Female Genital Mutilation

[woollyideas]

It is estimated that approximately 500 British girls will be subjected to genital mutilation this summer.

www.guardian.co.uk/news/guardianfilms

Some may find this film disturbing.

Quote from film 'My mum had to pay extra for the woman to use a clean razor...'

[lastonetoleaveturnoutthelights]

Mapleleaf, thanks, that was a really interesting post.

Yes, I can see that the softly-softly approach is the best one, but sadly won't help the girls of today and tomorrow - only generations yet to come.

One authoritative international body can do something about it today though - the UN Human Rights Council. It's an abuse of their human rights of course, though, and countries that practice it have done and hopefully will see strong repercussions. It's one avenue that may hurry along reform.

[mousymouse]

somethingwitty I believe france is doing something similar. examining young girls within the school health appointments.

[somethingwitty82]

PrincessFiorimonde

Not all teenagers, depends on their ethinc, origin, age, where they have gone and for how long etc. It has of course been challenged as racist so have to stop.

[mapleleef]

@lastonetoleaveturnoutthelights: Mao's single most positive legacy was the emancipation of women. He used his political capital to abolish child marriage, prostitution, and concubinage. He wanted women in the workplace contributing to the economy so I guess it came down to profitability! We might hate what happened during the Cultural Revolution, but we have to accept there were some benefits. Nothing is ever black or white.

We can feel angered by 'cautious' approaches by development groups but this slower, less judgmental, more committed approach is working. Otherwise the danger is that you alienate Africans by constantly criticising their culture. Ultimately, they have to be the ones to take the decision to stop cutting by seeing it as their own decision and taken for the positive reasons. Otherwise as has happened in the past, they pretend to agree and go ahead secretly anyway. Senegal's government reviewed all the different attempts by various groups to abolish cutting and concluded that Tostan was the only programme achieving long term results. The Grandmother Project, too, has achieved significant results over the last 3 years in Veringala, Senegal.

As to the cutting of girls either in Western countries or those taken out during summer holidays, I think the UK has a legal problem to overcome. It is illegal to perform FGM on British subjects but many of the immigrants do not have British nationality and therefore can't always be prosecuted. This can't be the case in France or Sweden where prosecutions (hefty fines and prison sentences) and medical checkups of returning targeted families have happened. That's what I was told at the Feminism in London conference last year when we had a question and answer session. If that's the case, we should be trying to change the law. This would empower the older girls who could argue with their parents that the British law was on their side and prosecutions or just the threat of a prosecution might act as a deterrant.

[lastonetoleaveturnoutthelights]

I used to live in an African country where 95% of women had suffered FGM. The government had made it illegal, but five years after that legislation had been passed nobody had yet been prosecuted for it.

Locals I knew who worked in health in that country often said that the biggest factor that would end FGM is that for young men to turn around and refuse to marry a woman who had undergone it.

They said the main reason that women did it to their daughters was because they knew that no man would marry their daughters if they hadn't had it done. And if their daughter was left unmarried she would be a burden on the family in a county where the vast majority were starving.

It would involve a massive cultural shift where many men think women who hadn't undergone FGM are sluts and not worth marrying, wouldn't produce good healthy children for them.

This is a country that despises the UN and the West, and won't listen to NGOs and charities. The government may have outlawed the practice in theory, but really, I despair of how long it will take for this cultural shift to change.

PrincessFiorimonde you mentioned foot binding: does anyone know how and why that was eventually phased out?

[PrincessFiorimonde]

Somethingwitty: I didn't know that about examining girls travelling back to Scandinavia from places where FGM is prevalent. That's interesting. Does it apply to every girl of a certain age travelling from certain areas?

FGM is a pernicious practice. I can't say that often enough.

I agree with fork and joaninha.

I'm also thinking about foot-binding. This was another practice (now, thankfully, abandoned) that mothers did not just allow to happen, but actively colluded in. But for the same reasons mentioned above - they feared that no one would marry their daughters if their feet were not bound. Later, when the practice came under scrutiny, mothers were blamed for allowing/enabling foot-binding to take place - but, in fact, the pressure came from the men who only wanted to marry women with tiny 'lotus-feet'.

[somethingwitty82]

"take the case of a mother who wants her daughter to suffer fgm. why does she? Because she fears that nobody will marry her daughter if uncut"

I call bullshit. Not in Britiain, they know full well fgm is fucking sick and illegal and they must evade the law and flee abroad to do so. How many men want their wifes to have had fgm in Britain?!!?

Any more waffle about 'respectful education' is pointless and I am sick to death of my money being spent on this shit. Touchy feely cultural relativism has been in place for over a decade and their had been not one prosecution, none, and so it continues. I happen to know that pubescent children in scandinavia can and are examined on return from places where fgm is prevalent.

[mapleleef]

Joining this discussion rather late in the day. However, one of the ways to support girls is to donate to these 2 charities: www.grandmotherproject.org and www.tostan.org Both have a very respectful, holistic approach on the ground. They don't move in all guns blazing like some development projects in the past blaming and criticizing villagers for some of the more detrimental aspects of their culture resulting in local people becoming defensive and obstructive, but instead promote a respectful approach building trust in the community and facilitating constructive discussion around such topics as FGM. Abandonment of FGM (or forced or early marriages) requires a collective decision by intermarrying groups as it won't work in isolation.

As to immigrant families in the UK, support for educational projects within the communities whilst remaining respectful to their culture has been shown to work in Scandinavia alongside prosecution.

[hester]

Beautifully put, joaninha.

[ComradeJing]

Great post joaninha.

[joaninha]

"Yes, women want it done. Damn patriarchy."

patriarchy is not a case of men against women but rather a system that benefits men to the detriment of women . take the case of a mother who wants her daughter to suffer fgm. why does she? Because she fears that nobody will marry her daughter if uncut. this fear doesn't come from nowhere but from the patriarchal belief that a man's right to control the sexuality of his wife and guarantee the paternity of her offspring is more important than the woman's right to a healthy unmutilated body.

Women collude with patriarchy for many reasons. Sometimes because the price of not doing so can be high. Doesn't lessen the fact that it is patriarchy.

A culture that oppresses a social group through force is one thing. A culture that convinces that social group to oppress itself is on another level.

[hellymelly]

Yes,I would like to know how I could support them in some way too.My own dds are too young to see that film but for older girls,they are amazing role models.

[Quodlibet]

Echoing that the film is actually more uplifting than distressing, and very much worth watching just because the girls and women in it are really truly inspiring - smashing through insane levels of prejudice and ignorance and aiming to lead their communities as role models in the future.

What's the best way for us to support girls like this and others like them?

[hellymelly]

That film made me cry,those girls were so inspiring and amazing.In fact I wish there was some way I could send a donation to Nancy and Gertrude towards their education. Although I did know quite a lot about FGM,I didn't realise the health implications when giving birth.It is hideous.

[TheRealMBJ]

I know you are right Fork. But perhaps if they knew it didn't have to be like that, that sex didn't have to be agonising and childbirth life-threatening..

[ForkInTheForeheid]

"Perhaps it is my eternal optimism, but I believe that if the communities practicing FGM were made aware of just how dangerous it was, they'd be less likely to subject their daughters to it. "

Unfortunately RealMBJ I just don't think that's the case. These communities do know how dangerous and horrific it is, most of the ones doing the cutting have been cut themselves. It is a vicious cycle where they believe that their daughters will be unmarriageable uncut - if they could miraculously all agree at once to not cutting that would be amazing but as a gradual process it's going to be extremely difficult to tackle. I think it has to come from the whole community - if the leaders of these communities and powerful men within them stood up and said, "it is not shameful to marry a woman who has not been cut, your sex lives will be better and she's more likely to produce healthy offspring" well that might have an impact.

[somethingwitty82]

"Is there a single reason for FGM or is this just because the patriarchy hates women, is frightened of their sexuality and jealous of their ability to have children?"

Yes, women want it done. Damn patriarchy.

[FreudianSlipper]

there is no comparison

male circumcision is done many beleive it heightens sexual pleasure and it is done for hygiene reasons (or what is believed to be for hygiene reasons) fgm is done to control a woman's sexual urges, so she do not feel as much pleasure so will not go out seeking sexual pleasure

one is about control the other hygiene

[AnnieLobeseder]

I honestly can't believe that a thread about such an appalling practice carried out on innocent girls, risking their lives, their health and their ability to reproduce is being totally derailed by so many posts squealing about the menz.

Shameful.

More publicity needs to get out there about FGM, a lot of people aren't aware of how widespread it is, or how much mutilation is actually performed. We get loads of ads on TV about the poor cuddly tigers needing adopting, and water for communities and food for the hungry, which are all important enough. But the FGM charities don't seem to get any publicity at all.

Midwives and health visitors should get more training in looking out for it as well, since mothers who have had it done, may then want their daughters mutilated. HVs/MWs should either be given the tools to educate these women, or be able to pass their details on to a FGM group who can visit them and talk to them.

As for how to tackle it abroad, well, supporting charities who are doing grassroots work seems a good place to start.

[DamselInDisarray]

The film is worth watching and is actually surprisingly uplifting given the subject matter. It follows two girls who ate resisting parental (and wider societal) pressure and refusing to be cut. The film looks at the various different issues that are folded into the FGM problem (including rural poverty, gender discrimination which sees girls married off for a dowry to pay for their brothers' educations, widespread attitutdes and social stigma) and also looks at a campaign within rural Kenya to change attitudes and to promote an alternative rite of passage to womanhood. The two girls are very impressive and eloquent in arguing for their rights not to be cut and to be educated just like their brothers.

[ChristinedePizan]

I was reading an Inspector Wexford book the other day and there was a near case of FGM in it. In the book, they brought someone back to the UK to perform the operation as apparently you can be prosecuted if it can be proved you took a child abroad specifically to have FGM performed. But apart from stripping off young children to see if they have been mutilated which would be a terribly invasive thing to do, I don't know how it can be prevented except through education. Given the amount of cultural pressure so many people here seem to feel about having their sons circumcised, I think it's going to take until the next generation before we can stamp this horrific practice out.

[hester]

I don't think FGM is actually practised a lot in the uK - though there have been reports that it does happen - but I think a lot of girls get taken out of the country to have it done. Yes, unlike male circumcision this is an issue with certain newly immigrant communities, which of course makes it more difficult and sensitive to engage with. There are women from within those communities who are fighting the practice, both here and in their countries of origin.

[ComradeJing]

I can't watch the film sorry.

I had no idea FGM was so prevalent in the UK. Why on earth is it so prevalent we need specialist care? Jesus, the mind boggles. Why aren't people getting arrested?

Am I right to assume this is an issue with immigrant cultures? Not trying to make it about them forrrrin basturds but I do wish there was a great big sign at heathrow that said 'this is the list of things that are unacceptable in the Uk. If you don't Like it then sod off.' historically has this been an issue in the UK or is it a relatively new thing?

Is there a single reason for FGM or is this just because the patriarchy hates women, is frightened of their sexuality and jealous of their ability to have children?