Malala Yousafzai, according to her biography on Biography.com, born July 12, 1997, in Mingora, Pakistan, became an advocate for girls’ education as a young girl, after the Taliban began attacking girls’ schools in her county in 2008. When she was 14, the Taliban issued a death threat against her. Her and her family initially felt that the fundamentalist group would not actually harm a child. However, on October 9, 2012, a man boarded the bus Malala was riding on her way home from school. He demanded to know who was Malala, and her friends looked towards her, giving her location away. The gunman fired at her, hitting the left side of her head; the bullet then traveled down her neck. The shooting left Malala in critical condition, so
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In some places, these rights are supported by law, local custom, and behavior. However, in other places they are suppressed or simply ignored. Women’s rights activists have existed for as long as women have had limited rights, dating back even to ancient Greece. These activists have achieved many great things. For example, Russia outlawed forced marriages in 1722, India banned sati (a funeral ritual within some Asian communities in which a recently widowed woman sacrifices herself, typically on her husband’s funeral pyre) in 1829, and China abolished foot binding in 1902. Unfortunately, not every country has stayed with the times. In Saudi Arabia and Vatican City, women are still not even allowed to vote. India had a female president from 2007 to 2012, yet women still face many inequalities there, such as sex-selective abortion. In Mali, few women escape the torture of genital mutilation, many are forced into early marriages, and one in ten dies in pregnancy or childbirth. Women everywhere face challenges due to their …show more content…
FGM is the practice, traditional in some cultures, of partially or totally removing the external genitalia of girls and young women for nonmedical reasons. It is usually carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15, and, according to the World Health Organization, “More than 125 million girls and women alive today have been cut in the 29 countries in Africa and Middle East where FGM is concentrated.” FGM has no health benefits and harms girls and women in many ways. Immediate complications can include severe pain, shock, hemorrhage, bacterial infection, and urine retention. It also has many long-term effects, including recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections, cysts, infertility, an increased risk of childbirth complications and newborn deaths, and the need for later surgeries, as one FGM procedure seals or narrows a vaginal opening, and so it needs to be cut open later to allow sexual intercourse and childbirth. The reasons behind FGM are mostly cultural and social, although some are religious. In some places, the social pressure to conform to what others are doing is a strong motivation to continue the practice. It is often considered, according to the World Health Organization, a necessary part of raising a girl properly and a way to prepare her for adulthood and marriage by supposedly reducing a woman’s libido
In some places, these rights are supported by law, local custom, and behavior. However, in other places they are suppressed or simply ignored. Women’s rights activists have existed for as long as women have had limited rights, dating back even to ancient Greece. These activists have achieved many great things. For example, Russia outlawed forced marriages in 1722, India banned sati (a funeral ritual within some Asian communities in which a recently widowed woman sacrifices herself, typically on her husband’s funeral pyre) in 1829, and China abolished foot binding in 1902. Unfortunately, not every country has stayed with the times. In Saudi Arabia and Vatican City, women are still not even allowed to vote. India had a female president from 2007 to 2012, yet women still face many inequalities there, such as sex-selective abortion. In Mali, few women escape the torture of genital mutilation, many are forced into early marriages, and one in ten dies in pregnancy or childbirth. Women everywhere face challenges due to their …show more content…
FGM is the practice, traditional in some cultures, of partially or totally removing the external genitalia of girls and young women for nonmedical reasons. It is usually carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15, and, according to the World Health Organization, “More than 125 million girls and women alive today have been cut in the 29 countries in Africa and Middle East where FGM is concentrated.” FGM has no health benefits and harms girls and women in many ways. Immediate complications can include severe pain, shock, hemorrhage, bacterial infection, and urine retention. It also has many long-term effects, including recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections, cysts, infertility, an increased risk of childbirth complications and newborn deaths, and the need for later surgeries, as one FGM procedure seals or narrows a vaginal opening, and so it needs to be cut open later to allow sexual intercourse and childbirth. The reasons behind FGM are mostly cultural and social, although some are religious. In some places, the social pressure to conform to what others are doing is a strong motivation to continue the practice. It is often considered, according to the World Health Organization, a necessary part of raising a girl properly and a way to prepare her for adulthood and marriage by supposedly reducing a woman’s libido