to CELEBRATE the first FGM prosecutions!

[Sallyingforth]

Breaking news on BBC. Hope they send them down for a long sentence as an example to others.

[Daddypigsgusset]

The CPS has decided to take no further action in one other new case and in three cases that were under review having been considered previously.In the new case it was alleged that two parents had arranged for their daughter to undergo female genital mutilation while abroad.In one of the other cases a suspect contacted an FGM helpline to request the procedure for his two daughters after misunderstanding the purpose of the service for victims.

I am open mouthed at this from bbc website

[JaneinReading]

I am not surprised by those two decisions. In one case in the Standard last year the parents were not UK citizens and the baby was not yet so the prosecution would fail which might be the best mentioned as dropped. In the second that is someone contacting a helpline who was just muddled up - again not a good case either.

I hope the cases they have found are good cases.

[SauceForTheGander]

I'm going to donate here. I heard Ruth Rendall on the radio discussing her work and here's her organisation

www.fgmnationalgroup.org/about_us.htm

[SauceForTheGander]

No I'm not - they are totally unfunded

[Twigletpiglet]

Shocking case, and horrendous that it seems so difficult/so much foot dragging around prosecutions.

A previous poster has suggested that all primary school girls should be checked yearly by a school nurse to prevent/detect FGM. I think some organisations involved are pushing that as a preventative, but I feel it would be a huge huge invasion of privacy and as such, totally unacceptable. Also, surely any parent planning to commit FGM would withdraw their child from this check. If it was compulsory it would have to be at social services behest, and in that case SS could just order an examination in the first place of specific children they felt to be at risk.

[AnnieLobeseder]

Sallyingforth - I stand by every word I say. If people are so concerned about both genders, as you say, why is FGM never brought up on threads about male circumcision? The only similarity is the region of the body where the abuse takes place. I too am hugely opposed to both, but I am quite able to separate the two in my head as the reasons/results are so very different, they are carried out by different cultures; no campaign could ever focus on both as the target audiences would be too different. I cannot understand why so many people cannot discuss FGM without bringing men into the discussion.

[FreudiansSlipper]

good news it is a start I would like to see women and children monitored more like they do in france along with education not just threats

and please lets not bring male circumcision into this argument it devalues the argument of fgm and why it is performed and the lasting pain women and children are left with it is not the same thing

[JaneinReading]

Ah, thanks

"Jane, as posted above, it seems he cut the woman to allow her to give birth, but then restored the infibulation afterwards, and that's the illegal part. What makes it tricky is that the woman requested the procedure be done."

Then I'm not happy that is a first case. Could we not have found some back street woman doing it on 6 year old girls rather than a doctor where the woman consented? I think it's dreadful if our test case is where the woman requested it. It brings up all kinds ofi ssues.
It's her body. What about all those of us who have had an episiotmy and the doctors who used to joke about doing an extra stitch for the husband's benefit.

Could they not have concentrated a first prosecution on something done to a little girl?

Is genital surgery really illegal? Lots of women (silly women in my view) want their vagina to look better etc etc etc.

Okay so what exactly did this doctor do? After she had a vaginal birth she requested that the doctor entirely sew back up her vaginal opening and does someone have a copy of the section of the statute b eing used? In a sense on an adult woman's body is it not a question of our rights over our bodies - our right to abort, our right to be spanked or caned, our right to cut off our hand etc etc... I wish the first case were about a little girl where the issues are so much clearer.

[Sallyingforth]

why is FGM never brought up on threads about male circumcision
I has never occurred to me to analyse threads on MN that way. To me that is just a diversion from actually stopping the mutilation of babies for 'cultural' reasons.
Could we leave that issue aside now please?

According to the interview with the DPP on the BBC news at 1pm, there are all sorts of problems with bringing prosecutions for FGM, and it's quite clear that the law needs changing. We should all be pressing our MPs to do so. It's disgraceful that so many cases brought to the police are not being followed up, or are being dismissed by the CPS, because of holes in the legislation. That must change!

[Amethyst24]

Completely agree with everything you say, Jane, it muddies the waters a great deal. There must be a good reason for bringing this case to trial, but it seems to me that it raised as many issues as it will hope to resolve.

[caruthers]

Changing the law on ALL genital mutilation would serve as a better campaign surely?

It's time we eradicated all this regardless if it's FGM or MGM.

[Sallyingforth]

Jane
Where did you see that "the woman requested it"? I didn't see that.
The way I read the report, it was the second man (her husband?) who requested it.

[FreudiansSlipper]

how many men do you know that have regretted being circumcised

we know some do many many do not and many have no desire to have not been

fgm is what it says mutilation male circumcision is not mutilation it is not done to keep control of men or cause them long term pain

[SauceForTheGander]

I think girls born to mothers who have had FGM should be red flagged to social services as high risk of abuse. These babies are facing torture and mutilation.

[Sallyingforth]

Oh FFS! This is about prosecutions for FGM and what can be done to encourage them.
Please don't turn it into yet another pointless pro/anti circumcision thread. There have been too many of them, that have got exactly nowhere.

[JaneinReading]

"The way I read the report, it was the second man (her husband?) who requested it." Someone on this thread told me that. If that is not so then it may be a better case but even so surely not the best first test case? Also the husband could easily say his wife had requested it in advance.

I want to see the statute. Does it say you cannot close the vaginal opening entirely by surgery (except presumably in sex change surgery)? Presumably it would not for example have made the doctor who stitched me up after an episiotomy commit a crime if the opening were a bit tighter than another doctor might have stitched it up to.

In FMG they do leave a hole, a small hole, so menstrual blood can come out and so that the husband can get his penis in. So we are talking about who big a hole was left on an adult woman who has given birth. Very different from a case where a little girl is sewn up. Presumably this adult case was on someone who already had had her clitoris removed so it's just about surgery on the vaginal opening.

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

Jane - like Sallying, I suspect (though we won't know till the details are reported in open court) that it is a case of the husband requesting the doctor do it without the woman being consulted.

Also, although I realise that this will be an extremely upsetting experience, I do suggest you google infibulation and reinfibulation. To liken reinfibulation to an episiotomy repair makes as much sense as likening finding a doctor prepared to amputate the limb of someone suffering severe body dismorphia to a doctor setting a broken limb. The two procedures - reinfibulation and episiotomy repair - are totally different both in intention and outcome. (Outcomes of infibulation include chronic pain, pain on intercourse, complete loss of sexual function, risk of genito-urinary infection, abscess formation, keloid scar formation, massively increased risk of obstructed birth and fistula formation, etc. to mention but a few from the UN website).

[JaneinReading]

"We can also tighten the vagina itself in order to enhance the feelings of sexual gratification or simply to return your vagina to the way it was before childbirth. This is achieved by reconstructing the outer third of the vagina, the internal diameter and the vaginal opening. " www.harleymedical.co.uk/cosmetic-surgery-for-women/the-body/reshaping-and-tightening-of-the-female-genitalia/

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

Female genital mutilation act 2003

Since you asked to see the statute.

[Justcockthesockoff]

Cannot believe what I'm reading! Just fucking awful!!! In this day an age these procedures are still happening. Sickening!

Is there a text charity number? Why is this not in the media every fucking day!

[Justcockthesockoff]

I just can't believe this is happening , what fucking right do these people have?!?!

[CerealMom]

Unfortunately this piece gives little insight to the circumstances of the doctor and procedure.

• Who was the second man - husband?
  
• Was the doctor pressured to re-infibulate the woman's vagina? Either by the woman or man.
  
• Does the doctor agree with FGM?
  
• Did the doctor offer alternatives and these were rejected?
  
  Perhaps the doctor felt under the circumstances it was better for a doctor to perform the procedure in the hospital rather than the woman going elsewhere post birth?
  
  Perhaps given the physical condition of the woman's vagina, re-fibulation at that given point in time was the correct medical course. To leave the woman could perhaps have resulted in infection/further complications.
  
  This case was not the test case I personally would have hoped for. We are talking about a vulnerable woman (just given birth) with the most severe form of FGM.
  
  Unless CPS/agencies do feel there is a problem with a section of our HCPs.

[coffeeinbed]

Correct me if I'm wrong but in France they can check girls for FGM, here they are not checking.

It was about time though.
4000 cases in London.
Scary.

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

My guess is ( and this is speculation - no one on this thread will know until it is heard in court) that the CPS must feel they have a good case - perhaps the woman doesn't speak English so couldn't consent or another hpc heard the husband ask the surgeon to do it while the woman was being prepped for a GA.

[JaneinReading]

I did just search I cannot see what precisely a doctor would do on a woman who has just given birth to contrast sewing up the vagina tightly which involves stitched as is done in episiotomy and infibulation (given presumably as a child she had already had her clitoris and labia removed). Are we talking about internal stitches then compared to the external ones on episitomy? I am not saying what the doctor did was right (although gosh what a complex case to be a first one - likely he will get off surely, only doing his duty , difficult situation, saved her from further harm, she might say she consents etc)

I will look at the statute now.