"If this procedure is done by health professionals, then it has to be done in accordance with the ministerial instruction 1636, and this will guarantee the protection of the female reproductive system”

Moderate Muslim Indonesia practices FGM, or female genital mutilation and now with the government sanctioning the practice through the Ministry of Health the gruesome procedure could increase.  I have said this many times, but it bears repeating; where is the outcry from Muslims and Islamic scholars, and where are the feminists and lefties who claim they stand for all women in their fight for equality?  We hear how people like me are responsible for the actions of the Anders Breivik of the world, yet when a country's health department tacitly sanctions female genital mutilation their is no uproar or condemnation.  It's a cultural thing, we are told.  Well, if we do not stand for these women, what good is our culture?

From The Jakarta Globe September 2

Fears Indonesian Female Circumcision Guidelines Could Increase Practice

West Java. Guidelines on how to perform female genital mutilation/cutting issued by the Indonesian Ministry of Health could cause an increase in the practice, medical experts and rights groups fear.
 
“This will give doctors a new motivation to circumcise [girls] because now they can say the Ministry of Health approves of this, and the Indonesian Council of Ulema [MUI] approves of it,” said Jurnalis Uddin, a doctor and lecturer at Yarsi University in Jakarta.
 
Though FGM/C was banned in 2006, two of Indonesia’s Muslim organizations, including the largest and mostly moderate, Nahdlatul Ulama, ultimately condone the practice advising “not to cut too much,” and, as a result, many continue to perform the procedure.

 

By directing health professionals not to cut a girl’s genitals but to “scrape the skin covering the clitoris, without injuring the clitoris”, the Ministry of Health stands by the regulations, passed in June, as a medically safe form of FGM/C representing an effort to further regulate the illegal practice and protect women.
 
But recent uproar has questioned this reasoning. Others are concerned the guidelines could well be misinterpreted as an endorsement of the procedure, combined with an enticement for doctors to encourage the practice, Uddin said.
 
“I think that doctors will use these guidelines to make money from circumcision,” Uddin said, adding that Indonesia’s poorly regulated medical practitioners often viewed medicine as a business.
 
FGM/C is typically done at birth, or before a girl is five years old and in the past was often performed by local healers, called dukun, or by birth attendants. Traditionally, FGM/C was mostly “symbolic” with a small cut on the clitoris, or rubbing the clitoris with tumeric root, making it less invasive than other types of FGM/C.

 

However, Uddin, who conducted an Indonesia-wide survey of FGM/C practices in 2009, said he had found that when medical practitioners performed the procedure, there was a trend toward more extensive cutting of the clitoris.

 

(...)Across Indonesia approximately 12 percent of female babies born in hospitals, birthing centres or assisted by government midwives have been circumcised, a figure that excludes FGM/C procedures done outside such facilities, Uddin said.

 
FGM/C remains a controversial practice, with debated origins. Religious experts say it is a foreign cultural practice not sanctioned in any of Islam’s religious texts.
 
Not true.  Here is the hadith;

"A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina. The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said to her: Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband." - Sunan Abu Dawud 41.5251 (Thanks to Jihad Watch)

 

Even a scratch or small cut on the clitoris is a dangerous procedure to perform on infants, say medical practitioners. Long-term consequences include bladder and urinary tract infections, as well as cysts and infertility.

 

The Ministry of Health argues it is not “legitimizing or legalizing” FGM/C with its standards but only trying to make the practice less risky by encouraging trained health professionals rather than traditional healers to perform the procedure.

 

Ahem.  By encouraging doctors to perform FGM as safely as possible in order to minimize damage, you are only justifying the practice under medically approved guidelines for a surgical procedure.  This stance, therefore is legitimizing FGM. 

Read it all