Should The Home Office Take Responsibility For Ending Fgm?

[naomi24]

Campaigners have launched a petition demanding the Home Office takes responsibility for ending female genital mutilation in the UK. No single UK government department has responsibility for ending FGM. Instead, work is shared between the Home Office, departments of health and education, the Ministry of Justice and the Crown Prosecution Service.

Leyla Hussein, a victim of the cultural practice and co-founder of the anti-FGM charity Daughters of Eve, said urgent action is needed because thousands of girls from the UK are still being cut despite years of campaigning. She added ““In the UK we say we respect other people’s cultures which is why my parents moved here. But lines have got crossed and political correctness has gone crazy. People tiptoe around the subject.”

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/home-office-must-take-the-responsibility-for-ending-fgm-8716802.html

epetition here: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/52740

[emmie]

Home Office perhaps, but this is so chilling, from the link.


Many girls are at risk now as the “cutting season” approaches, when they can be flown abroad in the school holiday for the procedure. But FGM, though illegal in the UK since 1985, is also carried out here. The girls are from families who moved to the UK from countries where it is widespread, including Somalia, Sudan, Senegal and Egypt.

[emmie]

how do you catch those who do it, and how do you monitor it, after all if the families take the girls abroad, they will say its for a holiday, what could the Home Office or police do about that fact.

[EDDIE51]

What more realistically cab we do? It is already illegal here , how do you stop people from taking their girls abroad to get it done ?
The vast majority of it is carried out by taking the girls back home for a 'holiday'. I agree it wrong and barbaric but I fail to see what more we can do apart from trying to educate the parents into seeing how wrong it is.

[LazyGun]

Interesting article on this topic in the New York Times from yesterday,

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/talking-female-circumcision-out-of-existence/

We should be doing what we can to eradicate the practice. Given the nature of the process though, and who it is carried out on, there are obvious difficulties monitoring activity and enforcing the law.

Ultimately, the answer has to come from within those communities which still sanction this barbarism.

[emmie]

anyone caught practising it. be it the person who does it or the parents who condone it should be prosecuted, it's a crime, abuse of young girls. And that better education in schools, mosques, anywhere in fact that this likely to reach the people who are affected by it.

[EDDIE51]

I have signed the petition but in reality I can't see it getting anything done.

[naomi24]

Thanks Eddie. I know it can't be remedied overnight, but publicity - and pressure from the public - must help.

[emmie]

it's all about education, of course the worse part is that women are often complicit in it, something i will never understand.

[naomi24]

LG, thanks for the link.

//No major religion endorses circumcision. ……. In fact, they [the practices of genital mutilation] weren’t in any religious book//

That is misleading. Neither of those statements is strictly true. Mohammed (whose words and deeds are considered to be beyond criticism) sanctioned FGM – which is why this barbaric practice is carried out without question in many Islamic societies.

Em, //women are often complicit in it, something i will never understand. //

See my post at 8.14.

[emmie]

Naomi, i may have missed something... is that a separate post,

[LazyGun]

@ Naomi - I do not know whether the article could be considered misleading or not on the specific issue of whether the practice is sanctioned, encouraged or endorsed by the Koran - I just do not know. If you have examples of verses or hadiths or sura that explicitly encourage or condone such practices, I would be interested in a link or an example...

Pragmatically though- this is an issue of hearts and minds. Unless you change the attitudes of the communities where this is common(?), you will never end the practice.

And I was impressed with the success rate of this initiative. From the link I gave

"Today, however, cutting has vanished from Kembata-Tembaro, as have bride abduction and widow inheritance. A study (pdf) done for the Innocenti Research Center, a research arm of Unicef, found that cutting had only 3 percent support in 2008 — down from 97 percent in 1999. This is a remarkable achievement. There is nothing more difficult than persuading people to give up long-held cultural practices, especially those bound up in taboo subjects like sex.

The change happened because of an organization that Gebre and her sister Fikrte started called Kembatti Mentti Gezzima-Toppe, which means “women of Kembata working together.” It is now known simply as KMG-Ethiopia."

[Rosetta]

Signed. Education is obviousl the best way of eradicating this practice but it is a child protection issue and that has always held the threat of prosecution for abuse. Parents are complicit in this practice and they should know they can be prosecuted, whether the cutting is done here or abroad

[naomi24]

LG, the practice isn’t endorsed by the Koran – the Koran doesn’t mention circumcision for males or females - in fact it specifically forbids alteration of Allah's creation in any way – so the Koran cannot be held responsible for this. However, according to the Hadith, Mohammed, whose word is considered to be incontrovertible, endorsed it.

Abu al- Malih ibn `Usama's father relates that the Prophet said: "Circumcision is a law for men and a preservation of honour for women."

A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said to her: Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband.

Additionally and rather worryingly, the controversial Muslim Brotherhood also appears to support the practice. This from Wiki:

“In May of 2012 it was reported by several news sources that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was working to decriminalize female circumcision (FGM). According to reporter Mariz Tadros, "in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood have offered to circumcise women for a nominal fee as part of their community services, a move that threatens to reverse decades of local struggle against the harmful practice. The Brotherhood’s strategy to undermine the national campaign to end FGM is three-pronged. Firstly, they contest the notion that the practice is not religiously prescribed. Many of the Brothers (and Salafis) argue that while it is not mandatory, it is nevertheless mukarama (preferable, pleasing in the eyes of God). They also quote hadith (saying attributed to the Prophet) which stipulates that FGM should involve “cutting, but only lightly”.

The World Health Organisation estimates that, worldwide, some 140 million women and girls have been subjected to it, including 101 million in Africa. There are some figures here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2013/jun/24/female-genital-mutilation-prevalence-uk

//Unless you change the attitudes of the communities where this is common(?), you will never end the practice.//

I agree – and the results achieved by those ladies are, indeed, as your link says, remarkable. At last women are rising up and saying ‘No!’ – and that is exactly what is needed. I hope the whole world supports them. Fighting hundreds of years of inbred doctrine and tradition is no mean feat and I applaud them for their determination – and their courage.

Rosetta, thank you.

[naomi24]

Sorry, Em. No, it wasn’t a separate post. I meant ‘see the above’ in my post at 08:38. (The phone’s not stopped ringing this morning – no wonder I’m getting mixed up).

[LazyGun]

@ Naomi - Thanks for the info. Was not aware of that specific hadith, nor had I heard about the Muslim Brotherhoods attitude toward FGM which is just backward nonsense.

[naomi24]

LG, I think pretty much everything the Muslim Brotherhood promotes is backward nonsense - which is what makes it all the more worrying.

[jim360]

Signed, but this petition is going to need a whole lotta coverage if it's going to lead to anything.

[naomi24]

Thanks Jim.

[ladybirder]

Signed and I shall pass it on to as many people as I can.

Shocked by some of the viewers' comments under the article in The Standard.

Very interesting and hopeful article you posted LG.

[tiggerblue10]

Signed!

Like others have said, I don't know how they can monitor the situation when girls are taken abroad to have it done as it is illegal here.

On another note, my parents want me to have Little Tiggs circumcised but I have refused. He may be the first in my family to not be circumcised.