Oh my word....

[Creampastry]

Just listening to the radio and hear that every hour a female is treated at a medical facility (doctors, hospital etc) in the U.K. for FGM....

I assume the majority will be girls and young women .... but 1 every hour.... it's disgraceful.

[PetalMettle]

This is the only prosecution I'm aware of www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/04/doctor-not-guilty-fgm-dhanuson-dharmasena?client=safari

[BigBangTheory789]

It is a disgusting cultural practice made to of course keep girls under control whilst pretending it's to protect them... Such a warped idealogy.

To those comparing circumcision to FGM, please don't, put your ignorance aside and understand the true difference and the horrifying facts about FGM...

[Janey50]

To those who think that male circumcision is on a par with fgm I would say this. Does male circumcision involve removing half of your external genitalia,usually with unsterilised instruments such as razor blades or pieces of glass? Does male circumcision lead to death through shock,from pain or blood loss,or infection? Does it cause a lifetime of urinary problems? Or severe pain during sex? Fgm can cause all these things,plus obstetric problems when giving birth,gynaecological problems with menstruating. The list goes on. So please don't think that the 2 are similar in any way.

[savagehk]

While I agree with you Janey there are still some cultures where male circumcision is also done in sub-standard conditions and every year teenage boys do die. (Eg www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/28/south-africa-circumcision )

[Janey50]

savagehk I stand corrected. But,the number of circumcised men who die/become seriously ill or suffer lifelong problems because of it is a fraction of the number of women affected.

[sashh]

Prosecute the doctors instead?

For treating women?

Or did you think the procedure was carried out in sterile conditions by a competent medical practitioner?

It's razor blades and in some cases animal dung used to 'seal' the wound.

It's horrible. Prosecution is hard, I think, because the people who would get prosecuted would be the parents, more likely the mothers as it's they who arrange it, escort the child, etc. Thing is, according to their culture, FGM is essential and it's one of the things a loving parent does for a child. They may not even know it's against the law or, if they do, just think people don't understand. So apart from the little matter of FGM (sarcasm) they are otherwise loving parents.

Lots of parents could be described as 'otherwise loving' but if they deliberately abuse their child they are prosecuted, why is this any different?

Also families from Somalia and other places this is common are often large, prosecuting the parents should stop other girls in the family having the procedure.

[Janey50]

Although having said that,I am not in any way belittling the problems highlighted here,associated with male circumcision in sub-standard conditions. What I am trying to say I suppose,is that if the problems experienced by women who have undergone fgm were experienced on the same scale by men who had been circumcised,there would be international outrage about it and I reckon the practice would not be allowed to continue. And what I also find abhorrent is the reason that fgm is done,i.e. as a means of controlling women,under the guise of it being done for their own benefit. Yes,their own benefit in that they will be regarded as 'dirty','immoral' and unmarriageable if they don't have it done. I don't hear the same reasons being cited for male circumcision. Religion,cleanliness or medical reasons are usually the given reasons for male circumcision.

[Grittyshunts]

I don't disagree with you janey but, unless for medical reasons, circumcision is still genital mutilation.

[FloweringDeranger]

I don't think male circumcision is really comparable to female either. The foreskin on men can be removed without long-term effects, pain or problems: it is commonly done for hygienic and medical reasons and unless done badly has no effects on future sex life. That is not the case with FGM. There is nothing in the female anatomy which can be removed without having an adverse effect, and it frequently (always?? not sure) leads to chronic lifelong pain.

Someone asked for the source: the independent has more details, www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/female-genital-mutilation-fgm-case-per-hour-uk-nhs-circumcision-a7564571.html

It's an analysis done on NHS figures by a charity.

[Grittyshunts]

According to circumcision.org it can cause lots of problems.

[TinselTwins]

Can we not have ONE DAY highlighting FGM without it being all "what about the male circumcision issue" - SERIOUSLY people!

a day to highlight FGM does not mean that nobody cares about male circumcision, however taking over all FGM discussions with "but what about the boys" is not okay.

FGM is an issue in itself with its own unique challenges. The challenges are not the same as Male Circumcision, that is not to say that male circumcision doesn''t have it's own challenges, but what it does mean is that FGM needs it's own platform so CAN WE JUST STOP with the "whataboutthe boys" on FGM threads. Nobody is stopping you from addressing male circumcision elsewhere!

[MrsHathaway]

Quite.

Circumcision is an interesting topic. So is nuclear fusion. This is a thread about fgm.

[Grittyshunts]

I wasn't "taking over" the thread with a "what about the boys" spin, if you read my first post you would see that I agree this "practice" is absolutely horrific.

[ChardonnayKnickertonSmythe]

I asked for the source.
Thank you.

It's scary it seems it's a losing battle.

[PossumInAPearTree]

Piercings are counted under the legislation whether or not the staff think it was abusive. So as a midwife if I care for an adult woman who has chosen to have her clitoral hood pierced I have to officially report it. It's the law.

Nothing happens to that woman but these figures are collected and presented as official stats. And none of the stats I've seen break the fgm down into the different levels. So it makes me wonder what proportion are actually piercings.

[averylongtimeago]

Does it really matter if a few of the reported cases are for women who have had voluntary genital piercings? Does it make fgm somehow less of an issue?

[PossumInAPearTree]

It doesn't make fgm less of an issue, no. But I think it makes an overall difference to the reporting of the facts if indeed 90% of the stats are piercings. As it stands I have no way of knowing if it's 90% or 2%. So while for individuals affected by true fgm it makes no difference when a person is reading such articles and they want to know how much of an issue this is generally it makes a big difference.

You get emotive headlines like one per hour, maybe it's one per week? And then the problem is that people don't know if it's true facts or Donald Trump type facts so they switch off from the issue because they don't know if what they're reading is bollocks or not. And we don't want people switching off. We want people to be outraged and making a noise which they won't do if they suspect it's inaccurate reporting/facts.

[BarbarianMum]

This practice will not stop until parents are more frightened of the consequences of having it done than those of not having it done. It is no different from all other culturally sanctioned acts of child abuse (beating and burning children who are "witches", forcing your DD to lose her virginity with a "hyena" , beating your child for disobedience even). This is the UK. All who live here need to be protected by our laws and answerable to them.

[Kookypants]

An estimated 200 million women worldwide have been butchered in this way. It's not like circumcision, it's more like having the penis removed. Makes me so fucking angry.

[Grittyshunts]

Barbarian
This 100%

[CaliforniaHorcrux]

You're right Spirited she didn't get much choice which is why it's strange that her org or campaign is called African Women Are Free To Choose

[PausingFlatly]

So those stats include women with piercings, which they've had done of their own genuine free will while adult?

That's deeply unhelpful.

I get that piercings should be included in the overall numbers, to make sure any forced piercings are also counted. But surely it's incredibly important to have as accurate information as possible on women who've suffered violent, life-changing assault? Not just how many but areas where the problem is greatest.

Bundling all the figures together is going to be actively misleading in all sorts of ways. Poor effort.

[PausingFlatly]

(I don't mean poor effort by the midwives, but by the DoH.)

[SleepOhHowIMissYou]

I don't agree with male circumcision for non-medical reasons, however, it is not the same thing as FGM. Female Genital Mutilation is a procedure that removes the cliterous and therefore removes the girl's ability to enjoy sexual pleasure, the equivalent would be removing the glans of a boy's penis, not the foreskin.

It is done to make the girl 'clean' and faithful, and to ensure that the only person who experiences sexual pleasure in her marriage is her husband.

If social services suspected I had a desire to sexually mutilate my daughter, I would hope they would remove her to safety before the event happened. In what kind of insane world does a person's right to believe that sexually mutilating their daughter is correct trump the right of the child not to have their cliterous cut off in the most barbaric way imaginable?

UK equality laws should mean we are all treated equally here. If there is good reason to suspect a girl will be mutilated, then the child should be rehomed with people who do not intend to harm her.

[LouieLou2013]

This Bristol based charity does fantastic work to raise awareness and help the victims (because that is what they are)

integrateuk.org/