What An Excellent Idea, But Would This Type Of Thing Ever Be Allowed In Britain?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/27/female-genital-mutilation-fgm-specialist-sweden-gynaecological-checks-children

[Old_Geezer]

I don't see the point of checking all children. The boys may get a little peeved about it. They may offer to help out though.

[wolf63]

How big a problem is it in the UK?

I can't understand how a woman could do this to a young girl. Having suffered from the operation and the aftermath surely they would not want a child to suffer as they had.

[jim360]

I don't see that it would be allowed, for a number of fairly sensible reasons. FGM is, thankfully, rare, so a mandatory check risks being overkill. There is, perhaps, not enough trust in the medical profession -- or at least a sense that parents should have the final say -- and if people chose not to have their children subjected to an unnecessary examination, would that be so unreasonable? We can go down the "nothing to hide" line, but it might end up making criminals out of the honest.

Obviously FGM is a serious issue but this feels a bit like a sledgehammer/ nut approach.

[atalanta]

The trouble is that girls are taught that until they are mutilated, they are unclean. Unmutilated girls are not allowed to play with mutilated ones, in case they contaminate them. No wonder some of them, and their mothers, think mutilation is a good idea. And it is by no means as rare as many people think. It is a subject which is utterly taboo in those communities. Nobody is supposed to talk about it, since even talking about it is regarded as shameful.