How have transnational NGOs and social movements impacted countries Term Paper

How have transnational NGOs and social movements impacted countries that practice female circumcision - Term Paper Example According to the World Health Organization, approximately 140 million girls have been circumcised all over the globe, of which about 92 million are believed to be from Africa. (Female Genital Mutilation, World Health Organization, February 2012). The origin of female circumcision is not known for sure, however some scholars on the subject speculate that this practice has its origins in the time of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs. This belief is corroborated by the fact that some ancient Egyptian female mummies were found to be circumcised. In today’s times female circumcision is commonly practiced in many parts of Africa. This practice is promoted in three ways by the people who propagate it. The Sunna type where the clitoris is excised, the clitoridectomy  type where the clitoris and minor labia are excised and the infibulations type where the whole clitoris and all the labia are cut off. (M. A. Dirie and G. Lindmark, 1992). The practice has however, been reinforced by Islami c tradition due to the belief that circumcising women dampens their sexual desire and leads to less promiscuous behavior generally. (Asaad M.B, 1980). Countries and cultures that advocate the practice believe that performing the procedure tunes down a woman’s libido. The opposition for female circumcision presents a strong case. ... According to the World Health Organization, female circumcision has no health benefits what so ever and is only a cause of damage. It is apparent with simple deduction that since the practice removes healthy female genital tissue for no medical reason; it will interfere with their normal bodily functions in addition to being the host of a bunch of diseases and infections. There can be instantaneous consequences like pain, shock, hemorrhage or tetanus etcetera or long term consequences which might include bladder and urinary tract infections, cysts, infertility and child birth complications etcetera (Female Genital Mutilation, World Health Organization, February 2012). However, debates regarding this issue are messy because of the cultural, religious, social and political connections to the issue of female circumcision on the side of the advocates of this procedure and thus, reaching a solution is a very complex course of action. The medical views on female circumcision are shrouded w ith confusion because they don’t understand the reason why people do it if it has such dangerous health implications. What needs to be done is that people should look at this practice through a cultural lens to understand its significance and why it means so much to the cultures and people who practice it. Firstly, they look upon this as a necessity according to what their beliefs have taught them. Second, this practice has different meanings for different cultures and people, third, although people who are against this practice to promote gender equality the women it is practiced upon don’t think of it as an infringement of their rights. Although this practice originated from the patriarchal society, it is women that have ensured that it keep being practiced to date.

Critical discussion of verbal and non-verbal communication Essay

Critical discussion of verbal and non-verbal communication - Essay Example Poor communication constantly occurs in hospitals and is believed to be responsible for a majority of hospitals treatment errors that cause death to many patients (Harrison and Hart, 2006). These communication breakdowns are likely to occur at specific points especially when breaking news to patients regarding their health, when doctors are being informed by nurses about patients’ health, when there is a medical emergency that requires quick treatment and during diagnosis and prescription of treatment. Various reasons have been found to lead to these lapses of communication that leads to wrong diagnosis and treatment as well as patients not being informed of their condition properly (Shives, 2008). Poor communication in hospitals has occurred frequently due to a lack of proper hospital policy in place to ensure that there is a basic protocol followed in the general treatment, resulting to nurses using different methods of treating. These errors could occur during discharge pro cedures as well as the report methods used during admission of emergency cases (Minott, 2008), as both nurses and doctors use different standards of measurement in report filling, making prescriptions and document handling, errors of interpretation are likely to occur. ... Hence, a mental model framework is imperative for the comprehension of verbal and non-verbal cues as well as for staff to share meaning and be able to develop common knowledge (Davidson and Blackman, n.d.). Lack of rules for face-to-face or any other verbal communication such as via telephone could also result in communication barriers forming during treatment especially while changing shifts. Different patients will respond differently to the rapport used by medical staff and although it is difficult to find a universal tone of conversation to use in conversation, it must be noted that it can result in patience feeling uncomfortable communicating as well as shutting down due to a feeling of disrespect or prying by the doctor. The use of vague language and unclear syntactic and pragmatics will also result in the misdiagnosis of patients and the inability of fellow staff members comprehending the sincerity of the patients’ illness (Byrne and Byrne 1992; Morrissey and Callaghan, 2011). A differing opinion on what is necessary and what is not is a serious impediment to effective communication between both patient-staff and staff-staff briefing. This is because different opinions have often led to scenarios where vital patient information about welfare is left out as either the patient or the nurses available feel that it is not necessary to explain some details especially if the affected area is very private or if it appears that they are healing and do not want to seem petty. This is more common during oral communication and emergency treatments than when viewing their chart files as different people will have various thoughts on what is important and what is not and information can be forgotten or left out. Infrequent communication by