Clitoraid to be represented at Japan’s renowned Shinto Phallus Shrine - Introducing its new clitoris awareness logo designed by artist Rokude Nashiko

LAS VEGAS, April 3 - U.S.-based, international humanitarian organization Clitoraid, which offers clitoral repair surgery to victims of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), has been honored by Shinto High Priestess Hisae Nakamura, owner of the Shinto Shrine in Kawazaki, Japan. In accordance with this new recognition, Clitoraid's vulva logo will be displayed during the Shinto celebration, Sunday April 5th,​ ​where​ penis statues​ ​are paraded in the streets​, according to a statement released today by Clitoraid.

"This honorable invitation is highly symbolic,” said Lia Steinman, Clitoraid’s U.S. spokesperson, who was born in Japan. "Clitoraid's vulva logo is the result of an artistic collaboration with Japanese artist Rokude Nashiko, who is currently awaiting trial and a possible jail sentence in Japan for displaying her extensive vulva art work there. In Japan, the public display of female genitals, even in art, is forbidden. Our participation aims not only at raising awareness regarding the taboos that surround the vulva and the clitoris but also to renew our support to Rokude Nashiko.

Head Priestess Nakamura explained: "Originally, our shrine was dedicated to both the penis and the female genitals as symbols of fertility, prosperity, and happy couples, but the public and the media have focused only on ​ the​ p​enis ​ tribute​. So many people misunderstand about the shrine worshipping only the penis."

​“In accordance with the humanitarian vision of Maitreya Rael, who founded Clitoraid in 2004​, our organization works toward restoring sexual pleasure in women whose basic human right has been trampled for centuries,” Steinman said. “Whether women are victims of extreme physical violation, such as female genital mutilation, or victims of a more subdued psychological and cultural violation, as in modern Japan, our goal is to restore their dignity and ability to experience pleasure ​without shame or guilt​."

​To emphasize the importance of female genital pleasure and women's dignity around the world, Clitoraid has established Clitoris Awareness Week during the first week of May, Steinman said.

“During this special week, we educate the public about the clitoris and celebrate this magnificent female organ, which was vilified far too long, yet is so vital to women's inner-balance and self-esteem,” she explained. "That’s why we hope to see a large vulva statue ​ parading​ ​at the Shinto festival​ next year alongside the ​wonderful​ phallus symbols​ ​.​"

Clitoraid supports Heather Hironimus, a Palm Beach County, FL resident who is facing a prison sentence for refusing to have her 4 year old little boy genitally mutilated or "circumcised" as the medical community lightly calls cutting off a part of a boy's penis who has no say in this matter.

“Bodily harm is against the fundamental rights of all children, and we can’t understand when a so-called civilized country such as the United States would allow its male babies to be so readily mutilated legally!" said Nadine Gary, spokesperson for Clitoraid.

Clitoraid (clitoraid.org) is the international, non-profit organization founded by Rael, spiritual leader of the Raelian Movement (rael.org), to end Female Genital Mutilation by offering free clitoral repair surgery to victims of this barbaric act. Now the organization is urging a worldwide end to genital mutilation of male children as well.

“The United Nations passed a resolution that condemns all cultural and religious arguments in favor of FGM because the act constitutes a gross violates of children rights,” Gary said. “But how can the U.N. ban Female Genital Mutilation and not denounce Male Genital Mutilation as well? Is it exempting certain religions from respecting the fundamental right of baby boys?”

Gary said that according to the World Health Organization, 30 percent of males worldwide are circumcised.

“This means billions of people have been mutilated without their consent,” Gary said.

Brigitte Boisselier, Ph.D., head of Clitoraid, affirmed that mutilation of any baby or child in the name of a god is unacceptable.

“It’s been done for centuries under the pretense that a god requested it, but no religion should be allowed to harm infants or children who can’t give informed consent,” she said. “We’re setting up a hospital in Africa that’s due to open next year, where female victims can go to have genital repair surgery for free. “And, thanks to Clitoraid, thousands more can find relief at several clinics in North America. But we’ve also been getting e-mail from hundreds of circumcised men who want to have their own mutilation undone. They need help too! So, as Rael has repeatedly stated, it’s urgent to have all the old scriptures reviewed by an independent committee on human rights so that all religious group practices are in agreement with the Declaration of Human Rights.”

The documentary is a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes into the mind of one of Clitoraid's patients, an FGM victim who is about to have her Clitoral Repair Surgery.
Clitoraid wishes to thank this patient for allowing her story to be told and filmed so that it may help heal millions of other victims of FGM until genital cutting no longer exists.

TORONTO, Feb. 4 – Dr. Harold Henning, volunteer surgeon for Clitoraid, a humanitarian organization that assists victims of female genital mutilation (FGM), will speak at the Humber College Lakeshore Campus in Toronto on Friday, Feb. 6, at 11 a.m., in honor of United Nations Zero Tolerance for FGM Day.

Henning, an American gynecologist, recently received permanent residency status in Canada. As a Clitoraid volunteer surgeon, he performs a revolutionary clitoral restoration procedure for FGM victims in both the United States and in Burkina Faso, West Africa, where Clitoraid is about to open the Kamkaso Pleasure Hospital in Bobo Dioulasso. The procedure restores clitoral functioning and the ability to experience sexual pleasure.

In addressing graduate students from the International Development Institute at Humber’s College Lakeshore Campus, Henning will focus on his life-changing, humanitarian mission to Bobo Dioulasso last March. While there, he and another Clitoraid surgeon, Dr. Marci Bowers, operated on 38 FGM victims.

“These women, like millions of others in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world, endured the horrific practice of genital cutting when they were little girls,” Henning explained. “For most of their lives, they lived with a mutilated vulva and multiple health consequences, plus the inability to feel sexual pleasure. They were thankful to be free from this brutal past and to be given back their human dignity, in which sexual pleasure and integrity plays a central role.”

Throughout the year, Dr. Henning operates on FGM patients in Upstate, New York, U.S.A. Although FGM victims from Australia, Europe, Indonesia, Africa and the Middle East seek Clitoraid’s assistance, hundreds of thousands of victims also reside in North America, according to Henning.

“Many genitally mutilated women have migrated to Western countries,” he said. “An increasing number of them are actively seeking ways to reverse the damage done to them by FGM. Over and over, patients confide that FGM has ruined their lives and relationships.”

Henning said he is looking forward to training Canadian gynecologists in performing the clitoral repair procedure. And he hopes Canada will eventually cover patient costs, as France does now.

In Bobo Dioulasso, Feb. 6 will be celebrated on the grounds of Clitoraid’s Kamkaso Pleasure Hospital, where FGM-recovered patients and those awaiting surgery will gather.