The Moral Cowardice of Defending Female Genital Mutilation

I doubt that in 1829, there were any "academics" arguing that banning the burning of widows was an affront to the Hindu community!

From The European Conservative

By Lauren Smith

A paper co-authored by 25 academics is demanding that the West stops “stigmatising” child abuse to appease migrant communities.

In any civilised society, the practice of mutilating children should be seen as unbearable. The female genital mutilation (FGM) of little girls ought to stir a particular disgust in the collective conscience of the West. Not so, apparently, for the 25 academics who recently put their names to a paper decrying the UK’s ban on FGM. According to scholars from the University of Cambridge, the University of Bristol, Brighton and Sussex Medical School and other universities around the world, criminalising this barbaric practice is based on “sensationalist” narratives and “racialised stereotypes.” The paper, titled “Harms of the current global anti-FGM campaign” and published in the Journal of Medical Ethics (a publication of the renowned British Medical Journal group), warns that banning FGM risks “stigmatising” migrant communities that practice FGM and “can objectify girls and women as passive victims.” 

In the UK, FGM has been illegal since 1985. Some of the paper’s co-authors advocate legalising FGM, believing that “it is up to parents to decide what is best for their children,” while others are opposed to the practice. Collectively, they suggest referring to it with the more neutral “female genital practices,” in recognition of the supposed cultural nuances at play. 

But there are no cultural nuances that could possibly justify the needless cutting or removal of women’s and girls’ genitalia. And any community that advocates for FGM is, frankly, deserving of stigmatisation. It is worth stressing that FGM is practised primarily on young girls under 18, against their will, and has no medical benefits—in fact, for many women, it can cause lifelong health problems, as well as mental trauma. There is not even any religious justification for it. For these so-called learned academics to treat perfectly reasonable revulsion as the problem, rather than the act of FGM itself, is beyond belief. 

It is estimated that roughly 230 million women and girls alive today have been subjected to FGM, despite it being outlawed in many countries. In Somalia, Guinea, and Djibouti, 90% or more of women aged 15 to 49 have been victims of FGM. And, although it is most common in Africa and in some parts of the Middle East and Asia, many women from ethnic-minority communities in Europe remain at risk. As of 2022, around 23,000 women and girls in Belgium had undergone FGM, and a further 12,000 were in danger of being forced into it. In Germany, those numbers are even worse, with an estimate suggesting that, by the end of 2024, around 123,000 women and girls were already affected or at risk—roughly 86,500 adult women living with FGM, around 11,100 girls who may already have been cut, and up to 25,000 girls judged to be at risk. Germany is sadly not an outlier. England and Wales alone are still estimated to be home to around 137,000 women and girls living with FGM.France is often put at around 125,000 adult women, and Italy at around 88,500 women over 15. Sweden’s health authority estimates around 68,000 women and girls. In Europe as a whole, it is thought that over 600,000 women are living with the consequences of FGM, and a further 190,000 girls are at risk. 

This should be the real scandal, not the idea that we could be hurting feelings by calling this mediaeval ritual what it is. For all the BMJ paper’s handwringing over the criminalisation of FGM, the British state rarely even enforces its own ban. In the five years from July 2019 to June 2024, there were just two prosecutions under the Female Genital Mutilation Act and only one conviction. This is because FGM is uniquely easy to hide and uniquely hard to prosecute. It is usually arranged within families, carried out on children who are frightened to speak, and shrouded in silence by the threat of shame or ostracism. Even when clinicians can identify FGM, uncovering who arranged it, who did it, and where and when it happened is notoriously difficult—especially when the cutting is done abroad during ‘holiday’ trips to a family’s home country. This is part of the reason why that BMJ article is so abhorrent. It is not the law that “objectifies” women and girls, but their families and communities that force them into this position. 

We do not have to pretend that customs like FGM are normal, or even good, purely because they are practised by ethnic-minority communities. The myth that all cultures are equally deserving of respect is deeply dangerous. It may be a harsh truth to swallow, but some traditions are not worth preserving. We should not be forced to flatter every ‘cultural nuance’ we come across or fear being called ‘racist’ for pointing out that mutilating young girls is objectively horrific. 

To make matters worse, FGM isn’t even the only abuse that gets smuggled in under the guise of tolerance and multiculturalism. In the West, practices like cousin marriage and honour-based violence also proliferate. We saw the same evasions earlier this year, when calls to restrict first-cousin marriage in the UK were dismissed as “prejudiced” and “damaging” to Muslim communities. We saw a similar refusal to address issues like this head-on when, for decades, any discussion of the mass rape of British working-class girls at the hands of mostly Pakistani Muslim men was dismissed as Islamophobia and racist dog whistles. 

We ought to call FGM what it is: child abuse. To suggest that the UK—or any country—should take a more relaxed approach to policing and punishing it is justifying violence against women and girls. It is to side, however politely, with the adults (and mostly men) who wield power over the powerless. It is to protect a vile, misogynistic custom under the guise of respecting tradition and protecting the reputations of communities. 

It is not the duty of the state to protect the feelings of ethnic-minority communities but to protect the vulnerable from harm. If taking a hard line on FGM and any other cultural forms of abuse means being called racist, xenophobic, or whatever else, then so be it.