FGM (female genital mutilation)

[Twogoats]

I've just been on Twitter. A lady asked a West Midlabds Police why there was so few arrests/ social service involvement in fgm cases. The police replied that education is the key to stopping fgm, not removing kids from parents. I'm para-phrasing, but you get the general idea.

I find this attitude shocking. Yes, education is the long-term goal, but short-term we need to deter parents!

I will try get a picture up.

And this is a great example of how useless the police and social services are - 32 years since FGM was made illegal in the UK with no prosecutions. Meanwhile Annahibiscuits tells women in the UK that they aren't using the right words or discussing it properly. Because that's more pressing than the horror of slicing up little girls' genitalia.

Maybe Hibo Wardere's terminology would be better here? She is a well known campaigner against FGM and she calls it that. As does Nimko Ali. And, with great respect, I am going to listen to those two women who I have met and spoken to over an anonymous person on the internet (and no, I am not asking you to not be anonymous). I believe, and the evidence backs my belief up, that Hibo and Nimko's approach is working well to raise awareness in this country.

ALL forms of FGM remove the clitoris. Even the so-called mildest form, Type 1. FGM is not a Muslim practice, it is fairly universal, even white Christian families practice it in the USA.

The picture is the one Hibo uses to demonstrate what the various types of FGM entail.

FGM isn't exactly universal among white Christians in the US though Xenophile. I get your point: it is a tribal practice and predates religions-Coptic Christians in Egypt do it as well as Muslims for example - you undermine your point a bit with your attempts to dissociate it from particular cultures.

I wasn't making any such attempt. Interesting that you should take that from my points though.

You said FGM was "fairly universal" which is factually untrue, and said it "is not a Muslim practice" when no-one had actually said it was.

I mean a it affords more respect to the girls who have been circumcised. You can't just go telling people they are mutilated.

Why not? At what point, exactly, does it become inacceptable to tell people the facts?

If someone was tortured by an antidemocratic government, and had their fingers cut off, would you find it disrespecful to state that they had been mutilated?

Sugarcoating it won't change the facts. If you miss a body part you miss a body part, people pretending that you don't won't help you regrow it.

What is about women who have been subjected to FGM themselves? Are they allowed to call it mutilation, or do they have to be "respectful" by calling it circumcision as well?

"The threat of taking children away, WILL push it underground"

It is underground. What would "pushing it underground" look like?

Because we don't subject little girls to genital inspections, cases of FGM are basically coming to light when girls are adult women and are having OBGYN appointments. They wouldn't be children any more and would not be taken into care should their parents be prosecuted. I'd be delighted to see the police pursuing the parents.

It's mutilation. "Cutting" is a euphemism and this is one issue where a euphemism is the last thing that's needed. FGM is an outrage.

www.gspellchecker.com/2017/02/west-midlands-police-do-not-see-benefit-in-fgm-prosecutions/

This page has a good roundup of what happened, including screenshots of the tweets that WMP deleted in a panic.

It is not exactly a "Muslim practice" in the strict sense, since it is also practiced by some non-Muslims such as Xians and animists (mostly in Africa), and the majority of Muslims do not practice it. However, to state that it has no connection with religion would be disingenuous. It is not ordered by the Koran, but it is mentioned several times (approvingly) in the hadiths. And all four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence state that FGM is either ideal or mandatory.

FGM is not a Muslim practice, it is fairly universal, even white Christian families practice it in the USA

What point are you trying to make ? FGM is not "fairly universal". It is certainly not part of European culture.

"There are 3 classifications of female circumcision, which involve different degrees of the removal of the labia and clitoris"

Wrong.

"ALL forms of FGM remove the clitoris."

And wrong.

Get informed

apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/42042/1/9241561912_eng.pdf

Type 1 FGM

"Excision of the prepuce, with or without excision of part or all of the clitoris. "

does not involve removal of the labia, and may not involve removal of any part of the clitoris

Also Type IV

"Unclassified, which includes: pricking, piercing or incising of the clitoris
and/or labia; stretching of the clitoris and/or labia; cauterization by
burning of the clitoris and the surrounding tissue; scraping of tissue
surrounding the vaginal orifice ('angurya' cuts) or cutting of the vagina
('gishiri cuts'); introduction of corrosive substances or herbs into the
vagina to cause bleeding or for the purposes of tightening or narrowing it;
and any other procedure that falls under the definition of FGM given
above"

A 2010 Indonesian law (see page 27 here: islamicreliefcanada.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/IRC_FGC_Report.pdf) prescribed the form of FGM that could take place as cutting the clitoral prepuce WITHOUT cutting the clitoris. This law was repealed after pressure from international groups, however the procedure continues to take place.

" direct observation of FGM procedures in 2001-2002 showed that it certainly involves pain, rubbing and scraping (24.3%). There was real genital cutting (49.2% incision and 22.4% excision). There was also stretching (3%) and a small proportion of pricking and piercing (1.1%)."

sorry, that last paragraph is specifically in Indonesia. Most Indonesian FGM procedures are either cutting into (incision) or cutting part of (excision) the clitoral prepuce.

This is, like I said, 'female circumcision'.

This has really made me sit up. Obviously I knew about FGM, but actually reading about it in depth has made me want to punch someone.

How dare West Midlands Police not take this seriously enough.

Imagine if there was an equivalent procedure being carried out on boys, risking their lives and ruining their sex life, because it was 'preferable' and anyway women wanted it?

Imagine if there was an equivalent procedure being carried out on boys, risking their lives and ruining their sex life, because it was 'preferable' and anyway women wanted it?

Well, they used to castrate boys to keep their singing voices high ... not terribly popular today, is it?

And I cannot imagine such a thing ever being done to make men more attractive to women - we live in a patriarchy, after all. Women do not have that kind of power.

Mary any chance you happen to remember in which hadiths? (Not being goady -I've got a meeting with an Islamic scholar next week about something else, but I'd like to ask also about FGM)

DickToPhone

If type one is just remove the prepuce but leaves the clitoris intact, what is the point? Or does the removal of the prepuce desensitise the clitorus?

I thought the point of FGM was to make sure that the person didn't enjoy sex and was therefore not tempted to stray? The closing up of the vagina also means they cannot have sex?

Male circumcision has traditionally been used either for religious reasons or perceived hygiene reasons. It doesn't make the person unable to have, or enjoy sex.

I'm probably missing something, though.

Well I think the prepuce removal would have a similar effect to male circumcision in reducing sensitivity. However from what I've seen in Indonesia the point is ritual - for example, women converting from Christianity to Islam undergo a female circumcision. I don't know if the specifics of the procedure are as important as the fact of the ceremony.

Mutilation is accurate, but if you are not comfortable with that term how about calling it the initiation of the use of force on children? It is not medically necessary, and if you cut things off of people that would be GBH.

Anyone here who advocates for or works in the area of education to consign this practice to the dustbin of history has my respect, admiration and support, but this isn't an either/or proposition. You can work on educating people to not do something illegal whilst still emphasising it's illegality.

I don't see anyone advocating for consent courses to try and dimish rapes saying "well that's ok don't bother incarcerating rapists, education is the one and only method that will work here." You need a unified approach.

We need to stop being squeamish about this and call a spade a spade. Ok, again if you want to be more on the education and persuasion side of the issue great, but there is absolutely no reason for people who share the view that this should stop to be at odds.

wikiislam.net/wiki/Qur'an,_Hadith_and_Scholars:Female_Genital_Mutilation

You can take a look through here as a starting point.

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/10/france-tough-stance-female-genital-mutilation-fgm

Seems like a tougher stance has worked at least somewhat in France.

I too see this as mutilation, especially as it is done to a child without their understanding or consent. It is also repugnant to me because the way it alters a female entirely for the sake of the frail male ego of some future husband - heaven forbid she should have sexual feelings of her own.

Definitely more should be done to enforce the laws to outlaw the practice, but I can see that there would be a danger in driving it underground even more.

Perhaps massive public publicity capaigns to change the minds of those who decide to carry it out on their children, and on the minds of their friends and family would work best to change the perception that FGM is a good thing.

I was interested though by what Annahibiscuits said though, that it should not be seen as "mutilation".

Then I was wondering how we would regard FGM if it were elective, at the age of consent and carried out by a surgeon under anaesthetic?

Would we then see it as being mutilation, or a chosen way to remove sexuality? If mutilation, what about people electing to have operations to change their sex by surgically removing or changing their genitals in a way that is also entirely unnatural?

Are hormone pills intended to reform gender and to reform fertility cycles a form of elective, pharmaceutical, relatively benign mutilation?

Then I was wondering how we would regard FGM if it were elective, at the age of consent and carried out by a surgeon under anaesthetic

Robin Hobb did a short story on that idea (I think under her real name)

I would ask whether it really was a free choice and what the motivations behind it were. I would question the ethics of a surgeon prepared to perform the procedure.

In fact, I would hope that a therapist would be questioning the woman to discover the motivations, and whether it really was a free choice, and made for the woman's best interest (as I would for any other surgery), before a surgeon would even consider it.

Yes she did - the story is 'Cut' and its in the book 'The Inheritance & Other Stories (2011)' - although I'm pretty sure I read it online. It's under her real name Megan Lindholm.

It was a Nebula finalist (SF award) and it's very good.

If mutilation, what about people electing to have operations to change their sex by surgically removing or changing their genitals in a way that is also entirely unnatural?

Plenty of people do see this as mutilation. However from what I understand, as the tissue is re-fashioned (as it were), and not dispensed with all together, the possibility of arousal remains.

Also there are more doctors speaking out now about it being unethical to remove healthy organs, etc, for no medical reason.

I believe it is mutilation and gbh on a child, but and however how can anyone try and justify this in relation to sexual enjoyment when it is being done to young girls unless that body of people believe in sex with young girls as well. It is illegal in the U.K. And of course if parents inflict it on their child that child should be taken away from them and they should be jailed.