Photo caption: shown left to right, with some of the first stones carried to the construction site: Banemanie, Clitoraid correspondent in Burkina Faso; Fahir, first woman to receive clitoral repair surgery through Clitoraid; and Abibata, now touring the country to educate women and schoolgirls about the restorative procedure.

One year after the launch of its “Adopt a Clitoris” campaign, Clitoraid, a non-profit organization based in Las Vegas, is about to lay the cornerstone of a unique, pleasure-restoring hospital in Burkina Faso. In the new facility, hundreds – and eventually thousands – of women will have operations to repair the sexual organ mutilated against their will in childhood.

According to a barbaric tradition that still persists in some parts of the world, female children are forced to undergo an excruciatingly painful procedure through which the clitoris is excised. The act is typically carried out without anesthesia and is often performed by female relatives, themselves earlier victims of the practice.
An estimated 135 million women worldwide are victims of this detestable tradition. Until now, with the damage done, little could be done to help them achieve the sexual pleasure known to the rest of humanity.
The “pleasure hospital” campaign began after French surgeon Dr. Pierre Foldes announced he had developed a technique that restores sexual sensibility to women who have suffered removal of the clitoris.

The story of Clitoraid and the “Adopt a Clitoris” program
Rael, spiritual leader of the Raelian Movement, heard of Dr. Foldes’ work and had the idea of helping as many victims as possible through the creation of Clitoraid.
Rael often says that to save women is to save humanity, since femininity represents its future. With Rael’s encouragement and the help of others, Clitoraid was formed, and its “Adopt a Clitoris” program was designed not to help just a few women, but to finance the construction of a unique, sanitary and specialized medical unit in which women of all nationalities and religions could have their clitoral sensation “rebuilt.”