FGM Zero Tolerance Day – UK must get serious

PRESS RELEASE FGM Zero Tolerance Day – UK must get serious 6 February 2012 Ahead of the International Day of Zero Tolerance to female genital mutilation (FGM) on Monday, The Foundation for Women’s Health Research and Development (FORWARD) and the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKRWO) are calling for a long-term, comprehensive strategy to tackle FGM in the UK. FGM is a form of violence against women and girls and a human rights violation. The practice is illegal...
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“Going home with my batteries recharged”: IKWRO’s international conference 2011

[caption id="attachment_920" align="alignnone" width="300"] © BrendanODonnell@ymail.com[/caption] More than 250 people from sectors including health, housing, policing, probation, social services, education and academia, legal, local and national government, the voluntary sector and the media attended IKWRO’s international conference last Thursday in London. The conference was opened by Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, who welcomed participants and spoke of how important it was for frontline professionals s to be aware of issues such as “honour” based violence (HBV).  He...
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Getting it right first time: women and asylum

Asylum Aid recently exposed very high rates of refusal for women seeking asylum in the UK. Russell Hargrave has written a guest blog to tell us more: The typical image of a political refugee is of a single male, fleeing conflict in which he has become embroiled at home. But in 2009 more than 7000 women applied for asylum in the UK.  The factors which lead women to seek asylum can be very different from their male counterparts. Women face...
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Government plan on violence against women and girls: OUR VERDICT

In January IKWRO asked our supporters to write to the Home Secretary and ask her to get tough on ‘honour’ based violence.  Many of you sent emails to Teresa may asking her to increase government efforts to tackle ‘honour’ based violence and to commit to providing training for all public sector workers. That was six weeks ago.  On Tuesday you may have spotted IKWRO’s Diana Nammi in the Guardian, talking about the government's new action plan which was released...
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IKWRO says zero tolerance to female genital mutilation

Yesterday was the 8th International Day of Zero Tolerance to FGM.  But what does that mean for an organisation like IKWRO? Coverage of FGM tends to focus on African countries, but FGM is also practiced in the Middle East, and has been documented in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. FGM is extremely common in Iraqi Kurdistan, with prevalence higher than many African countries.  A study there last year by the German NGO WADI found that...
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Introducing…. the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation

At IKWRO we work with Kurdish, Farsi, Dari, Arabic and Turkish speaking women living in the UK. From our London office we provide advice and support to women and girls facing a whole range of problems - forced marriage, 'honour' based violence, sexual assault, domestic abuse and even female genital mutilation. Sometimes, we're the only lifeline they have. 'But what exactly do you do?' people often ask us.  And we say 'a lot of things!'  In an average day we could be finding space...
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