You've GOT to watch newsnight tonight shocker on FGM

[Screwfox]

Watch this bloke justify it.
Are you a scratching?!

Full report on later apparently.

[Italiangreyhound]

If little white girls were being mutilated by their parents because they thought it was best, what would we say? No child should suffer this. The parents are not cruel (in my humble opinion) they are following a practice which they are told is good. It is our duty to point out the medical complications, the reality of the situation and dispel the myths that somehow the cliterous is a bad thing. If we were those little girls, we would want someone to do that. We cannot expect those children to turn against their parents and own culture, we must step in.

If you are moved by all this and want to write to your MP or anyone else, please share here what you are writing and who you are writing to and maybe others of us will join you in writing to them.

There are cultural considerations which (in my opinon) mean we need are and sensitivity but that does not equate to inaction.

Maybe those parents will feel a huge burden liften if they findout that the illegal act they thought they should allow to be done is actually not Islamic, is not beneficial for health, is not not good and is actually punishable. The parents are not the enemy in this case, they too are victims of a terrible practice which should be stamped out in our generation.

If you watch www.channel4.com/programmes/the-day-i-will-never-forget/4od you will see the dilemah of the parents, they are torn because they are being told this is necessary but they are aware of what it is like. The documentary is very moving, it has highs and lows, and it shows how girls and women can make a difference.

[happyhev]

I also echo italian greyhound, please write to your MP about this, and not just about the lack of prosecution, but also the fact that women and girls at risk of FGM in their home countries are having there applications for asylum rejected.

[OxfordBags]

IMHO, it is racist to NOT try to stamp out this practice under the pretence of worrying it appears acist to condone it. Because underlying any rhetoric along the lines of "We shouldn't intefere, it's their culture/religion, etc.", are implied messages along the lines of 'it's not white/Western girls, so it doesn't matter', 'these people are backward savages, there's no reasoning with them', and other crap like that. Then you've got your plain old 'I'm alright, Jack' attitude, meaning that if it's not directly affecting you and yours, who gives a shit, right?

This is an issue that transcends race, culture, religion, all of that. It is a human rights issue. What is done to these girls is dehumanisation.

And whilst I am certainly no fan of male circumcision, it is ignorant, divisive and potentially derailing to bring up the subject and compare it to FGM. There is a reason why it is called circumcision on males and genital mutilation on females. There is a reason why male circumcision is legal probably every country on Earth, whilst FGM is mostly banned - even in many or most of the countries where it is still widespread.

It is crass to compare something like loss of sexual sensation in a penis to what is done to victims of FGM, and the effects and agony it leaves them in on a daily basis forever. Reduced sexual pleasure Vs sexual agony and sex being made potentially lethal. It's like comparing mild asthma to end-stage lung cancer. Sexual sensation is subjective and individual, and some men will have less sensitive penises than others regardless of any of other factor, including circumcision. That some men suffer as a result of circumcision is sad, but it is simply not even in the same ball-park of the suffering, injuries and death caused by FGM (a lot of deaths maternal and infant deaths during or after labour in many countries are a result of FGM).

[OxfordBags]

Also, in more positive news, there was an article in the Guardian Weekend a fortnight ago, about a female surgeon who is restoring sexual pleasure and a more regular appearance to victims of FGM:

www.theguardian.com/society/2013/aug/25/surgery-for-female-genital-mutilation

[happyhev]

Great post Oxford

[SomethingOnce]

Shalli If all girls were 'inspected' -or we could call it examined, say as part of a school medical- families would know they would get caught. Would those of us whose children aren't at risk be prepared for our own DDs to be examined, for the sake of those who are at risk?


Yes, I would be prepared for this to happen, and for DSs. In fact, in order to prevent FGM and detect other forms of abuse, the signs of which may be visible on the body, I think this is an excellent idea. As Italiangreyhound said, it'd be easy enough for this to become regarded as normal and non-embarrassing. And FGM being so extreme, I assume it could be detected by nothing more than a brief visual inspection, without touch.

Many babies and toddlers are regularly weighed and seen nappyless by HVs, so it'd be a natural extension of that. Even to a very young child one could explain along the lines of the doctor/nurse/whoever 'checking to make sure your body is healthy'. A further benefit may be older children feeling more comfortable (as much is as ever possible for a teen), or at least less inhibited, about seeking medical help for particular health issues.

[Jux]

If children were checked every year then it would be no big deal, would it? I would have been perfectly happy for dd to be checked, after all I took her to baby clinic at least once a month from birth (over-anxious first time mum). Babies/toddlers in this country are checked regularly in the early years so why stop?

I suspect the answer is money, but I also suspect that checks like that would save money in the long run, like smears and mammograms etc?

[Pixel]

What, send the children and the women back to a place where this is considered okay?

Hmm, well obviously the women also think it's ok if they've inflicted it on their daughters despite being warned. Hopefully they will go home and reinforce the message that FGM won't be tolerated in the UK, meaning future immigrants will be more likely to abide by our laws if they want to stay. And sadly it's a bit late for the poor child by then isn't it, once it's done it's done. I know that sounds harsh, really I do, but I'm also full of rage that some people can be ready to accept all the benefits of living in our 'free' society yet bring this vile thing to our shores. These mothers should be rejoicing in the fact that their daughters should now be safe from FGM as they have UK law to back them up if pressured by their 'culture'. If they had clearer warnings when they entered the country, and our govt had the guts to follow through with punishments then we'd have more chance of stamping this out.

[PacificDogwood]

Hear, hear, Oxford, I could not agree more.

[SeaSickSal]

One thing did occur to me re the article about France. It said some of the cases were discovered as there were complications and the children were taken to hospital which led to the prosecutions.

I think possibly that part of the reason why there have been no prosecutions is because they are a double edged sword. If prosecutions occurred in the UK it's highly likely that if there were cases with complications their parents simply wouldn't take them for treatment leading to even worse health problems or death.

[IneedAsockamnesty]

oxford I think a lot of the strange comparisons to male circumsision are because people who make them have no idea at all of why one is not essentially considered to be mutilation and the other is, they pretty much have no idea of exactly what female genital mutilation actually is and think that just because they both involve genitals then they are both the same.

I know as sure as anything that if cutting bits off had to be done I would much much prefer to be a bloke.

The only type of FGM I am familure with (due to a particular client group) and I know there are about 4 different levels of it is the one that involves pulling the inner lips cliterious and outer lips quite far out and cutting starting quite a bit behind but not beyond the top of the vagina area and ending the cut almost at the bottom of the vagina and the rolling inwards what is left of the outer lips and stitching them together sometimes almost sewing almost the entire area up.

The stitching up is not done to close the wound nor is it done to prevent infection or aide healing,its done for no reason other than to make sure no sex can happen so no care is taken with the sewing and often only a very tiny hole is left to urinate through.

The risk of infection even infections that can cause death is very high the scaring is shocking and the risk of the flesh under the stitching dying and rotting is also high. And it does not end there some years later these women are AGAIN mutilated as part of there wedding ritual because they have to be cut open where they were stitched up so a few hours later there husband can abuse them by having sex so soon when the area is raw newly cut open and more than likely to be needing proper medical attention.

In between both attacks there is also increased risk of other infections and I've heard women in support groups describe the physical pain as never going away.

I've also known of women risking or being subjected to honor attacks with fire or boiling water or beating out of demons for trying to stop this happening to there own daughters.

Its so far removed from MC even when that's also wrong.

[OxfordBags]

I agree, SRP. Or rather, I hope that they are totally ignorant as to how bad FGM is compared to male circumcision, otherwise it means that they are grotesquely hijacking the issue for some very grim reasons.

The FGM you describe is the one I also know most about. Leaving one tiny, inadequate hole for a female to piss and menstruate through, then have be what really shouldn't be described as neutrally as 'sex' through upon marriage is not just mutilation but extreme forced body modification. If the practice of FGM didn't exist but then some sicko came up with the notion for a film, it'd be at the Human Caterpillar end of the extreme horror spectrum.

[IneedAsockamnesty]

I agree and will confess that when people do it unless its obviously because they are asking what why ect I have a huge urge to shout ODFOD just incase its down to the whole oh let's be all jolly and equal trend, because that gives me the rage there are a few things that are not comparable at all between what is inflicted on men and women and the impact is so much more significant for a woman,it may not be trendy to admit it but its true.

I'm certain if a horror film was made about it it would not be legal to show in the UK.

There is also a huge lack of understanding about just how much impact honour attacks and killings have on people's behaviour and how it contributes towards forced marriage and FGM a few years ago I worked with a woman who had been beaten with a belt until she couldn't run away then set on fire because she tried to get police help, its why I think HCP's should be forced to report FGM directly to the police and medical evidence alone should be enough to secure a conviction. But even then its still just shutting the door after the horse has bolted.

[confuddledDOTcom]

I do agree with what people have said about MGM when comparing it to what is being talked about in the YouTube link (I've not seen News Night yet) but there is an attitude difference in the two. In America they tried to bring in a law that would allow a ritual pin prick to draw blood and appease the families that wanted to circumcise their daughters. This was rightly rejected. To compare that to MGM is the reverse and still they're both wrong. There are forms of FGM that are similar to what's generally done to boys (the pink prick and removing the foreskin) but no way would it ever be allowed and it shouldn't be!

What should be the case is if you cause physical harm to your child or cause someone else to then you and they will be prosecuted. I was reading a discussion awhile ago on a doctors forum about how MGM could already be seen as illegal in the UK. It certainly is in the USA because constitutionally you can't make a law that just protects one group so the moment they made a law to protect girls they made it to protect boys. All it will take is boys born since that law was made to turn 18 and prosecutions will start. 117 boys die in America each year because of it, not so many die here, but they do. Far more boys suffer damage than die though, some severe damage the boys who end up having their penis amputated, all boys are damaged to smaller extent.

I'm not comparing the two, I'm not trying to derail, it should never be acceptable to harm a child, or even an adult.

As far as religion is concerned, everyone should have the freedom to choose their own religion. Choosing your own religion doesn't mean forcing damage onto your child. Even as a Christian I don't have my children "christened" because I can't make them Christians and I can't choose for them.

[confuddledDOTcom]

That was a cross post there, I do know what happens in FGM but I also know that there are lesser versions that are seen as more terrible than MGM.

[IneedAsockamnesty]

With FGM one slightly lesser version leaves a hole a bit bigger but still not big enough,

Its an action designed to damage with the sole intention of preventing sex and future sexual pleasure to prove purity with no other reason at all.

[OxfordBags]

YY to everything you say, SRP. On the subject of some wanting to compare it to male circumcision, there has been, over the last few years, a growing and noticeable trend in people - usually male misogynists, but some 'merely' misguided people of both sexes - calling any discussion about crimes commited mainly or solely against women 'misandrist' (which appears to be the tiresome, and usually incorrectly-used buzzword for a certain group of knobbers) or overlooking the suffering that men also go through either due to the same or similar crimes, albeit in miniscule numbers compared to women, or some crime that's vaguely linked. We are crazed, man-hating feminazis who want men to suffer if we concentrate on the majority of victims, who happen to be female. And try pointing out the fact that it is the same misogyny in society that allows women to be raped and abused that allows the smaller percentage of male victims to also suffer, and they lose their shit.

Of course, the inference is always that male rape, domestic violence against men, male circumcision is actually worse, that they are more serious crimes and that it matters more about the male victims (although I don't believe circumcised men are actually victims), whilst simultaneously, men should not be held accountable for their part in perpetrating the majority of these crimes, against males or females.

Sorry to not stick entirely to FGM as the topic, but this trend really does my head in.

Drives me mad when people think that if problem A upsets or annoys you, them that automatically means that you don't care about problem B. So immature and it totally derails things.

[IneedAsockamnesty]

Confuddled.

Yet every single woman who has had FGM suffers damage,every single one, not a % not a few not even a lot but every one. And the first action results in it having to be undone at a later date.

So women have there genitals mutilated then left in a shocking state usually with apsolutly no medical help then years down the line subjected again to another mutilation to prepare them for sexual abuse only a few hours after the second mutilation.

You are right with it being Wrong for both genders.

[OxfordBags]

Confuddled, MGM is NOT a proper term, it was made up by people with an anti-circumcision agenda. Whilst it is anyone's right to complain about circumcision, it is an abominable insult to even imagine that male circumcision ever starts to get close to comparing to the abomination of FGM, the physical travesties wreaked upon millions of females, year after year. MGM is not a legally or medically used or accepted term, precisely for the reasons I've just made, and so much more.

In male cicrcumcision, a piece of flesh is removed that the penis can still fully function without, although that doesn't of course mean it's a great idea. However, the male can urinate, masturbate, maintain erections, have sex of all sorts, get women pregnant, and so on. Compare that to a 14 year old bride who has merely a tiny hole where her genitals and urethra should be, looking like a Barbie doll's crotch, and her husband cuts her open with a ceremonial knife on their wedding night and fucks an open wound that was made to be virtually impossible to open even the tiniest fraction. Imagine the pain, not just when you have to have sex with him - which you can't refuse in your culture, either - but st all times, how dangerous and sirty it must be nit to be able to just take a simple wee, or menstruate in a normal fashion. Imagine having to be cut open for sex more than once because of FGM. Imagine being a 15 yr old victim of FGM giving birth. Imagine that. Imagine, if you and the baby survive, the horrific, lifelong injuries you could well suffer, injuries that make you taboo and unclean in your society and have your whole community shun you.

Then imagine that and compare it to sex being subjectively a bit less arousing than you imagine it is for other men. Yeah, the two situations totally compare.

It's sad that some boys die or the op goes wrong for others. Of course it is. But we are talking here about millions of women being mutilated horribly and suffering unimaginably for their whole lives, dying in droves when giving birth, or afterwards.

FGM and male circumcision differ so radically in terms of extremity of mody modification, suffering and numbers of victims who either die or suffer, that it's offensive to even link the two, just because they both happen to the genitals does not make them comparable. I made the point earlier that it is like insisting that mild asthma is part of a discussion about terminal ling cancer. Just because they both affect the lungs doesn't mean they are equal in severity. The asthma is horrible, of course, but it does not and cannot compare to the cancer.

[OxfordBags]

Must add, SRP makes an excellent point about FGM harming 100% of females who have suffered it. And, although I don't have the stats, the death rates for FGM are miles, miles higher. Not just when it is done, but through infections that could strike at any time due to the severity of mutilation done, the problems caused by losing one's virginity ot sex in general, giving birth, recovering from birth, etc.

And male circumcision is done on newborns. Not that that makes it okay, of course not, but they do not remember the pain and do not know any other stae for their penis to be in. FGM is done on girls that remember it; not just in their minds, but in their terrifyingly damaged bodies every day of their lives after it happens to them.

[confuddledDOTcom]

I was only comparing it to the forms that are less or similar - such as the pin prick law the US tried to pass (which wouldn't have the same effect on sex) and removing the foreskin. Also to the fact it's physically damaging a child.

Anyway, all boys who are put through it are harmed by it! Even if it's done for medical reasons, even if it's less invasive than what is generally done in the US. I've seen it done for medical reasons and the man has a scar right in his urethra that makes him pee in several different directions just to name one of the problems he has.

Anyway, I spend far too much time on these debates, I seem to have too many groups and pages I've gotten added into, they're horrible acts against children, I have too many evil pictures in my head I can't wash out and not what I need right now. Feel free to take it to PM and I'll happily explain how it's not what I need. I guess nothing like what those girls go through so I should just leave my life at the door.

[OxfordBags]

Even the lesser forms of FGM are horrific compared to male circumcision. You simply cannot make the truth bend to fit your own agenda. Just because one is bad doesn't make something else less bad, or make the original problem more severe.

The peeing in several directions is a medical condition, whose name escapes me now, which has nothing to do with circumcision, or which can actually be helped by it. It is v naughty to suggest that circumcision is the cause od that condition.

The least awful level of FGM would be comparative to a boy having the head of his penis and both testicles removed.

AAAAND here I am debating with someone refusing to accept that FGM is worse than male circumcision after commenting on how those posters always derail the thread, arrrgh!

[IneedAsockamnesty]

I forgot about a level 5 FGM that one is the same as the one we have been talking about only after sex she's stitched up again and this happens over and over again.

During childbirth the most frequent issues as a result of FGM are uterine rupture, sever often fatal bleeding and rectal fistula.

Sometimes due to the lack of healing as often the damage can not heal so even without restiching she will need to be cut open again quite often at about 28 weeks the hospital have to attempt to try and create an opening often not just on the lips of the vulva but the actual vagina as well due to scaring and the initial action actually narrowing the vagial opening they have to remove scar tissue and accumulated clotting due to the inadequate release of menstrual blood.

This unsurprisingly can cause infection still birth and death. But they need to try and get the woman's vagina to be able to fit 2 fingers in it because that massively reduces the huge risk at delivery.

I don't know about you but that terrifies me

[OxfordBags]

Ah yes, crescent, I read that yesterday. It was encouraging; if only more women started to dare take a stand. And it's usually the female elders that do the cutting too, so if grandmothers stand up to them, it's their own peer group, generally, that they'll be appealing to.

Of course, what really needs to happen is for men to take a stand. Can't see that happening just yet. If only a famous man from one of the countries where FGM occurs would speak against it publicly, that would be a start.

And SRP, when I read that description, I can feel my mind scrambling to try to not retain the information, or at least, not to form pictures, arrgh. That this is the norm for a lot of females is beyond any horror story.

It also refuels my anger at the suggestion that there's any comparison between FGM and male circumcision. Obscene.