Clitoraid reaffirms WHO goal of eliminating female genital mutilation within a generation

شباط 03 2013, تصنيف: بيانات صحفية
LAS VEGAS, Feb 3 – The International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is observed each year on February 6 to raise public awareness about this barbaric practice. (FGM refers to any procedure causing partial or total removal of female genitalia for non-medical reasons. Although it has no known health benefits and carries both short and long-term physical and psychological health risks, it was forcibly imposed during childhood on at least 140 million women living today worldwide.)

“Female genital mutilation of any type is a harmful practice and a huge violation of human rights,” said Nadine Gary, director of communications for Clitoraid. “It has wrought excruciating pain and psychological suffering upon 140 living victims worldwide and caused the needless deaths of millions more. That’s why our organization is committed to assisting the Women’s Health Organization (WHO) in eliminating this horrific custom within a generation.”

As a step toward that goal, Clitoraid is dedicated to providing clitoral and genital repair surgery to all FGM victims who want it, according to Gary.

“In October, we’re opening a special hospital in Burkina Faso, West Africa, that will offer this surgery free of charge to FGM victims,” she said. “And thanks to our dedicated volunteer surgeons, we’re also offering it on other continents, including North America.”

In addition, Clitoraid is engaged in an active education campaign to inform the public about the grave dangers of FGM, Gary said.

“Fifteen percent of all FGM victims perish during or soon after the mutilation,” Gary said. “Three million girls are at risk of suffering that fate each year, and even if they survive, they’re sure to suffer from the aftereffects of this awful mutilation for the rest of their lives.”

Gary said Clitoraid was founded from an idea voiced by spiritual leader Maitreya Rael, who is also a fervent women’s rights and human rights advocate.

“He wants to educate the public about the importance of having women enjoying sexual pleasure without the guilt that often comes from the distorted teachings of primitive religions,” Gary said. “Eliminating guilt from sexual pleasure is essential to female balance and self-esteem.”

She said her organization is also monitoring a new and troubling trend.

“It’s appalling that health-care providers are increasingly being used in some countries to perform FGM,” Gary said. “That means some of those who could be fighting this practice are instead helping to legitimize and perpetuate it. One example is Indonesia. The World Health Organization is currently focused on this issue there, and our organization has voiced deep concern to the Indonesian Health Ministry. We have also trained a surgeon in the Philippines who is ready to perform clitoral repair surgery on Indonesian victims.”

In Las Vegas for immigration speech, Obama receives request to fund Clitoraid's African hospital

كانون الثاني 31 2013, تصنيف: بيانات صحفية
On Jan. 29, while at Las Vegas's Del Sol High School to give a speech on immigration, President Obama was approached by Nadine Gary, Director of Communications for Clitoraid. She handed him a formal letter asking his administration to fund the last $100,000 necessary for Clitoraid's Clitoral Repair Hospital to be inaugurated in Burkina Faso, West Africa, in October.

Gary said she gave the letter to the president at this time because February 6 has been designated by the United Nations as Zero Tolerance Day for Female Gential Mutilation (FGM).

"Clitoraid has previously reached out to Hillary Clinton, who has always been very vocal against FGM," Gary said in a statement released by Clitoraid today. "Now we're hoping that Jim Carey will adopt the same strong stance toward eradicating this barbaric tradition that involves extreme violence against children."

Gary explained that Clitoraid is a Las Vegas-based, non-profit organization and that she and other Clitoraid representatives present yesterday for President Obama's speech were surprised that African immigrants were never mentioned in the president's comments.

"Among the African immigrants now living in the United States are an estimated 300,000 women who still suffer from the genital mutilation perpetrated against them in their youth," Gary said. "And although many of those victims would so much like to escape the effects of those wounds, they're still unaware that clitoral repair surgery exists and can help them be whole again. This is the reason Clitoraid exists, thanks to international spiritual leader Maitreya Rael, who founded Clitoraid to help such victims obtain the restorative surgery and help eradicate FGM once and for all."

Gary said Clitoraid's American volunteer surgeons will be traveling to Africa in October to operate on the 400 FGM victims already on Clitoraid's waiting list in Burkina Faso.

"That's why it would be most beneficial to have the U.S. government help fund our humanitarian action ASAP," Gary explained. "We need additional funds right now so our first Clitoraid hospital dedicated to providing clitoral repair surgery free of charge to FGM victims can open on time. The building construction is nearly completed, but we still need to purchase the needed medical equipment and supplies to outfit the clinic so our surgeons and other medical personnel can finally get started."

Gary said she met several Nevada political officials during the presidential visit.

"They asked me to contact their offices with Clitoraid's request for funds, since our non-profit organization is based in Nevada," Gary said, adding that that the aforementioned officials include Senator Ruben Kihuen, Congresswoman Dina Titus, Congressman Steven Horsford, and Regional Representative Christina Martinez.

Non-profit charity Clitoraid sponsors “How to have a Gender-Free Orgasm,” a therapeutic workshop to be held at the Erotic Heritage Museum on Wed., Jan. 30

كانون الثاني 28 2013, تصنيف: بيانات صحفية
Proceeds to benefit victims of Female Genital Mutilation

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 27 – Clitoraid, a Las Vegas-based humanitarian organization offering clitoral repair surgery to victims of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the United States and West Africa, will sponsor “How to Have a Gender-Free Orgasm,” a workshop to be presented by Barbara Carrellas at Las Vegas’s Erotic Heritage Museum on Wed., Jan. 30, from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

“Clitoraid’s first hospital for FGM repair surgery will open later this year in Burkina Faso, West Africa, and proceeds from this workshop will be used to purchase medical equipment for that facility,” said Nadine Gary, Clitoraid’s director of public relations.

Gary said that although the workshop techniques Carrella will teach have served as a sexually therapeutic tool for FGM patients, any man or woman can benefit from them.

“Workshop participants will experience the playful, powerful and transformative power of breath and pleasure,” Gary said, adding that there will be no nudity in the workshop. Nor will anyone be asked to work with a partner.

“Barbara Carrellas’s ‘Gender-Free Orgasm Class,’ sometimes called ‘The Art of Thinking Off,’ is famous for her use of Tantric and Taoist techniques,” Gary said. “Since they move sexual energy throughout the body, they will enhance your sex life, regardless of gender. What’s more, these techniques help people free themselves from the guilt of sexual pleasure, whether they’re FGM victims or victims of the kind of shame-based, rigid religious upbringing that’s all too common in the United States.”

Gary said Carrellas was featured on the Learning Channel’s television show “Strange Sex,” which included a segment in which scientists at Rutgers did MRI brain scans of Carrellas’s orgasmic state induced from breathing technique alone.

Gary explained that restoring a somewhat normal sexual life to FGM victims requires a multi-pronged approach that can make good use of Carrellas’s methods.

“First, there’s clitoral repair surgery, which Clitoraid’s head surgeon Dr. Marci Bowers now performs in San Francisco, and will soon also be offered free of charge to FGM victims at our new hospital in West Africa,” Gary said. “But sexual therapy and psychological therapy are also essential because they help patients let go of the emotional trauma that began the moment their genitals were mutilated.

Gary said Larry Ashley, a professor at UNLV, is currently Clitoraid’s sexual trauma counselor, and that workshop presenter Barbara Carrelas has expressed an interest in working with Clitoraid patients in the future.

Gary said the suggested donation for the Jan. 30 workshop at the Erotic Heritage Museum is $25.

Las Vegas Porno Convention sponsors CLITORAID to help victims of Female Genital Mutilation obtain clitoral repair surgery

كانون الثاني 17 2013, تصنيف: بيانات صحفية
The AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, to be held at the Hard Rock Hotel Jan. 17-19, will sponsor Clitoraid, a non-profit, Las Vegas-based organization dedicated to surgically repairing the clitoris of victims of female genital mutilation (FGM).

For the 6th year in a row, the organizers of the AVN are generously donating booth space for Clitoraid to promote its humanitarian endeavor: building the first Clitoral Restoration Hospital or 'Pleasure Hospital' in the world. The hospital, in Burkina Faso, West Africa, is slated to open in October.

“FGM victims who want to have their clitoris repaired and thereby have their sexual pleasure restored will be able to do so there at no cost!” said Nadine Gary, spokesperson for Clitoraid.

She explained that, according to a barbaric tradition, millions of female children in some parts of the world – especially Africa – are forced to undergo an excruciatingly painful procedure in which the clitoris is excised.

“The act is typically carried out without anesthesia and is often performed by female relatives, themselves earlier victims of the practice,” Gary said. “Each year, millions of girls endure this brutal practice so they won’t enjoy sex and will be more likely to remain the ‘property’ of men. Up to 98 percent of all women in some African countries have been genitally mutilated.”

Gary explained that Clitoraid was founded in 2006 by Rael, Spiritual Leader of the Raelian Movement (rael.org) to address a need that no other charitable organization wanted to take on: the actual restoration of sexual pleasure for FGM victims.

“Of course, the United Nations, the World Health Organization and others educate people about the dangers of FGM, but they don’t address the desperation of the millions of already maimed victims who want to feel sexual pleasure,” Gary said. “Dr. Pierre Foldes developed the appropriate restorative surgery in the 1980's, so why don’t these organizations make this known as well?”

Answering the question, Gary said shame over female sexual pleasure stems from the dogma of several prominent world religions.

“This attitude still plagues our planet in both extreme and subtle ways,” she said. “Even humanitarian organizations are tainted with it. By contrast, Clitoraid embraces Raelian values that defend and celebrate guilt-free sexual pleasure for all women.”

It is for that reason, Gary said, that Clitoraid is receiving support from a wide range of women. They include adult video actresses Deajiha Milan and Serena Marcus, who will make appearances at the Clitoraid booth, and students of Larry Ashley, a UNLV professor and sex trauma counselor. Ashley’s students are volunteering time at the booth and have also been offering free counseling to Clitoraid's patients for the last 3 years. In addition, Ashley has been supporting the work of Clitoraid's head surgeon, Dr. Marci Bowers, who practices in San Francisco and has already operated on close to 60 FGM patients in the United States.

“Restoring a sense of dignity and pleasure is what Dr. Bowers and the other volunteer medical personnel and therapists want to offer the 400 patients now on our waiting list in West Africa,” Gary said. “Our current fund-raising drive goal is to raise the last $100,000 we need to buy the needed medical equipment and finish the pleasure hospital on time for its October inauguration date.”
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