Current+Events

__**Excision in Mali**__ //March 19, 2008//

In Mali, an estimated 90% of adolescent girls undergo female genital cutting, which can also be called female genital mutilation or excision. In the past, this was a ritual for adolescent girls. In a report of Plan Mali, a children's development organisation, they discovered this excision was being made in girls when they were babies. 90% of infants less than one year old had already has this genital cutting. The reason for the excision being made at that age because they are easier to hide from the authorities initiation ceremonies of teenage girls.

Cutting infants increases the risk of serious physical consequences and health workers report that they are now seeing more and more women with reproductive health problems. Although progress is being made in some areas of Mali to reduce female genital cutting, in other regions there's been a backlash to abolition efforts.

Des Gregor, 56, has arrived back in Adelaide after being held hostage in the African nation of Mali for 12 days. He had gone there expecting to marry a woman he had met over the internet, and pick up a US$86,000 (£43,000) dowry. But instead he was held hostage, with his kidnappers demanding US$86,000 from him in ransom. Mr Gregor, a sheep farmer, set off to Mali on what he hoped would be an exotic adventure, during which he would not only meet his African bride but pocket a huge dowry in gold. The target of his affections was a woman purportedly called Natacha, a Liberian refugee in her twenties whom he had met and fallen in love with over the internet. Mr Gregor was picked up at the airport by men claiming to be Natacha's relatives but who turned out to be gangsters. After taking him to a flat in the capital, Bamako, they stripped him naked, held a gun to his head and threatened to chop off his limbs with machetes. They also demanded $86,000 as a ransom, or else he would be killed. His relatives sounded the alarm when they started receiving strange e-mails asking for money. At that point the Australian authorities decided to lay a trap of their own. They managed to persuade the kidnappers that Mr Gregor could pick up the ransom money at the Canadian embassy. It was there that he was rescued by the Australian federal police after being held for 12 days. West African internet scams are not uncommon and many of his fellow Australians have wondered why the farmer was so easily duped. His relatives say he was blinded by internet love.
 * Kidnapping**
 * March 13, 2008**
 * A south Australian farmer has warned of the perils of falling in love over the internet, after an online bride scam almost cost him his life.**
 * 'Blinded by love'**
 * [[image:http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44054000/gif/_44054497_bamako_mali_0807.gif width="203" height="152" caption="map"]] ||

HOME