Perhaps like me you think of female genital mutilation as something rather rare, which only happens, in remote villages in Africa. Perhaps also like me you think it a barbaric practice, which only uneducated misguided people indulge in because they simply don’t know better. And finally, perhaps you also think that decrying it and banning it is all it would take to remove this form of child abuse from the planet.
I am sorry to say that I was wrong on all three counts.
First, sadly, it is not rare. The world Health Organization estimates that between 100 and 140 million women have undergone some form of genital mutilation and that around two million procedures are performed every year.
Second, it is a pervasive practice, which cuts across religions and cultures (only Jewish women seem to be untouched by this practice). Even if it is primarily focused in Africa, it also takes place in some countries in the Arabian Peninsula and the rest of the Arab world. And as for thinking it only exists in remote villages, just consider Egypt, where a UNICEF survey found that a whopping 97 percent of married women had undergone some form of genital mutilation.
It has taken the death this month of 12-year-old Badour Shaker for Egypt to introduce an outright ban. The girl died after being circumcised in an illegal clinic in Maghagh. Though laws already existed banning female genital mutilation, these left a loophole whereby the procedure could still be carried out under medical supervision. Even this latest action, whose language is unequivocal, is a ban rather than a law. How it will punish those who continue to mutilate young girls is unclear.
But laws alone make little difference. In Britain, the Metropolitan Police has just introduced a £20,000 reward for any information leading to a prosecution for anyone involved in female genital mutilation. A law has existed since 2003 making not only female genital mutilation a crime (that law existed already) but also making it a crime to take a child outside the country for the procedure to be performed.
There has not been a single prosecution. Yet the police estimate that up to 7.000 girls in the UK are currently at risk. It is around this time of year, with the start of the summer school holidays, that the risk is at its highest.
The British police do not want to have to resort to running mandatory checks on girls thought at risk, be it at the airport on returning from their summer holidays, or elsewhere, as Norway for instance is currently considering. So they are going for a softer approach. The hope is that a financial reward will be enough to encourage cooperation from within the communities where female genital mutilation is practiced.
My first reaction was that this is a case for the nanny state. These girls are innocent and powerless and it is up to us to do the maximum to protect them, even if this means checking the integrity of the genitalia of every girl arriving from a holiday in Africa. And maybe whilst we’re at it, we should introduce programs on the ground in the countries most affected which force people to abandon this barbaric practice. It’s high time for a zero-tolerance approach.
Some people ask whether it is right to describe it as mutilation. Should we not use the term “cutting” as has been suggested by some? At first, I rebel against this notion.
I need terms that accurately reflect my anger and leave no room for ambiguity. But how useful is my anger in convincing women whose mothers and grandmothers have all gone under the knife (or the scissors or the shard of glass) that they should not do to their daughters what has been done onto them?
Outsiders coming in on a whirl of indignation can only push communities into a defensive position. So what can be done?
Education as always is the key word, as is cooperation and working with communities to bring change from within. Otherwise all you do by outlawing a practice is push it underground.
The first message should concern any misguided belief that there is a religious basis for this practice. Religious authorities should be unequivocal in showing that there is no call for any cutting or removal of female genitalia. The grand mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa, has done just that when he stated this week that “it is prohibited, prohibited, prohibited.”
Once the religious aspect is taken out of the equation, communities can work together through an understanding of the risks and health consequences and through financial, economic and social encouragement, to give up cutting women. This involves convincing whole communities that female genitalia do not make a woman “unclean” for instance and that keeping a girl whole will not diminish her chances of getting married. This process has begun but like all cultural change it is bound to be long and arduous.
