Call the Midwife - FGM

[Littlepiglittlepig3letmeIN]

At first I thought the programe makers were doing a good job at highlighting how wrong this practice is, and yet at the last moment, they normalized it by making out it's tradition.
I felt they missed a good opportunity to get through to the right people.

The programme makers can try and dress it up however they want - trying to make out it's tradition and it's the women that facilitate it.
Women may carry it out, but
It's men who are behind it.

It's heartbreaking to think that even in this day and age, little girls are still being butchered and disfigured by these barbaric animals.

The women/mothers don't see it as a choice!
I know someone whose mother took her to have FGM. Her mother did it because if she didn't, the child would have been an outcast in the village, she would have starved and probably have been raped multiple times and even possibly murdered. Having the FGM gave her some protection in the form of playing by the rules and possibly marrying and having some quality of life.
I agree.
If the women feel they can't get a husband unless they have it done,proves it's not really their choice.
They're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Yes, but you can't have education without the first three. Otherwise it comes across as preaching or superiority. White people, particularly the British, have a long history of assuming we know what's best for people of colour. We should be sensitive and aware of this. Just because we think we're right about something, does not give us the right to barge in and start "educating".

Understand and support first. You usually find that given understanding and support most people make reasoned decisions without any need to be told what to think or do.

It just feel like you're making an issue which is nothing to do with you, all about you. The very idea you could 'shop' someone!

if we all took the attitude that it's 'nothing to do with me' then there would never be any change.
Because people wouldn't care.

We should be sensitive and aware of this.

I'm not buying it. I'm all for showing sensitivity with other people's cultural practices.

However, the bottom line is:

Children are being held down, cut and mutiliated, sometimes with rusty implements. Some even die.

I can't believe you are making excuses for this?

So, do something useful, and donate to the Orchid Project, or Daughters of Eve. Don't make wild suggestions that you could shop someone, that we just need to prosecute more, or that traumatised girls should be removed from their otherwise loving families.

It's great you're now interested to find out more about FGM. I'd suggest googling, and finding out about it, before declaring that the women involved are 'barbaric animals'. It's a barbaric practice, yes, but the women involved are mothers, grandmothers, and aunties, who are generally otherwise just normal people, trying to get a good life for their children, and grandchildren.

It is an issue which is takeN Seriously and is part of safeguarding training in schools and colleges.

it's good that is against the law here now but it's really about the people in the communities that practice it changing things themselves, and making it an unacceptable tradition, and one which is in the past. The most listened to anti-FGM campaigners are women who have personal experience of it.

A woman my mum knows was at real risk of death due to FGM. Traditionally the women in her family performed the operation in her area. She refused and fled to the UK. She has been deemed to not be at enough risk to get asylum so is being sent back despite the fact that she will either be forced to perform the procedure or be murdered so that the next female in line can take over.

Its not just the girls that need protecting, often the women that do it dont want to either.

There have also been several cases of women and their daughters being deported despite the children being at a real risk of being victims of FGM against their mothers wishes. It seems that preventing a child being taken out of the country for FGM doesnt apply to the British Government.

Don't be obtuse. Nobody on this thread thinks FGM is in any way okay.

Not being sensitive leads to ideas like my inspection of vulvas at Heathrow.

Being sensitive does not mean endorsing the practice.

Insensitivity isn't going to get us anywhere.

So, do something useful, and donate to the Orchid Project, or Daughters of Eve. Don't make wild suggestions that you could shop someone, that we just need to prosecute more, or that traumatised girls should be removed from their otherwise loving families.

I'm sure your patronizing attitude is extremely helpful.
I hope you don't have that attitude with the people you're supposedly helping?

The most listened to anti-FGM campaigners are women who have personal experience of it.

This!

Not being sensitive leads to ideas like my inspection of vulvas at Heathrow

What a disgusting idea. It's not even funny.

So what is the real reason for the lack of FGM prosecutions?

Is it really due to the practical difficulties in obtaining evidence against the abusers and enablers, or is "cultural sensitivity", ie professionals are terrified of being accused of racism, so they won't jeopardise their careers?

Thank you rugbyballz I am not in a position to donate at the moment but have bookmarked both websites.

Bertiebot and Rugby.
I'm going to ignore you now.
You are obviously spoiling for an argument.

Littlepig

Your attitude is hardly helpful.

YOu know very little about this, others know more and have suggested ways that you can help in a real and practical way rather than just frothing about it on MN and you brand them patronizing!

May I suggest that you consider why nature gives us 2 ears but only 1 mouth?

It's because the actual mutilation happens abroad. Women in huts abroad cannot be prosecuted by the British Government.

There is no way to tell that girls returning have had it done if they don't volunteer that information. It is very secret.

And who shall we prosecute? The girl's mum who took her? And send the mum to jail, leaving a traumatised girl without her otherwise loving mum, leaving her siblings without a loving mum? And jailing people costs money. I'm not sure jailing one mum will actually serve as enough as deterrent to be worth the cost to that family, and society. I'm just not sure it will do that girl any good, and may cause her further harm.

I'm glad it's illegal, but I can't see how pushing for prosecutions will help.

If we wanted to get more prosecutions, the school nurse could do a vulva inspection at the beginning and end of the summer holidays, but you can see why that's a bad idea! I can't see a good way to increase prosecutions without damaging the girls we want to help.

I heard that school vulva inspections were being floated as an idea actually, it's not one which sits right with me, but a few years ago there was quite a lot of support for it on MN.

Good God.

I do think general education in schools on the normal vulva, for everyone, not just those at risk of FGM, would be massively helpful. It would get everyone comfortable talking about it. I wasn't being flippant.

Pongyan,
You know very little about this,

And you do?
Just because my mother knows someone hardly makes you an expert

But obviously leave the inspecting for a girl and a mirror should she want!

I think you are the one spoiling for a fight little.
You are carrying on like no one can be bother to prosecute or that everyone is being far too liberal and hand wringing. That all of us who know about this, have had training on it are doing nothing.

Your posts have shown you know very little about FGM.

I do think general education in schools on the normal vulva, for everyone, not just those at risk of FGM, would be massively helpful. It would get everyone comfortable talking about it. I wasn't being flippant.

I agree with you.
If a girl has had it done from a young age, how would she know what was normal?