De-colonising FGM a paper in BMJ

[Imnobody4]

Harms of the current global anti-FGM campaign

Abstract

Traditional female genital practices, though long-standing in many cultures, have become the focus of an expansive global campaign against ‘female genital mutilation’ (FGM). In this article, we critically examine the harms produced by the anti-FGM discourse and policies, despite their grounding in human rights and health advocacy. We argue that a ubiquitous ‘standard tale’ obscures the diversity of practices, meanings and experiences among those affected. This discourse, driven by a heavily racialised and ethnocentric framework, has led to unintended but serious consequences: the erosion of trust in healthcare settings, the silencing of dissenting or nuanced community voices, racial profiling and disproportionate legal surveillance of migrant families. Moreover, we highlight a troubling double standard that legitimises comparable genital surgeries in Western contexts while condemning similar procedures in others. We call for more balanced and evidence-based journalism, policy and public discourse—ones that account for cultural complexity and avoid the reductive and stigmatising force of the term ‘mutilation’. A re-evaluation of advocacy strategies is needed to ensure that they do not reproduce the very injustices they aim to challenge.

https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2025/09/25/jme-2025-110961

Have you researched the authors at all?

Whataboutery.
Of course many don’t think those surgeries are ‘legitimate’ but that doesn’t mean we have to get that dealt with before we can say anything about the injuries inflicted on so many women.

still…at least from that extract (I’ve not read the whole thing) they’re using the word ‘female’. Remember an earlier attack on anti FGM campaigns for shock horror using the correct sexed adjective for its victims?

Yeah. That's the point I took away from that story ffs. 🙄

Seriously?

Why are there no stats on birth tourism?

Apologies if it is me being dim, but what has ‘birth tourism’ got to do with FGM?

Do you not realise that many women in this situation are not permitted to recieve standard maternity care by men in their lives? Andnoften do not speak Englush to advocate for themselves? Many do not see a midwife until birth and those who do, do not always disclose their FGM due to shame and fear. Internal examinations in pregnancy arent always necessary.

It seems the only thing substandard is your knowledge on this area.

What the fuck

Sounding a bit like WPATH

From the footnotes;

Contributors;
All authors are researchers with long-standing engagement in the field. They participated in an in-person, 3-day writing workshop held in Sweden in June 2023. Following the workshop, writing groups continued to develop and refine their respective sections. These contributions were later integrated by a smaller editorial team (SJ, EG, JR) into a unified manuscript. All authors (FSA, DB, JB, MC, NC, RD, BDE, BE, EG, SH, SJ, SKa, SKo, CK, MCL, LL, CLS, RMM, SO, CP, MP, JR NS, AS, RS, LW) contributed substantially to the conceptual development and writing of the article. SJ serves as the guarantor for this article.

• Funding This work was funded by the Swedish research council Forte (2023-01165).

I'm a midwife in an area with some of the highest FGM rates in the country. No I don't recognise what you're saying to be true. It sounds like something one reads in a certain type of paper that just isn't based on reality. Recently it was that 1200 girls and women in the UK have had FGM in the last five years (that's what the headline seemed to say). It was total rubbish.

@Squishedpassenger I am surprised to hear you say that when the NHS’s own data identified over 41,000 cases of FGM between 2015/2025 in England https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/female-genital-mutilation/april-2024-to-march-2025

Where did they get that data from and what does it actually mean?

Does it mean that 41'000 people had FGM in the UK between those years?

Does it mean that someone with FGM attended an appointment 41'000 times?

Would the same individual attending separate appointments garner an individual statistic for each visit?

If a woman had 3 babies between those years and therefore had 3 separate maternity encounters, would she count as 3 people or 1?

It’s NHS data. I have included a link to that as proof of that. It is 41,000 individual women/girls. The number of appointments is well over 100,000.

I’m not sure why you appear so keen on minimising the problem we have with FGM in the U.K.

I'm sorry I'm really confused you say you're a "a midwife in an area with some of the highest FGM rates in the country." But then you're saying an article talking about how 1200 girls and women in the UK have had FGM in the last five years is total rubbish. I don't understand which point you're arguing. What is the rate of FGM in your area? What have you seen that would contradict what the other poster is saying?

I thought it was 41k women in the last 4 years. Yeah there is about 50k women in the UK with FGM so over ten years, they'd probably all have attended a medical appointment. What isnt true and what was alluded to in the other article was that 1200 people situated in the UK had undergone FGM in the last five years.

What didnt ring true about that other person's account is that we do lots to ensure that women with FGM are identified early on.

Its total rubbish that 1200 women and girls had FGM while being residents of the UK which is how the articles headline made it seem. The data didn't say where or when these women and girls had FGM and unlike this data, it didn't differentiate between multiple encounters by the same woman.

Is it totally inconceivable that a woman slipped through the net?

I would hesitate before dismissing someone you don’t know as a liar.

If they did, it would be indicative of the poor clinical care at that hospital. Things like not asking about FGM because the service user isn't Muslim which is what I said earlier. There are next to no women with FGM who are unaware that they have to have a procedure before they give birth vaginally.

This is the one area where I would agree with the first half of their thesis. Gender affirming “care” has been applauded in the west, whilst we jail black/brown families for FGM.

The answer is not to legalize FGM but rather to also jail parents who arrange for their children’s sexual organs to be “cut”/removed.

OK but you're a "a midwife in an area with some of the highest FGM rates in the country." What have you seen?

That most people who have had FGM are immigrants and they did not have FGM while they were resident in the UK. It's also less common in younger women than their mothers or grandmothers.

Did you actually read the post? She said a woman presented herself in extreme pain at the hospital, and that when she was examined they could see why.

Some people want to pretend that it is only western cultures that do bad things. Which is very much a "white people are special and different" type of viewpoint, even if in the opposite direction from normal.

Most cultures do not practice FGM, and plenty would I imagine find it barbaric, so it's hardly a western-only thing to be opposed to it anyway.

And what, exactly, is your point?

Your post is confusing and contradictory.

Which people want to pretend that it is "only Western cultures that do bad things" - and how does that tally with a viewpoint which also says that "white people are special and different?"