Stop the mutilation of little girls in the UK

[Lee Scoresby]

Can I ask the EDF community to sign the e-petition to push the never-endlingly pathetically useless UK authorities to take action to prevent female gentital mutilation in the UK? - it's been a crime for decades and not a single prosecution - viewer of Newsnight last year will have seen then-DPP Keir Starmer whiffling and shuffling about this

The petition is on change.org but for some reason seems more accessible via theguardian.com/end-fgm

Thanks, this is really important,

Lee Scoresby

[srisky]

There's a another thread in Family Discussion http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?29,1212745 but thanks for starting a thread in the Lounge, which will attract a wider audience on EDF.

[fl0wer]

Thankyou Lee, and srisky.

I decided the Family Discussion section

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?29,1212745 [lots of links here]

was the part of EDF most likely to reach everyone doing child care and perhaps to let nurses and teachers know, anyone really who has the means to reach and protect potential victims.

Beyond them is a discussion about how to deflect the perpetrators and everyone around them, aware what they are permitting - justifying it on all sorts of grounds.

Religious or racial hate speech will be a distraction here and I would urge readers to report it to the Moderator and beyond if our local forum acquiesces in it.

The problems of getting the victim to name the cutter and to incriminate their own family are just as intractable as with other forms of child abuse, these are the relevant debates to have IMHO.

Prevention of FGM is the only goal to aim for because there isn't a cure afterwards. A lifelong injury has been done.

Remedial surgery is sometimes achievable when childbirth is followed by incontinence, one of the common sequelae.

In some parts of the world that outcome would consign a person to lifelong misery & isolation as people shun her and there are medical charities to which we can contribute specifically.

[KidKruger]

I think it's unrealistic to expect the child to know the cutter's name - I'd be very surprised if there's a brief introduction and name-sharing before the procedure is carried-out. Currently the procedure is illegal, the cutter won't be sharing his name with a child.

[fl0wer]

Well Kid a bit of further research on your part (plenty available on Graun websites including video interviews) would soon reveal that it is usually a well known and long practised local woman who does the "surgery" and that the men of these groups won't consider marrying, or letting their sons marry, a girl who has not had it done.

So all sides of the population have a part to play.

[KidKruger]

I'm sure this is the case, but I doubt that trying to extract the cutter's name from the child will be useful, given the pressures (and obligations to her parents) the child may already be subject to. This information must come from the parents. Perhaps the comment earlier suggesting the child is the source was misjudged.

[KidKruger]

What I'm getting at is the child's welfare should merit primacy over all other considerations - this is not supported by your comment earlier (though I'm sure it was very well intended).

[srisky]

srisky Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> There's a another thread in Family Discussion

> http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?2

> 9,1212745 but thanks for starting a thread in the

> Lounge, which will attract a wider audience on

> EDF.

Sorry, Fl0wer, that was not meant as a criticism although I can see how it would seem that way. Definitely worth having this topic highlighted in both family discussion & the lounge. Thanks both for bringing it to our attention.

[fl0wer]

Didn't take it as one, srisky, because over 1300 people have read the one in the Family section and I count that a successful addition to both the publicity and potential signers.

.....more than 200,000 names on the petition at change.org at the time of writing......

[Otta]

fl0wer Wrote:

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> the men of these groups won't consider marrying, or letting

> their sons marry, a girl who has not had it done.

I was working with a woman recently who had refused the procedure as a child in Ghana, and as a result, she was basically betrothed to this bloke as a 9 year old and given to his family more or less as a slave (to make sure she wasn't off having sex with someone else. After years of mental abuse at the hands of the family, she moved here with her husband, who immediately started beating the shit out of her.

Very sad state of affairs.

[fl0wer]

Ban Ki-moon writing today describes recent successes worldwide [useful links in article]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/18/ban-ki-moon-education-ending-fgm-female-genital-mutilation

[womanofdulwich]

Compulsory sex education including this on all school curriculum and no " option out" on religious grounds for anyone. Way to go. NO?

[Saffron]

There's an 'opt out' of sex education on religious grounds in state-funded schools?!?

[womanofdulwich]

yep.

[uncleglen]

If remedial surgery is being carried out and the medical staff recognise FGM on a victim, surely this comes under the safeguarding rules and the parents could be prosecuted for enabling child abuse? Paediatricians will now be very quick to recognise old bone breaks and bruising especially since Baby P and Victoria Climbie.