Clitoraid launches Clitoris Awareness Awards to kick off its annual Clitoris Awareness Week

LAS VEGAS, April 30, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- With this year's Clitoris Awareness Week (May 3-10) about to begin, a statement released today by U.S.-based organization Clitoraid announced the first two recipients of its new "Clitoris Awareness Award."

"With this award, we honor two wonderful artists who have greatly contributed to public awareness of this widely unknown and often vilified human organ, the clitoris," said Brigitte Boisselier, PhD, president of Clitoraid and spokesperson for the International Raelian Movement.

"Penelopi Jones has brought elegance and beauty with her artistic representation of the female sexual organ, and we're proud to offer her design in our online store to raise funds for our humanitarian operations. We hope many women will wear it proudly and thereby help provide regained sexual pleasure and dignity for sexually mutilated women. Their clitoral functioning can now be restored thanks to our services."

Boisselier explained that Clitoraid is a Nevada-based charity that offers free clitoris repair surgery to victims of female genital mutilation (FGM).

In Burkina Faso, Africa, Clitoraid will soon open the world's first hospital to offer free surgical repair surgery to any woman who wants it.

FGM is still prevalent in many places around the world.

"There are more than 160 million women alive today, with 500,000 in the United States alone, who have been deprived of a part of their clitoris," Boisselier said. "Their lives are full of pain and feelings of inferiority."

Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi is the other recipient of the new award.

"Along with her courageous depictions of the vulva in her art displays, Ms. Igarashi has designed a "Manko-Shan" (precious vulva) logo for us," Boisselier said. "For this innocent artwork, she is facing a jail sentence and steep fine because public display of female genitals is illegal in Japan, even in artworks."

Boisselier said an animation of Megumi Igarashi's Manko-Shan cartoon will kick off Clitoris Awareness Week as Clitoraid members and fans organize parties, forums and conferences worldwide to honor and celebrate the inner and outer beauty of the clitoris.

SOURCE Clitoraid