Child brides, FGM and the ILk.

[wildkittydeer]

Some of you may have seen or heard the programme on the BBC last night about child abuse in some religious orders. The whole subject is sickening but it highlights something I feel so aggravated about that I could kick the door and the windows to smithereens. There has been news recently about an article in the National Geographic concerning child brides. I ask anyone not familiar to make themselves so for it is unbelievable in its awfulness. The woman who wrote it says it is not a simple issue and that such children cannot be just rescued. I found her attitude shocking because no human could research what she did and not feel they would want to return to the area armed to the hilts. Girls as young as 6 or 7 are being abused and the males in their area state 'well here the man is king'. Some hospitals in India now no longer have any female births, women and girls in lots of countries in Africa and Asia undergo the most horrific abuse to their sex organs, do not allow this to be fobbed of as FGM, always claim it for what it is not just an abbreviation. Yes terrible things happened according to the BBC in boarding schools, most of it 20, 30 even 40 years ago. This abuse is happening now, not just in far off countries but it is being facilitated here. Yes it makes the news but it is so couched in PC language, so bound by fear of no upsetting certain groups and yet the reality is enough to make any woman suffer nightmares. Do not buy the shite that it happens in all cultures, no it does not and most cultures where it is an aberration, it is condemned out of hand. This is not routine in places where it is genuinely believed that women are either sub human, evil or born to be kept in their place.

"it is my understanding that certain private hospitals IN THE UK carry out this radical and needless procedure on young females at the behest of their male relatives"

seriously izzy? I didn't know this. Hospitals in the UK perform genital mutilation on girls at the request ofthe girls' family? If that is true, that is surely illegal. How can this be?

It is illegal but not enough action is taken against those that commit these crimes because it is viewed as cultural and there is a acceptance of cultural practices, even if they constitute abuse.

It is part of the problem when giving aid to other countries, in Haiti, for example, some places refused aid because they were told that some aspects of voodoo was not right.

I like your style Lunabelly.

And dont forget the consultants in those private practices may well be of the same culture.

There was a lawyer, british born, on a Panorama episode recently, who was muslim I believe, carrying out deliberate false and arranged marriages to get people visas and rights to stay. Just because its here doesnt mean they cant behave as they do elsewhere.

And as for aid, we shouldnt give aid to places where they systematically abuse women and children. But we do because we want to look like loving caring Britain on the world stage.

FGM was performed in a Harley Street clinic at least once. Google it. The doctor was struck off. Hopefully he was jailed as well.

My prime concern is the safety and equality of my gender. Therefore, I don't give a shit who or what I offend.
I'm not saying we should all be identical, a homogenous mass, but someone needs to step up to the mark and say "That's not on".
Raping virgins and babies "in order to cure HIV and AIDS" is commonplace in South Africa, when will some twat with brown rice and a tambourine consider that a culture?

All these crimes against women and children on the word of deluded men either commanding it or making the women think that they will be more acceptable if they submit, or because some invisible and probably non-existent creature in the sky apparently demands it.
"religion" and "culture" should not give protection to the people who do this. As I implied earlier, such violence because the fairies told someone to do it would see the perpetrator incarcerated in one form or another.

But ahhhh, GOD demands it, ah, well that's ok then. Some wizened old village misogynist demands it because GOD says it makes women more acceptable, ah well, that's ok then.

Except it's not.

This was last summer:

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDIQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.guardian.co.uk%2Fsociety%2F2010%2Fjul%2F25%2Ffemale-circumcision-children-british-law&rct=j&q=female%20circumcision%20uk&ei=_JQDTsClGcm7hAeBsYn9DQ&usg=AFQjCNFrd_fCb5ADJZLlvrOAOzdp0RFtBw&cad=rja

Anyone willing to bet it'll be any different this year?

WHY haven't they been prosecuted?

the reasoning for female and male circumcision is completely different. for males it is to keep them clean, godly, for females it is to control their sexual desires. FGM is about control of women nothing else

the numbers are shocking, 85% of married women in egypt have been mutilated to some extent, mildest form beign part of their clitoris been cut away, usually with no anesthetic used, the most extreme form the clitoris is complete cut away with both outer and inner labia also removed and just a small hole left for the women to urinate and pass menstrual blood, it is then undone slightly when she is married and again when she gives birth. shoudl she become a widow or is divorced she is stitched up again, just in case her sexual desires become the better of her

yes i read the article horrific. i am so thankful i live in this country

It also shows the level of brainwashing that goes on and the level of fear.

I know id kill someone before id let them do that to me, but thousands of these women dont fight back because they cant. They are surrounded by freaks who think it is ok, and will probably burn them alive if they fight back.

In my eyes, any mother who can do that to her own child should not be allowed to have children. Its not about education either, sorry but if you are that mentally backward you dont understand that sawing girls genitals off and watching them scream in pain is wrong then you should be forcably sterilised.

We need to stop being so bloody tolorant and drag these people kicking and screaming into the 21 century.

Living in this country isn't saving some young girls though. Also, as I understand it, when boys are circumcised for delusional religious or cultural reasons, it is done by doctors and with anaesthesia, of course . Not by filthy old crones with a rusty razor.

I feel that all ritual mutilation of children is wrong, but FGM cannot be compared to male circumcision. That's like the difference between having a mole removed by a doctor and being disembowelled alive in an abandoned warehouse.

Now. Can't help wondering how quickly the UK authorities would act if such radical mutilation was being done to boys. Because make no mistake, this is a man's world, and man backs that up with delusion and culture...but what angers and saddens me is the women who are so downtrodden by manmade religious and cultural shit that they believe this shit. Wise up. Rise up.

its about educating them, not them wising up they need support and education. we have the freedom to educate ourselves, to have choices in our lives these women do not

think about what our grandparents believed because they were told, like masterbation caused blindness, the guilt and fear older generations lived with because of this belief. these women are not stupid or cruel they are victims of a cruel to the extreme society towards women and the biggest fear is a women not being married, how will she earn money, where will she live, she is not going to home educate herself on her laptop and get a career is she she does not have the choices that we so take for granted

No, which is why on one of my previous posts I said Education education education. I know how lucky I am, I thank my lucky stars every bloody day.

You can hope to educate the victims out of the hell hole they live in yes, but you cant educate evil morons out of being evil morons.

Word.

But some of the practices are being carried out in the UK where the women doing it have the opportunity of education. In those cases zero tolerance needs to be applied.

The question was asked if we would put up with such treatment of boys. Boys are as much victims of voodoo practices as females, and those that carry them out are not charged. I think that it is more to do with being terrified of being accussed as being culturally intolerant or racisist, in some instances, as it being about gender. It is just that women are by coincidence second class citizens in countries that this is the norm in, so are the bigger victims but not the only ones.

When London Bridge was opened illigitimate children were sacrificed by priests to ward off evil, all cultures have had mistaken beliefs, it is just a case that these countries are lagging behind and they do need to be told that it is now unaccetable, it isn't patronizing other cultures and we need to get over that fear, which i believe is left over from the shame of the Empire days.

Don't quite know where to begin here. What should I rage about first? If you work with children and have access to Labour CP documents, can I suggest you read their policies on FGM and forced early marriage (policies are obvious. Brief summary: they're bad and constitute abuse)- it makes frightening reading, mainly because of the examples and awareness of the situation in this country.

I don't have the documents on me (alright, I do, but it'd take an hour to trawl through and find the exact quote), but one element that I thought was interesting was the point that any medical practitioners who noticed FGM i.e. because a woman was giving birth were obliged to reverse the procedure. Anybody explain how this is done?

However, I don't think there are many statistics (for obvious reasons) and, although I work in a school which is around 30% Somalian and 30% Afghan and thus it was suspected there was loads of FGM....somebody is doing a study right now and their initial research is showing that the kids have no idea what they're talking about. Basically, the early conclusion is that because the parents were the sort of people who wanted to get out of those countries, they are also the sort of people who wanted to ignore barbaric elements of their culture and hence have left the girls intact.

One other interesting point- I've worked in two countries where more than 99% of the women are circumcised and, although this is awful (look at the death rates. Harar loses around 12% of all teenage girls because of the procedure), actually the richer women tend to get it done 'symbolically' rather than fully, which is what I assume happened in Harley Street i.e. as an ex-colleague explained to me, they get a piece of their clitoris nicked out (shudder) which means that they can say they have had FGM and hence are ready for marriage, but everything still functions.

I agree zero tolerance should be practiced in this country. Fuck being PC and not offending minorities. In the communities where it is practiced then education and practical support is needed. Change needs to happen on a grass roots level, not be imposed from above.

Personally, I would rather some twats called me racist, than have a child viciously mutilated because people were too scared of the culture police to speak up.

Should we lobby our governments to come down on these abusers like a ton of bricks? Yes, I think so.

This is not about race. This is about misogyny. This is a hate crime. Dressed up as culture and necessity, but make no mistake, this is a hate crime that previous victims perpetuate because they are scared of their abusers.

It has got to come from 'above' because it is often ignored at grass root level. The importance of this being abuse needs to be written in leglislation and not the wishy washy policies that we have. I am echoing in someways Tortu's post but i have to be careful because of my job and wat we know to be the reality.

Luna-it isn't just about fear it is deeply ingrained in some cultures (as abuse once was in ours). We need to make a stand and say if you do so and so it is abuse, we do not care why you think you are doing it, full stop.

There are people in these countries fighting against these practices. But saying women who allow these practices should be sterilised shows a total lack of understanding.

If you live in a country where FMG is common practice, you are married and must obey your husband, you have no way to earn enough money to live independently of your husband and your family and friends support FMG - how are you going to stop FMG happening to your children? You would need to be unusually brave and strong to take a stand against all of this.

And there are people in this country who come from countries who routinely practise these things, who have been trying to fight against it. They are the first to condemn people in the UK who won't condemn or take action against these things because of the argument of cultural practices.

of course there should be zero tolerance in this country, but children are beign sent abroad to have it done, who can we prosecute the mothers, fathers put them in jail. in egypt it has been banned that has not stopped young girls beign circumcised or rather mutilated, those who are educated are less likely to have suffered

Lesley - hence why I mention brainwashing. But we were talking about education and I stand by the fact that if you are so fucking stupid that you dont understand mutilating your own child and seeing them in pain is wrong then you should not be allowed children.

Agreed, things go wrong in this country. People here do bad things. The difference? we as a society condemn it, we actively say it is wrong and stand up against it.

Did any of you watch the documentory on children in Africa? Treated as witches? If not, look it up on youtube or 4on demand. Its disgusting. These people didnt need educating, they were mulit-lingual, chatting away to the crew, having a nice little laugh over the girl they had set fire to and left by the side of the road. They were then threatening the film crew and the rescue team that if they brought her home, they would kill her. The leader got a club out and threatened to beat her to death right there on film.

That little girls eyes say it all. They dont need education, they know exactly what they are doing, and they enjoy it. They need fucking telling, full stop. No more money to misogynist bastards.

KilledBill- when i talk about voodoo practices it is the type that you describe. They are done in this country also. Children are beaten and starved to remove demons/evil spirits, SW's do not treat it as they would other abuse because they are told not to. Look at some of the honour killings that are going without proper investigation and prosicution in this country.

There isn't zero tolerance here. Parents should be charged if they sent their children abroad to have FGM done. A UK born parent couldn't sell child porn in other countries and not be charged, for example, so why do we not have strong laws that everyone including private doctors have to follow with harsh consequences if they don't. We have only removed other things from our society like incest because of zero tolerance. It might be 'banned' in Eygpt but the law doesn't follow through when it is discovered so is ineffective.

BirdsGottaFly - yes, deeply ingrained by fear. Fear of being unmarried, of being outcast. Every government needs to come out fighting and hold the perpetrators to account and IF the young girls are in school, teach them that "this is wrong" .

We ALL of us need to rise up and refuse any more abuse in the name of / protected by culture or religion, and end this institutional misogyny that is everywhere. If that means midnight Interpol raids on the Vatican or WHATEVER, so be it.

how can you prove that parents have sent their daughter away for them to be mutilated, they may have just been going on an innocent trip to see their grandparents. that is the problem it is getting into these communities many are very guarded and understanding them so we can educate them not just tell them you way is wrong and we are right. we need to get it through why it is wrong, cultural and religious fears will always be feared more than what the law may or may not do.

i would like to see parents prosecuted in court but it would be so hard to prove and would it prevent others, i doubt it