Help end FGM in one generation - join the Thunderclap

[KateMumsnet]

Tomorrow is International Day for Zero Tolerance towards Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) - a day to break the silence around FGM, and hopefully, make a statement that can't be ignored.

125 million women and girls around the world have been subjected to this horrific form of violence - and 30 million girls are at risk of being cut over the next decade. These women have suffered a lifetime of damage, sometimes even death, as a consequence. In the UK, it's estimated that over 20,000 girls are at risk every year - and that 66,000 women in the UK are already living with the consequences of FGM.

We know that this is an issue that many MNers feel passionate about - and there's a growing movement calling for the eradication of this brutal practice within a single generation. But it's a huge task, and requires everyone who cares about the issue to stand together and say 'enough'.

The Department for International Development has organised a Thunderclap to help amplify the voices of those who want to end FGM. A Thunderclap is a mass Tweet or Facebook post - it's incredibly simple to join in, and takes literally seconds. Your Tweet or post will be 'released' at 11.30am tomorrow, along with those of everyone else who has participated - with luck making a massive noise across social media globally.

So do join in with a Twitter storm and Facebook frenzy this International Zero Tolerance Day, by sharing this statement via Thunderclap: I'm calling for an end to Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting. Retweet & take a stand this Zero Tolerance Day! Together we can #endFGM

If you have another moment, take another look at this recent guest post from FGM survivor, mother and Daughters of Eve activist Leyla Hussain - '[[http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/guest_posts/a1903396-Leyla-Hussein-on-FGM-Making-sure-my-daughter-wasnt-cut-is-my-greatest-achievement
Making sure my daughter wasn't cut is my greatest achievement]]'. It's an inevitably upsetting but incredibly powerful read - and a great reminder of the dreadful impact of FGM on women and girls in this country and around the world.

UPDATE Norman Baker MP will be joining Mumsnet for a live webchat tomorrow (Thurs 6th) on FGM and the Government's response. Please do post your questions here

Hi MNHQ

Just posting to ask if you can put this thread in DOTD for today since it is after all the International Day for Zero Tolerance of FGM and taking action on this has to start with raising awareness ?

I realise that generally topics for Discussions of the Day are chosen from those that are most active but I know you do make exceptions to this sometimes.

I hope this might be just that type of occasion?

I feel very strongly about this appalling violence to women and girls and know many other MNers do too.

We should all do everything we can both today and every day.

Thank you

I am glad that MN are getting involved in this campaign.

I just wanted to say that if you are looking for more concrete ways to help, that the social media thing, this might be of interesting to you. They are a group of UK and African midwives who organise alternative Rites of Passage ceremonies in Kenya.

FB page here.

Thank you MNHQ

• it's good to see this right at the top of DOTD, and all the other awareness raising on the site today - with links to websites, petitions, and web-chat with the Home Office Minister with responsibility for this area.

I think this is important, and equally important is that boys should not be mutilated either. If there's no medical necessity, i.e. a skin adhesion defect preventing them from urinating or causing recurring pain and infection, boys should be left alone and allowed to make their own bodily decisions too. Just because something is taken for granted or is part of a religious rite at birth doesn't make it good.

As an adult I made a decision to have a piercing installed in the Death Star docking bay out of political empathy for this agenda relating to FGM (no other reason, the Millenium Falcon still hasn't strayed into my tractor beam) and I was aware all day that there are other women out there who never had the choice or control xx

When you say it is equally important that boys are not mutilated either I think it's important to be aware that girls are commonly injured much more severely and with more dangerous consequences.
So the two practices are only of limited comparability.

I'm not disputing the trauma girls suffer. I'm just saying that both types of mutilation are wrong. If girls had this done to them in modern clinics under anaesthetic and with antibiotics, I'd still consider it barbaric and unnecessary xx

Deathstar
I don't know quite what to make of your post. I would say that comparing FGM with male circumcision is not valid, because as Juggling said, the complications for girls and women are generally much more severe. I don't see what your piercing has to do with this either.

I don't want to turn this into a debate, as I don't think this is the place for it.

I met a young woman last year who actually wanted to be cut. She said that it was a rite of passage, and that all her friends did it. Her parents sent her away from her village every year during the cutting season, and she tried to escape from her gran's house and return.

It wasn't till she was older, that she realised what a lucky escape she had. She stayed in school, is educated, has a job in Nairobi. A very different life to the school friends who stayed in the village, were married to a much older man, and had child after child.

I'm really glad MNHQ are involved in this campaign.

I'm sorry if I come across as harsh now. deathstar, what on earth were you thinking?! Can you not seen how utterly inappropriate and crass your post is? 'Empathy' means the capacity to share another's feelings. There is no way that a piercing, wherever it may be, compares to FGM.

Saying so trivializes what FGM is. Sorry, but it does. I felt a little bit sick reading that part of your post.

It's no surprise you're bringing in the separate issue of male circumcision, given that. Yes, it may be a very important issue to debate and many including me feel it's extremely problematic but it is not the same.

I hope that post isn't inappropriate, I know I could ignore the post but I am so angry that this important issue is constantly derailed (as it has been previously on MN and in other contexts).

Can't we please stay on the issue?

Mme, that is so frightening to read.

Don't schools already have a statutory duty to protect at risk girls under child protection protocols? Why is this not being done, and what plans are there to hold schools to account for failing to do so?

Have joined the Thunderclap on twitter x

I did it and authorised it to post for me at 11.30am today but it hasn't done it, no tweet and none of the keywords or hastags are trending. What's happening? Have I got the date wrong? This was posted yesterday and said 'tomorrow'

oh just noticed it's finally done it. Not trending though still. Hope it does.

My apologies for the upset. It wasn't intended (I've been awake working for 36 hours). Before the internet started twenty years ago there were graphic reports of this sort of thing happening in Africa in scientific and anthropological publications my grandparents subscribed to that I read when I was at an impressionable age, and I decided probably at around age twelve or thirteen that I would get pierced one day because I had the privilege of choice, and wanted a daily reminder that not everyone in the world does. The issue made a huge impression on me, and I'm proud of everyone wanting to make a difference now with what's available in the media today. Apologies again - I won't make any more of a nuisance of myself x

That sounds fair enough to me DeathStar - I think

Thank you for coming back and explaining, I appreciate that.

I missed this, but I feel so passionately about this issue. I have signed the petition and shared it on FB, donated to an FGM charity but I just wish there was more I could do. I find it devastating that children have this ahead of them. I simply cannot imagine the trauma.

I have been following this on Womans Hour over the last 12 months or so and for the life of me I cannot understand why, in this day and age, this is still going on! OK, in deepest, darkest Africa, where life is not up to date, but in modern day Europe, this is NOT right.

Any man that thinks his "woman" is better for having this carried out, is, IGNORANT and a throwback to the stone age (or even further?)

GP's who come across this SHOULD report it.

Masirah I think it's a bit more complicated than that. In fact as there is more immigration and men from these communities have sex with Western women who haven't been cut, they are in many cases also calling for FGM to end. They can see how much more satisfying sex is And safer for the women too.

And quite often in these communities (most of the time??) the cutters are in fact women.