For the 750 million people globally who can’t read, using a smartphone can be difficult. One company is helping illiterate and low literacy users get connected. Tina Trinh reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Totalitarian regimes and their mark on the human psyche, nostalgic depictions of life in Mexico City riddled with socio economic and racial divisions and the toll of poverty and war on children and families are themes of this year’s Oscar nominees in the category of Best Foreign Language Film. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

The Irrawaddy dolphins that cruise through their namesake river in Myanmar are an endangered species. The Wildlife Conservation Society says there are only about 76 left in the Irrawaddy River. That number has risen from a low of 69 over the past few years thanks to conservation societies working alongside local fishermen. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

A new type of solar panel promises a cheap, flexible way to get more power from the sun. They may help the growing renewable energy industry expand even faster. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

Women returned at the Grammys on Sunday as female acts won album of the year and best new artist, while rap also triumphed, with Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” becoming the first rap-based song to win record and song of the year.

Kacey Musgraves’ “Golden Hour” picked up album of the year, and Dua Lipa won best new artist.

“I don’t even know what to say,” Musgraves said. “I am very thankful. Winning doesn’t make my album any better than anybody else in that category.”

Gambino was the night’s big winner, picking up four honors, including best music video and best rap/sung performance.

Drake surprised the music world when he emerged on stage to accept the best rap song trophy but told the room of musicians that winning awards isn’t necessary if you have real fans attending your concerts and singing your songs.

Drake, who rarely attends awards shows, won the honor for his massive hit “God’s Plan.”

“You’ve already won if you have people who are singing your songs word for word, if you’re a hero in your hometown. Look, if there are people who have regular jobs who are coming out in the rain and the snow, spending their hard-earned money to buy tickets to come to your shows, you don’t need this right here. I promise you. You already won,” he said at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

He tried to continue speaking but was cut off as the ceremony suddenly went to a commercial.

Rap has endured a longtime losing streak at the Grammys. The last time a rapper won album of the year was in 2004, with Outkast. Only a handful of rappers have won best new artist.

Cardi B made history as the first solo female to win best rap album (Lauryn Hill won as a member of the Fugees at the 1997 Grammys). 

She was shaking onstage as she tried to give a thank-you speech with her rapper-husband Offset holding her arm.

“The nerves are so bad. Maybe I need to start smoking weed,” she said as the audience laughed. “I just want to say thank you everybody that was involved … I want to thank my daughter.”

The Grammys kicked off with a group of powerful women, including Michelle Obama and Lady Gaga, describing the role of music in their lives – a display that came a year after female voices were somewhat muted at the 2018 ceremony.

“Music has always helped me tell my story,” said Obama, who surprised the audience with her appearance. “Whether we like country or rap or rock, music helps us share ourselves. It allows us to hear one another.”

Gaga told the crowd: “They said I was weird, that my look, that my choices, that my sound wouldn’t work. But music told me not to listen to them.”

​Jada Pinkett Smith and Jennifer Lopez also spoke and stood in solidary with Obama, Gaga and Alicia Keys, who is hosting the show airing on CBS.

“Yes, ladies,” Keys said. “There’s nothing better than this.”

The opening contrasted with last year’s Grammys, where male acts dominated in nominations and the only woman competing for the top award, Lorde, didn’t get a chance to perform onstage.

But this year, Gaga, Brandi Carlile and Kacey Musgraves won three Grammys each.

Carlile took three honors in the Americana category and will compete for the three biggest awards during the live show: album, song and record of the year.

Gaga also won three, including best pop duo/group performance, a win she shared with Bradley Cooper.

Gaga, now a nine-time Grammy winner, won best pop solo performance for “Joanne,” while hit “Shallow,” from “A Star is Born,” was named best song written for visual media. The song is nominated for an Oscar and also won at the Golden Globes, the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards and the Satellite Awards.

Women have a strong presence in the top categories. Five of the eight album-of-the-year nominees were women, including Carlile’s “By the Way, I Forgive You,” Janelle Monae’s “Dirty Computer,” Cardi B’s “Invasion of Privacy” and H.E.R.’s self-titled album are also in contention.

When asked about the lack of women in the top categories at the 2018 Grammys, Recording Academy CEO Neil Portnow said women need to “step up.” He later acknowledged that it was a “poor choice of words,” and his much-criticized remarks forced the academy to launch a new task force focused on inclusion and diversity.

Portnow, who didn’t seek a renewal on his contract which ends this year, seemed to address his words from last year during Sunday’s show.

“This past year I’ve been reminded that if coming face to face with an issue opens your eyes wide enough, it makes you more committed than ever to help address those issues. The need for social change has been the hallmark of the American experience, from the founding of our country to the complex times we live in today,” he said.

British singer Dua Lipa alluded to Portnow’s 2018 words when she won best new artist. 

“I guess this year we’ve really stepped up,” she said after telling the audience she was was grateful to be nominated alongside so many female performers. Six of the best-new-artist nominees were women, including H.E.R., Chloe x Halle, Margo Price, Bebe Rexha and Jorja Smith.

Musgraves picked up best country album for “Golden Hour,” best country solo performance for “Butterflies” and best country song for “Space Cowboy.”

“I never dreamed that this record would be met with such love,” she said onstage.

She also gave a shout-out to her husband in the audience, saying she wouldn’t have been able to make the album if he “didn’t open my heart like you did.”

Musgraves performed “Rainbow” from “Golden Hour” during the show, and hit the stage for a second time to honor Dolly Parton. Musgraves and Katy Perry joined forces for “Here You Come Again,” later joined by Parton herself. The icon sang a duet version of “Jolene” with Miley Cyrus, who often covers the classic song. But the country music icon truly shined when she sang “Red Shoes,” with country foursome Little Big Town providing background vocals.

Yolanda Adams, Fantasia and Andra Day teamed up for stirring performance of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” in honor Aretha Franklin, who died last year. 

Diana Ross earned a standing ovation when she emerged onstage in a bright red dress to perform “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)” and “The Best Years of My Life.” She celebrated her 75th birthday early with the performance, saying afterward, “Happy birthday to me!” Her actual birthday is March 26.

​R&B singer H.E.R., who won best R&B performance for “Best Part” with Daniel Caesar, stunned as she played her guitar and sang. Chloe x Halle impressed when they sang Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack’s “Where Is the Love.” Monae grooved onstage during “Make Me Feel,” backed by several dancers. Post Malone performed with Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Cardi B grinded onstage during her latest single, “Money.”

Ariana Grande won her first Grammy in the same week that she publicly blasted Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich and accused him of lying about why she was no longer performing at the show.

Tori Kelly and Lauren Daigle won two awards each. Beyonce, Jay-Z, Ella Mai, Pharrell Williams, Hugh Jackman, Stingy, Shaggy, Dave Chappelle, “Weird Al” Yankovic, the late Chris Cornell, Greta Van Fleet and even former President Jimmy Carter also picked up early awards ahead of the live show.

There was a tie for best rap performance, and Drake was surprisingly not one of the winners. Drake’s “Nice for What” lost to Anderson Paak’s “Bubblin”’ and Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, Future and James Blake’s “King’s Dead,” from the “Black Panther” soundtrack.

Beck was a double winner during the pre-telecast, taking home best alternative music album and best engineered album (non-classical) for “Colors.” Emily Lazar, one of the engineers who worked on the album and won alongside Beck, was the first female mastering engineer to win in the latter category.
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From: MeNeedIt

In Algeria, it was banned from bidding for public contracts after one of its executives was convicted of bribery.

In Zambia, it was probed over allegations of bribery involving a multi-million-dollar contract to build cell towers in rural areas.

In the Solomon Islands, it was accused of offering millions of dollars to the ruling party in exchange for an undersea fiber optic cable contract.

In all three cases – and half a dozen others in recent years – the alleged perpetrator was Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecom behemoth facing scrutiny from Western nations over allegations of intellectual property theft and espionage.

Saying it poses a national security threat, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand have banned the company from building new, state of the art 5G telecom networks.  Other Western countries are debating over a similar ban.  

Security concerns about Huawei and other Chinese telecom equipment providers are mounting after U.S. prosecutors last month charged the company founded by a former People’s Liberation Army officer with violating U.S. sanctions on Iran, purloining trade secrets from T-Mobile and encouraging its employees to steal intellectual property.

The focus on national security concerns about Huawei has eclipsed a little reported aspect of the company’s operations: Huawei’s involvement in corrupt business dealings.

The company has denied the allegations of corruption and said it has strong safeguards against corporate graft.

In a statement on its website, Huawei says it has a “zero-tolerance” policy on graft.

“Huawei believes that corruption severely damages fair market competition and is a threat to the development of our society, economy and enterprises,” the statement said.  

But experts who have studied Huawei’s business practices say the company’s statements are contradicted by its conduct.

“The unfortunate reality of Huawei’s activities on the (African) continent is that they have a proven track record of engaging in corruption and other dodgy business dealings,” said Joshua Meservey, an Africa expert at the Heritage Foundation and author of a recent report on Chinese corporate corruption.  

With business operations in more than 170 countries and annual revenues of $108 billion, Huawei is the world’s largest supplier of telecom equipment.  Last year, the multinational company beat Apple to become the No. 2 manufacturer of smartphones and tablets in the world.

In December, Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested by Canadian authorities and she is being held for possible extradition to the U.S. for violation of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Huawei has rejected the charges.  In a recent letter to the UK Parliament made public  last week, Huawei refuted allegations of espionage, saying if the company engaged “in malicious behavior, it would not go unnoticed – and it would certainly destroy our business.”

In developing countries in Asia and Africa, the company’s corrupt business practices are a matter of great concern among industry officials and civil society activists.

In the last 12 years, Huawei and its smaller Chinese rival ZTE have been “investigated or found guilty of corruption” in as many as 21 countries, according to Andy Keiser, a former House Intelligence Committee professional staffer.

These include a dozen African countries such as Algeria and Ghana as well as the Philippines, Malaysia, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Mongolia, the Solomon Islands and China itself, according to Keiser.  

“ZTE and Huawei have developed dubious reputations around the world,” Keiser testified before Congress last June.  

The transaction cost of Huawei’s corrupt business deals runs in the billions.  RWR Advisory Group, a consulting firm that tracks Chinese investments around the world, estimates that Huawei has entered into more than $5 billion worth of business deals involving allegations of bribery and corruption.

The charges against Huawei range from outright bribery to making illegal donations to political parties in exchange for contracts and other business advantages.

The Algerian case involved an elaborate scheme in which Huawei and ZTE executives allegedly paid $10 million in bribes to a former state telecom operator executive and a businessman in exchange for winning contracts.

In 2012, an Algerian court convicted the former executive and another businessman of receiving bribes. The two Algerians were sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Three executives of the Chinese firms also were tried in absentia and sentenced to 10 years in prison for their role in the scheme.

The government fined Huawei and ZTE and banned them from bidding on public contracts for two years.

In Ghana, Huawei has confronted accusations of illegally funding the ruling party, a charge Huawei and other Chinese companies have faced in other countries.

In 2012, an opposition group disclosed what it claimed was evidence that Huawei had made illegal campaign contributions to the ruling National Democratic Congress in exchange for a $43 million tax exemption.

Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) produced invoices and other documents showing the Chinese telecom company had paid for millions of dollars worth of campaign paraphernalia for the ruling party’s 2012 election campaign.

In return, the group alleged, the government awarded “one of the juiciest contracts to be doled out by the government” – a $150 million contract to build an e-government platform.

Huawei and the government denied the charges.

In the Solomon Islands, Huawei has faced similar accusations.  In 2017, a Parliamentary committee accused the government of awarding Huawei a contract to build a submarine fiber optic link to Australia after Huawei offered a $5.25 million campaign donation to the ruling party.

“The committee is of the view that this is the main reason for the government to bypass procurement requirements in favor of the company Huawei,” a parliamentary report said.

Huawei dismissed the allegations.

“As a global business entity, Huawei does not involve itself in politics. Huawei forbids all of its global subsidiaries from making any form of political donation, including in places where this practice is legal,” the company said in a statement.  

Bribery allegations have also plagued Huawei projects in South Africa, Nigeria, and Pakistan.    But the company appears to have weathered the allegations, positioning itself as a major player in building 5G networks around the world.  

As of last February, Huawei had signed 25 memorandums of understanding with telecom operators around the world to trial 5G equipment, according to a Reuters survey of public announcements.

In recent years, Huawei has also found itself at the receiving end of a Chinese government crackdown on domestic corruption.   In 2017, the head of Huawei’s consumer business group for China was detained on suspicion of taking bribes.

To root out corruption among its employees, Huawei says it has implemented policies including requiring executives to take a loyalty oath.  But the safeguards are “of limited value if the material incentives for employees don’t reflect those priorities,” said Alexandra Wrage, president of anti-bribery business organization TRACE International.

“This danger can be compounded when an enterprise maintains financial and political backing from the government, which is often seen as fostering a greater tolerance for risk in pursuit of growth,” Wrage said.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says the National Enquirer is threatening to publish revealing photographs of him unless his private investigators back off the tabloid.

Bezos detailed the revelations in a Thursday post on Medium.com. He accuses the Enquirer of “extortion and blackmail.”

The National Enquirer published a story last month that included lurid texts between Bezos and former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez. Since then, private investigators have been looking into how the Enquirer got the texts.

Bezos says the Enquirer’s parent company tried to get him to agree to a deal for the tabloid not to publish the explicit photos.

As part of the deal, Bezos would have to release a public statement that he has “no knowledge or basis” to suggest the tabloid’s reporting was politically motivated.
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From: MeNeedIt

Legendary baseball Hall of Famer Frank Robinson, the first black manager in the U.S. major leagues, died Thursday in Los Angeles at 83.

He had been suffering from bone cancer and was in hospice care at his home.

Even if he had not become baseball’s first African-American manager, Robinson’s feats on the playing field would have been enough to earn him a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

During his career as an outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, California Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers, Robinson hit 586 home runs, played in 14 All-Star games, helped lead the Orioles to three straight World Series, and was an outstanding and aggressive fielder.

He was named Rookie of the Year during his first season in 1956 playing for the Reds. 

Robinson is the only player in major league history to win the Most Valuable Player award in both the American and National leagues.

He made history in 1975 when the Cleveland Indians hired him as a player-manager, the first black manager in the major leagues. He made an impressive debut, hitting a home run on the first day. 

He later managed the Orioles, Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, Montreal Expos, and Washington Nationals. He was named Manager of the Year in 1989 when he was with the Orioles.

Robinson worked as a baseball executive after retiring as a manager in 2006.
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From: MeNeedIt

Filmmaker Woody Allen has filed a $68 million lawsuit against Amazon for breach of contract, accusing the streaming giant of canceling a film deal because of a “baseless” decades-old allegation that he sexually abused his daughter.

Allen says Amazon sought to terminate the deal in June, and has since refused to pay him $9 million in financing for his latest film, A Rainy Day in New York, his lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan allege.

That film was one of several to be produced with the Oscar-winning director under a series of agreements reached after Allen made the Crisis in Six Scenes program for Amazon, which was then a new content provider.

He is seeking that $9 million along with minimum guarantees owed him for other films, totaling “in excess of $68,000,000,” according to a complaint filed Thursday in federal court in New York and obtained by AFP.

He says Amazon told him the deal had become “impracticable” because of “supervening events, including renewed allegations against Mr. Allen, his own controversial comments” and the refusal of actors to work with him.

Allen has been accused of molesting Dylan Farrow, his adopted daughter, when she was seven years old in the early 1990s.

He was cleared of the charges, first leveled by his then-partner Mia Farrow, after two separate months-long investigations, and has steadfastly denied the abuse. But Dylan, now an adult, maintains she was molested.

In June last year, the same month that Amazon apparently terminated his contract, Allen backed the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment — and said he should be its poster boy.

“I’ve worked in movies for 50 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of actresses, and not a single one has ever suggested any kind of impropriety at all,” he said in an interview with Argentina’s Canal 13 television network.

“I — who was only accused by one woman in a child custody case, which was looked at and proven to be untrue — I get lumped in with these people.”

In recent months, a string of actors who have worked with Allen have distanced themselves from him, and said they would no longer work with him.

Amazon did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
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From: MeNeedIt

The first Africans to arrive in North America were so little noted by history that many are known today by only their first names: Antony and Isabella, Angelo, Frances and Peter.

Almost 400 years ago, they were kidnapped and forcibly sailed across the ocean aboard three slave ships — the San Juan Bautista, the White Lion and the Treasurer — and then sold into bondage in Virginia.

Now their descendants, along with historians and genealogists, are seeking recognition for a group of 20-some Africans they describe as critical to the survival of Jamestown, England’s first successful settlement in North America.

“We need to reclaim our history. We need to tell our story,” said Calvin Pearson, head of Project 1619, which is named after the year those first Africans landed near what became Hampton, Virginia.

A few historical markers and records mention these early slaves, but there’s been scant research on their lives. Pearson and others are working to learn more.

Before the slaves arrived, Jamestown was starving. “Basically all of those people were right off of the streets in England,” said Kathryn Knight, who in May will release a book titled “Unveiled – The Twenty & Odd: Documenting the First Africans in England’s America 1619-1625 and Beyond.”

Those colonists “didn’t know how to grow anything. They didn’t know how to manage livestock. They didn’t know anything about survival in Virginia,” Knight said. The Africans “saved them by being able to produce crops, by being able to manage the livestock. They kept them alive.”

The slaves’ arrival marked the beginning of the region’s fractured relationship with blacks. More than two centuries later, Virginia became home to the Confederate capital, and in the last week its governor has been pressured to resign for appearing in a racist photo in a 1984 yearbook.

The new arrivals were Catholic and many spoke multiple languages, according to Ric Murphy, an author and descendant of John Gowan, one of the Angolan captives.

They came from a royal city and “were quite informed and educated, and several of them, based upon what they did in the latter part of their years, clearly were leaders in the community in one form or the other,” Murphy said. “Many of them became landowners, which is quite different from the false narrative of what an enslaved person was.”

In Jamestown, historian Mark Summers leads tourists down paths that Angelo — also known as Angela — walked after being sold to a Captain William Pierce.

Like many of that first group, her life is largely a mystery. In fact, her entire known biography “could probably fit on a 3×5 index card,” Summers said. But being able to show people where she lived and walked is a spiritual experience for some, he said.

For African-Americans, “this is the same thing as going to Plymouth Rock,” said Summers, who works at the Historic Jamestowne park. “Here’s a place where you can stand and say, ‘We set foot here, and we can still walk this ground.’”

The first Africans were among more than 300 taken out of the Ndongo region of Angola, a Portuguese colony of mostly Catholic Africans, on the San Juan Bautista bound for Mexico. That ship was attacked and plundered by the White Lion and the Treasurer, which together seized about 60 slaves. After stopping in the Caribbean and trading some of the slaves for provisions, the White Lion sailed for Virginia with its human cargo.

Englishman John Rolfe, who would later marry Pocahontas, documented the White Lion’s arrival at what was then called Point Comfort.

“He brought not anything but 20, and odd Negars, which the Governor and Cape Merchant bought for victualle,” Rolfe wrote in a letter in January 1620, meaning that the colony purchased the slaves with provisions.

A 1620 census showed 17 African women and 15 African men in Jamestown.

Although sold into servitude, many of those original Angolans fared better than the millions of African slaves who came to North America later, said John Thorton, a Boston University professor of African American studies and history.

“They had a better chance at a better future than almost anybody who followed them because they were the first,” Thorton said. “A lot of them ended up owning property, and they ended up owning slaves of their own.”

By intermingling with the English colonists, some had children who ended up passing for white and merging into early colonial society, Thorton said.

Some, like the Catholic John Pedro, met with tragedy, Pearson said.

Pedro “ended up owning quite a bit of land in Virginia. When the English Civil War broke out, it was Protestants versus Catholics,” Pearson said. Pedro moved to Maryland to live with other Catholics, but he was captured in a battle and executed.

Antony and Isabella became servants for a Captain William Tucker, gained their freedom around 1635 and started a homestead in Kent County, Virginia, Pearson said. Around 1623, they had a son named William Tucker who “became the first documented African child born in English-occupied North America.”

Descendants of Antony and Isabella are buried at a Hampton cemetery that has been in use since the 1600s, Pearson said.

Knight has a different interpretation of those early records, concluding that Frances gave birth to Peter first, making him the first African child born in Virginia.

Described in later records as a “Negro carpenter,” Peter married and received his freedom with the promise of paying 10,000 pounds of tobacco to his master around 1676. He made the last payment in 1682, Knight said.

Murphy, who wrote “Freedom Road: An American Family Saga from Jamestown to World War,” said it’s important for black people to know about these first Africans because it “helps us have more ownership of American history.”

Pearson, whose organization plans to honor the anniversary of the Africans’ arrival on Aug. 24, agrees.

“From here, we see the beginnings of the Africa imprint on what would become the United States of America. It’s worth remembering.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Apple Inc has moved its modem chip engineering effort into its in-house hardware technology group from its supply chain unit, two people familiar with the move told Reuters, a sign the tech company is looking to develop

a key component of its iPhones after years of buying it from outside suppliers.

Modems are an indispensable part of phones and other mobile devices, connecting them to wireless data networks. Apple once used Qualcomm Inc chips exclusively but began phasing in Intel Corp chips in 2016 and dropped Qualcomm from iPhones released last year.

Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, took over the company’s modem design efforts in January, the sources said. The organizational move has not been previously reported.

Srouji joined Apple in 2008 to lead chip design, including the custom A-series processors that power iPhones and iPads and a special Bluetooth chip that helps those devices pair with its AirPods wireless headphones and other Apple accessories.

The modem efforts had previously been led by Rubén Caballero, who reports to Dan Riccio, the executive responsible for iPad, iPhone and Mac engineering, much of which involves integrating parts from the company’s vast electronics supply chain.

Apple declined to comment. Technology publication The Information previously reported that Apple was working to develop its own modem chip.

The Cupertino, California-based company has posted job listings for modem engineers in San Diego, a hub for wireless design talent because of Qualcomm’s longtime presence there and a place where Apple has said it plans to build up its workforce.

Apple’s effort to make its own modem chips could take years, and it is impossible to know when, or in what devices, such chips might appear.

“When you’re Apple, everything has to be good,” said Linley Gwennap, president of chip industry research firm The Linley Group. “There’s no room for some substandard component in that phone.”

5G on horizon

Apple’s investment in modem chips comes as carriers and other phone makers are rolling out devices for the next generation of faster wireless networks known as 5G.

Rival handset makers Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd already make their own modems.

Making its own modem chips would likely cost Apple hundreds of millions of dollars or more per year in development costs, analysts said, but could save it money eventually.

Modem chips are a major part of the cost of Apple devices, worth $15 to $20 each and likely costing Apple $3 billion to $4 billion for the 200 million or so iPhones it makes a year, said Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon.

Apple may also benefit by combining its modem chips with its processor chips, as Samsung, Huawei and most other phone makers do. That saves space and battery life, two important considerations if Apple introduces augmented reality features into future products.
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From: MeNeedIt

F.A. Cole was 11 when her stepmother told her to dress up for a special occasion near her hometown of Freetown, Sierra Leone. 

It was, instead, a traumatic occasion, Cole recalls 34 years later. Her stepmother turned her over to a small group of women, who led her into a forest and bound and blindfolded her. Then someone put a razor blade to her genitals.  

“Two or four of the women held me down. They spread my legs open and pinned me down, and then the woman who was the cutter, she sat on my chest,” Cole recounts. “As she began to cut my clitoris, I began to fight and scream and wriggle under her, just looking for somebody to help me, somebody to come to my rescue.” 

No one came then. But the United Nations has been working to eradicate female genital mutilation. To raise awareness, the U.N. since 2003 has sponsored an International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM to raise awareness. The annual observance was on Wednesday.  

FGM is widespread in parts of Africa and also practiced here in the United States. The procedure has sparked a global clash between those who define it as a cultural tradition and those who say it’s a dangerous ritual that should end. 

Lingering questions 

Cole recalls days of excruciating pain and years of wondering why she was cut.  

“When I came to America and I started doing research, and I started talking about my story, that’s when I realized the damage — not just the sexual damage, but the psychological damage that was done,” says Cole, who now lives in Washington and campaigns to end FGM.   

The World Health Organization identifies three types of FGM most common in Africa. In type one, the clitoris is partially or totally removed. Type two goes further, including the labia. And type three involves removing the labia and stitching to narrow the vaginal opening. 

The cultural practice can have serious medical consequences. Physicians at major U.S. medical centers and teaching hospitals worry whether American doctors are equipped — medically and culturally — to treat women who have been circumcised.  

Dr. Ranit Mishori, a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, recalls an experience in the second month of her residency. A woman from Djibouti, in East Africa, was in labor.  

“I was getting ready to do a pelvic examination, and I put my gloves on and suddenly I realize I can’t put my fingers in there because the whole area is closed off,” Mishori said of the patient’s vagina. “I had no idea what that meant. I called my senior physicians and they had no idea what was going on. The bottom line is a lot of doctors don’t know what to expect, don’t know how to handle these types of emergencies.” 

A call for communication and respect 

That experience inspired Mishori to teach other doctors about FGM, especially as they treat more immigrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.  

She stresses communication and cultural humility. 

“We can’t forget that some women are very proud [of being circumcised], because that ensures their marriageability and economic prospects,” Mishori says, adding that medical personnel must learn “to ask about it in a nonjudgmental way.” 

Respectful questioning, she says, is “more important than how to deal with the medical complications, even though they are there. In some women, the cutting has healed. There are no scars, maybe … but the long-term effects are here and here,” she adds, pointing first to her head, then her heart. 

Not everyone agrees the practice should be banned.  

Anthropologist Fuambai Ahmadu, who lives in Washington and also is from Sierra Leone, says she was circumcised, not mutilated. She was an adult when she chose to undergo the procedure — the most minimal type of circumcision. 

Ahmadu testified on behalf of Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, who was among eight people facing federal charges over the genital mutilations of nine girls from Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota. As the Associated Press reported, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman in November dismissed mutilation and conspiracy charges against the defendants, saying the 1996 law banning the practice was unconstitutional.       

A rite of passage 

Ahmadu says circumcision is a rite of passage into womanhood in Kono culture. She believes anti-FGM campaigners are putting African cultures under siege. 

“The grand narrative of mutilation is completely inappropriate,” says Ahmadu. “… It’s really important that FGM campaigners understand that the messages that they’re sounding out to women, they’re not working, they’re not effective,” she says. “What they’re doing is driving the practice underground.”  

She says some families are reacting to the pressure by bringing in their daughters for circumcision at younger ages — sometimes even as babies. She advocates that girls should have a choice in whether to undergo the procedure and that they should wait until at least age 16  to understand the cultural significance. 

“This is a coming-out ceremony, where they are celebrated and they are now women,” Ahmadu says. 

It was no celebration for Cole, who says her circumcision made her less desirable to men in Sierra Leone.  

“It was supposed to make me more marriageable, but I’m 45 and still single,” she says. “So what was that?” 

This report originated in VOA’s English to Africa service. 
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From: MeNeedIt