Women Affairs

'They said they were going to give us ostrich eggs,' Esther Mbarga, aged 49, recalls. "'They're huge,' they said. 'Come and we'll give them to you.'" Aged ten or eleven, she and her friends had never seen an ostrich egg. They were really excited. They were taken deep into the bush and waited expectantly. Then, one at a time, they were led off to have their genitalia mutilated. Esther was pinned to the ground by four women and cut by a fifth. She limped away bleeding and crying. It was hard to walk and urination was incredibly painful for days afterwards. For some reason, the women weren't happy with the excision. On further checking they decided that there was more to cut. They cut more the following day and yet more a week later. Esther lives in Burkina Faso where female genital mutilation is not legal but is still carried out covertly. Female genital mutilation comprises 'all procedures involving partial or total removal of the exte...

Paris Hilton wants to warn young girls from making "humiliating" sex tapes. The blonde socialite was devastated when X-rated footage of her and ex-boyfriend Rick Salomon surfaced in 2003 and has vowed to stop other girls from agreeing to film themselves engaging in sex acts to please their lovers. She said: "I want young girls to never put themselves in that situation I was in. Don't ever let someone talk you into doing something you don't want to do." She added: "I was humiliated, embarrassed and in shock that it happened. It wasn't my fault, it was something that someone did to me, so I've just learned to be a strong woman and nothing can hurt me at this point. "It was definitely very painful. When you trust someone and love someone - for them to do that to you, it's really hard. It's something that bothers me everyday." The 28-year-old hotel heiress - who receives a percentage of profits from the footage, which was eventuall...

The chance to explore the complexities of the mother-child relationship in new movie Blessed was too much to pass up for mothers Miranda Otto, Deborra-lee Furness and Frances O'Connor. The Australian actresses join forces in director Ana Kokkinos's film, adapted from the play Who's Afraid of the Working Class? Furness plays Tanya, a married mother of a teenage boy and the family's sole breadwinner. Otto is Bianca, who is more like a sister than a mother to teenage Katrina. O'Connor is Rhonda, a welfare-dependent woman whose three children have different fathers. They are joined by Russian-born actress Victoria Haralabidou, who plays Gina, a widowed and very religious mother who feels her son and daughter are a mystery. Speaking before the world premiere of Blessed at the Melbourne International Film Festival yesterday, the four women said they were drawn to the project because of the powerful bond between mother and child. "It's about mothers and chi...