Hanny Lightfoot-Klein

Hanny Lightfoot-Klein has been an independent researcher into the enigma of the genital mutilation of non-consenting children worldwide for three decades.

A former high school English teacher and lone, unfunded, self-motivated backpacker, she pioneered the in-depth study of the widespread practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Africa over a period of years. She gained access into medical facilities, lived with African families of all social levels, in cities, towns, villages and desert settlements and interviewed over 400 people in all walks of life in regard to the psychological, sociological, historical, sexological, marital, medical, religious and legal aspects of FGM.

An avid writer, Lightfoot-Klein has published a large number of articles in a variety of scientific and humanist journals on the topic of genital mutilation of non-consenting children in the United States and abroad.

Ms. Lightfoot-Klein holds an MA in social psychology from the American University in Washington, DC. Providing expert witness services for asylum, abuse, and other legal actions involving FGM, she is available for written depositions as well as personal testimony in Immigration Court.

For the past three decades, Lightfoot-Klein has been speaking out against Female Genital Mutilation, violently perpetrated on well over a hundred million women in 28 African and Arab counties.

Her ground breaking, in-depth study of this subject, conducted over a 6 year period in sub-Saharan Africa, shed light on these secret rituals, which had until then remained hidden from the Western world. Her empathic understanding of the issues involved in their continuation versus their eventual, hoped for abandonment, remains to this day unsurpassed.

Publications

• Lightfoot-Klein, Hanny (2005): Children's Genitals Under the Knife: Social Imperatives, Secrecy and Shame. KDP (was: Createspace). ISBN 978-1419625404.
• Lightfoot-Klein, Hanny (2003): Secret Wounds. AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1403396990.
• Lightfoot-Klein, Hanny, Cole, Ellen, Rothblum, Ester D. (1992): A Woman's Odyssey Into Africa: Tracks Across a Life. Taylor & Francis Inc. ISBN 978-1560230076.
• Lightfoot-Klein, Hanny (1989): Prisoners of Ritual: An Odyssey into Female Genital Circumcision in Africa. Routledge Member of the Taylor and Francis Group. ISBN 978-0918393685.

See also

• Ending Circumcision - Hanny Lightfoot-Klein An Extraordinary Woman

External links

• Official website. Retrieved 6 October 2019