Mission
The African Women’s Health Center is located at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital which is a Harvard Affiliated Hospital. The overall mission of the AWHC is to holistically improve the health of refugee women who have undergone female genital cutting. It provides access, understanding and community to refugee women who have long-term complications from this tradition and who seek access to improved reproductive health care.
Women who have undergone female genital cutting worry that practitioners lack the experience to provide quality care. They have expressed dissatisfaction with their care. Practitioners, on the other hand, request skills necessary to approach and care for these patients. The fears these patients voice and the concerns that providers express are similar nationwide.
The AWHC provides culturally and linguistically appropriate obstetric, gynecologic and reproductive health care to African immigrants and refugees. It is the first and only African health practice in the United State that focuses on issues regarding female genital cutting. It was founded in July 1999. It has increased its patient population from 8-10 women per session to 15-20 women per session. The patients are predominantly from Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia. Approximately ninety percent of these women have been circumcised. Defibulation procedures (plastic reconstruction of the scar) are routinely performed.