woman will be able to have the procedure through Clitoraid for free. “So we’re asking the British government to immediately change its policy. Prohibiting clitoral repair surgery for FGM victims downplays the importance of the clitoris, the beautiful organ so essential to female health and dignity. And of course the clitoris provides the sense of pleasure most Western women take for granted. That capacity has been brutally taken from FGM victims.”

Gary said that in 2013, Minister Lynne Featherstone proudly announced a 35-million-pound program aimed to eradicate FGM within a generation, both in the United Kingdom and in the countries where the barbaric practice originated.

“We immediately contacted Ms. Featherstone and offered to train U.K. surgeons in the clitoral restorative procedure for FGM victims,” she said. “Our two American Clitoraid volunteer surgeons, Dr. Marci Bowers and Dr. Harold Henning, have successfully offered it in the U.S. for several years already.”

"Why would the U.K. deny women who have suffered genital mutilation the right to recover their genital integrity and sexual pleasure?” Henning asked. “It’s just outrageous. After all, a free U.K. medical service is already in place to repair their vaginal openings for reproductive purposes!”

Henning said that because the U.K.’s Royal College​ of O​obstetricians and Gynecologists (ROCG)​ vetoed the offering of the clitoral repair procedure in the U.K., Clitoraid has had to send​ 11 United Kingdom FGM patients​ thus far​ to Dr. Pierre Foldes in Paris. [Foldes developed the clitoral repair technique.]​ Three times as many have written to Clitoraid to enquire about the service.​


Henning explained that Anna Soubry, the U.K.’s Public Health Minister, has stated: "The [UK] reversal procedure is quite straightforward. We use local anesthetic, make a small incision, and then sew over the edges [of the vulva], so the women are then a normal size for childbirth and making love."

"Making love: exactly what does Ms. Soubry mean by that?” Henning asked. “Does she mean facilitating penetration for the male partner of the FGM victim, thereby enhancing his pleasure while only making it less painful for his partner?"

"If Britain really wants to eliminate FGM, it needs to show that it embraces and promotes sexual pleasure and integrity for all women,” Gary said. “And it needs to adopt every measure needed to reach that goal, starting with giving FGM victims easy access to the surgical procedure that restores the clitoris."

Clitoris Awareness Week Animé

LAS VEGAS, April 30 – With this year’s Clitoris Awareness Week (May 3-10) about to begin, a statement released today by U.S.-based organization Clitoraid announced the first two recipients of its new "Clitoris Awareness Award."

“With this award, we honor two wonderful artists who have greatly contributed to public awareness of this widely unknown and often vilified human organ, the clitoris,” said Brigitte Boisselier, PhD, president of Clitoraid and spokesperson for the International Raelian Movement.

"Penelopi Jones has brought elegance and beauty with her artistic representation of the female sexual organ, and we’re proud to offer her design in our online store to raise funds for our humanitarian operations. We hope many women will wear it proudly and thereby help provide regained sexual pleasure and dignity for sexually mutilated women. Their clitoral functioning can now be restored thanks to our services.”

Boisselier explained that Clitoraid is a Nevada-based charity that offers free clitoris repair surgery to victims of female genital mutilation (FGM).
In Burkina Faso, Africa, Clitoraid will soon open the world’s first hospital to offer free surgical repair surgery to any woman who wants it.

FGM is still prevalent in many places around the world.

"There are more than 160 million women alive today, with 500,000 in the United States alone, who have been deprived of a part of their clitoris,” Boisselier said. “Their lives are full of pain and feelings of inferiority.”

Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi is the other recipient of the new award.

“Along with her courageous depictions of the vulva in her art displays, Ms. Igarashi has designed a "Manko-Shan" (precious vulva) logo for us,” Boisselier said. “For this innocent artwork, she is facing a jail sentence and steep fine because public display of female genitals is illegal in Japan, even in artworks.”

Boisselier said an animation of Megumi Igarashi’s Manko-Shan cartoon will kick off Clitoris Awareness Week as Clitoraid members and fans organize parties, forums and conferences worldwide to honor and celebrate the inner and outer beauty of the clitoris.

Clitoris Awareness Week Animé



Penelopi Jones' ClitoRing


Megumi Igarashi

This provocative little anatomical form, mysterious yet oddly familiar, is a subtly stylized representation of a thing we all know, yet may know surprisingly little about. Until very recently both science and culture have misunderstood and often ignored all but the very tip of it. Penelope Jones' ring, illustrate the newly rediscovered internal structure of the clitoris. (see sonogram photo below)The sensitive little button at the top of a woman's vulva is just the tip of the iceberg. What lies beneath the surface is vastly more complex and fascinating. It contains eight thousand nerve endings at the tip that permeate through this greater internal structure, then connect to fifteen thousand more, suggesting that even vaginal orgasms are technically "clitoral." Over a lifetime a clitoris will increase in sensitivity and size seven times. The "wings," called the bulbs of the vestibule, hug the vaginal canal, composed of erectile tissue, they become swollen during arousal. The two "arms," the crura form a wishbone-like shape. We like to think of them as a tuning fork, a device for sending and receiving vibrational energy, possibly for exploring the resonant structure of the universe.

Penelopi Jones has hand crafted these jewelry objects as a fun and elegant conversation piece to help you illustrate to your lovers and friends a greater understanding of the miraculous structure of the internal clitoris. The artist was selected to receive the first Clitoris Awareness Award for her creation.

May this ClitoRing serve you as a talisman for extraordinary orgasms!

Clitoraid will soon offer the ring is a fundraiser for it humanitarian endeavor, in the meantime, please feel to visit Penelopi Jones.




Sonogram of the complete anatomy of the clitoris