The Growing Epidemic Of Female Genital Mutilation

A young girl being operated on

I've learned about many barbaric and cruel procedures done against other human-beings - examples like lobotomy, trepanning to rid 'evil spirits', and blood letting. But there is a common pattern with these, with the exception of lobotomy, and it's that these were all done in medieval times. But then you come across 'female genital mutilation', an unnecessary operation done to girls of a commonly young age, all in the name of culture. Girls as young as five have a blade taken to their genitals having parts removed, usually without aesthetic, because it's 'tradition'. I'm all for respecting other people's cultures but I cannot understand how any person would believe this isn't wrong or some form of child abuse because that is exactly what it is.

It's incredibly saddening to hear that around 95% of girls living in parts of Africa, like Somalia, have had this disgusting operation done to them. When asked for reasoning for cutting children, many different 'justifications' were given, due to variations in culture, like 'it reduces a woman's libido' or 'it ensures sexual abstinence because the genital area is only opened up after marriage' - basically such procedure is, in most cases, done to oppress the girl's sexual activity in later life.
But they are just children for goodness sake. A mother's concerns should be whether they have enough toys or what primary school they are going to attend, not which doctor they're going to hire to cut up their child. I'm not a parent but common sense would indicate that a mother's role should be to protect their child at all costs and to sit there and allow and even encourage unnecessary pain and agony on your child is wrong.

What's more worry is that there's a growing trend in flying doctors from other countries into the UK so these operations can be conducted on the kitchen tables, and living-room floors of people's houses. This will never be accepted into the culture of the vast majority living in the UK and something must be done, some law must be past to make it a very serious criminal offence. In France they have already created a strong opposition to this sort of practice with one individual going to jail for eight years for their involvement in one case. I think it is wise to adopt the same strategy in the UK because you can dress it up any way you like, but it is and always will be child abuse.

My message? Simple. Female genital mutilation, without medical reasoning, is wrong. It's disgusting and must be stopped. We cannot and should not stand by and watch the children of our country be abused and do nothing to help them.

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