Protecting Women & Girls in the UK from Female Genital Mutilation – Webinar, 29 August 2024
This webinar on 29 August 2024, chaired by Hilary Burrage, addresses protecting UK women and girls from FGM under the new Labour government. Hosted by Public Policy Exchange (9:30-13:00 BST), key challenges to consider include that there are only two UK FGM convictions since 1985; ~137,000 affected women; limited NHS training and reconstructive surgery options. Labour pledges to halve violence against women, but experts urge national action plans and better grassroots support. Policy efficacy, prosecutions, NHS improvements, community strategies, and survivor support to safeguard vulnerable girls are vital issues.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
The Public Policy Exchange is holding a webinar on Thursday 29 August, on the subject of Protecting Women & Girls in the UK from Female Genital Mutilation: Prospect for Safeguarding the Vulnerable, Supporting Survivors & Increasing Prosecutions Under a New Labour Government. The event is from 09.30 to 13.00 BST.
I was pleased to be invited to chair the webinar, and I look forward to welcoming five distinguished speakers over the course of the morning:
Lynne Townley, Barrister, BVS Lecturer and PhD Candidate on honour crime and familial codes of honour at City, University London
Aneeta Prem MBE, Founder & Trustee of Freedom Charity
Dot Pritchard, Operations Manager at Oxford Against Cutting
Professor Tobe Levin Freifrau von Gleichen, Associate of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University & Founder & CEO of UnCUT/VOICES Press
and
Sumaya Mohamed, Participation and Inclusion Worker at London Black Women’s Project.
The Public Policy Exchange offers the following Overview and Programme for the webinar:
#BornPerfect: The Global Media Campaign To #EndFGM Caravan
The #BornPerfect Caravan is a mobile, community-led campaign to end FGM and related gender-based violence across Africa. The caravan uses local activists, survivors, leaders, films, radio, and public pledges to change attitudes village by village, starting in Guinea Bissau and then moving to other countries. It also emphasizes education, trauma support, and long-term local media follow-up to help stop FGM for good.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
The Global Media Campaign to End FGM is on the move.
#Frontline Women Rights Organisation in Guinea Bissau became the first in Africa to launch the Born Perfect Women’s Caravan. It happened in the country’s capital, Bissau on 10 May ’24, when hundreds gathered for the launch. Also backed by the EU, the UNFPA #BornPerfect Caravan spent the month of May 2024 going to village to village throughout Guinea Bissau, showing anti- FGM films and hearing from religious and political leaders that FGM, child marriage and other gendered violence must end.
The ‘Caravan’ is an actual bus or similar which travels between strategically selected venues in a given country. This is the route for Guinea Bissau:
“Stunting” in children is not merely about short stature but signals broader malnutrition, impaired development, and long‑term health and cognitive deficits, especially in low‑ and middle‑income countries (LMICs). It links to structural factors such as poverty, inequality, and climate‑related food insecurity; stunted children face higher mortality, poorer learning, and reduced economic prospects. It may be that female genital mutilation (FGM)—with its intergenerational health, social, and economic harms—also amplifies child stunting by worsening maternal health, pregnancy outcomes, and household vulnerability, thereby contributing to a vicious cycle of under‑nutrition and disadvantage.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
Referring to children as ‘stunted’ seems callous, which is probably why this description is rarely employed in general conversation; but in fact the term has a very specific definition and that definition is vitally important.
The World Health Organisation says children are defined as stunted if their height-for-age is more than two standard deviations below the WHO Child Growth Standards median.
But does being short matter? Actually, it matters a lot. There is widespread agreement particularly that the ‘first thousand days’ – from conception to age two – are vitally important for all children, wherever they live; and the time after that is also critical. It is difficult, sometimes impossible, to ‘catch up’, if the milestones of childhood are not reached; stunting has impacts for us all.
So this is not about ‘just’ height. Being stunted often serves as a warning that a child’s nutrition is inadequate, and their likely prospects limited. It’s about health, life experiences and expectancy, well-being and capacity to contribute to society. Inevitably, this condition affects many more children in the ‘global south’ than in modern western countries. And, whilst improvements have been noted, the chance that numbers of children with this limitation will occur is increasing globally (perhaps because there are more children now, albeit the percentage rate of occurrence may be dropping), with climate change and other socio-economic impacts becoming greater threats.
Below, we examine some of the influencing factors and likely outcomes for stunted (and other nutritionally disadvantaged) children. Sadly, to date this is not an altogether good news story; it still affects children the world over. And, as I argue below, female genital mutilation (FGM) may be an exacerbating or amplifying factor.
Given that the socio-economic / environmental contexts of FGM and other harms are often multiple, is it time to look more widely, to identify ?causative factor conjunctions where preventative intervention would provide most leverage across the board?
Gibbi Mballow, Gambian Politician Protecting Women
Hon. Gibbi Mballow, a Gambian National Assembly member for Lower Fulladu West, staunchly opposes efforts to repeal the 2015 law banning female genital mutilation (FGM). A Muslim father of four daughters, he argues FGM causes harm and contradicts true faith, urging colleagues to protect women and girls despite threats to himself and his family. In 2023-2024 debates on the Women’s (Amendment) Bill, Mballow led advocacy to retain the ban, backed by President Adama Barrow, 70 leaders’ petitions, and women’s groups. He highlights FGM’s health damage and calls for enforcement, education, and equality. Facing hate speech and harassment for his stance, Mballow issued a September 2024 statement decrying intimidation’s threat to democracy and urging tolerance.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
The Hon Gibbi Mballow is a Member of the Gambian National Assembly, the parliament of that country. He represents the Lower Fulladu West Constituency, where he grew up and still lives. He is a member of the National People’s Party. Whilst upholding and respecting his faith as a Muslim, Hon Mballow is aware it cannot be used to justify traditional harmful practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM), a tradition which has caused damage and ill-health to many women and girls. He aims to ensure FGM is abolished in The Gambia forever… and he is speaking out on it.
Nonetheless, the problem about legislating against FGM remains very concerningly. At the end of this post is also the statement Hon Gibbi made on 12 September about the personally perilous position in which he, his family and similarly persuaded colleagues now find themselves.
Read more…
This post honors Gambian women’s decades-long fight to ban female genital mutilation (FGM), countering claims that the 2015 Women’s Act was a Western imposition. It highlights key milestones like the 1998 Banjul Declaration by religious leaders rejecting FGM’s religious basis, the 2016 African Commission statement against harmful practices, and the 2024 REFELA Declaration by female leaders vowing to end FGM, forced marriages, and violence. Activists such as Dr. Isatou Touray, Fatou Baldeh and Jaha Dukureh (of Jaha’s Promise and Safe Hands for Girls) are praised for their tireless efforts. The post urges upholding the ban amid repeal attempts, citing UN support and the harm FGM inflicts.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
The situation in The Gambia regarding FGM is currently very serious. A previous post here – Please DO NOT RESCIND #EndFGM Legislation In The Gambia – explains why this petition urges that a law which forbids female genital mutilation (FGM) should not be reversed, despite calls by some Gambian politicians to do just that. One major rationale for again permitting FGM is particularly unacceptable. Banning FGM was not, as some claim, a move by Westerners, or by people who disrespect Islam. Rather, this prohibition came about after much lobbying by Gambian women for years to secure a ban on FGM.
This post offers some of the historical background to achieving the prohibition of FGM in The Gambia, in support of the women in that country who have worked tirelessly to eradicate it. They must be respected for working so hard to ban that cruel ‘traditional’ practice, with all the harm that it imposes on babies, girls and women (and their families) who have been its victims.
There is (as at April 2024) a UK parliamentary petition urging the government to fund reconstructive surgery and psychosexual therapy for FGM survivors via the NHS. It highlights the devastating physical and emotional impacts of FGM, affecting tens of thousands in the UK, and the current lack of access due to high costs and limited resources. The petition seeks to address this health inequality by ensuring holistic care, including mental health support, as part of the #EndFGM campaign. Readers are encouraged to sign and share for better survivor wellbeing.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
This petition addresses the continuing lack of provision of post-female genital mutilation (FGM) health care facilities for survivors of that appalling harm who live in the United Kingdom.The authors of the petition believe funding for surgical reconstruction and psychosexual services are essential to address the unmet need of survivors of female genital mutilation (FGM).
Please support this petition for funding clinical services in this important area.
Here is the link to access the petition https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/655651, which is open for signing by British citizens and people resident in the U.K., just until 5 August 2024.
Please if you can, support this petition.
Sign this petition
At 10,000 valid signatures the Government will respond to the petition. At 100,000 the petition will be considered for debate in Parliament. We have only until 5 August 2024 to get the required number of signatories.
The text of the petition (which you can also read via the link above) is as follows below:
Shahidul Alam is a Bangladeshi journalist, photographer, and human rights campaigner who trained in Britain and gained a PhD in organic chemistry before turning to photojournalism. His decades‑long work has been documenting human‑rights abuses and political struggles in Bangladesh, for which he has received global recognition through awards such as the Lucie Humanitarian and CPJ International Press Freedom prizes. In 2018 he was detained under Bangladesh’s ICT Act after he reported on student road‑safety protests, with beatings and 107‑day imprisonment, amidst an ongoing pattern of legal threats against him and other journalists defending free speech.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
Our friend and colleague, Shahidul Alam PhD, is a citizen and journalist working in Bangladesh and globally.
He studied in Britain, where three decades ago he gained his doctorate in organic chemistry before turning to photojournalism, using his camera to document the imperilled conditions and human rights of people in various parts of the world.
Sadly the safety and freedom of Shahidul himself is now at risk.
Here is an account of what Shahidul Alam tells us happened in 2018 when he reported a safety campaign by young fellow Bangladeshis after a road traffic incident. The text below, co-authored by Lorraine Koonce-Farahmand and myself, explains why that episode has somehow, even more than five years later, led to continued peril for this committed human rights campaigner.
We urge The Gambia’s president and parliament not to rescind the 2015 law that criminalises female genital mutilation (FGM); a repeal would overturn years of progress and make The Gambia the first country to roll back FGM protections. Our petition highlights the health harms of FGM and we stress that outlawing it was led by Gambian women such as Jaha Dukureh, calling on global citizens to sign an open petition in solidarity. Reinstating FGM would breach human rights standards and send a dangerous signal to other countries in the region.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
This photograph is of Jaha Dukureh, who with other FGM survivors in 2015 so bravely persuaded legislators in The Gambia, her native country, to outlaw female genital mutilation (FGM). Now however there is the prospect of that legislation being repealed, so that FGM can once again be practised legally.
The petition below explains why we as global citizens stand with Jaha and many others in that country and elsewhere, imploring the Gambian parliamentarians not to endorse this reversion to permit FGM.
We sent this document to the President and legislators of the Gambian parliament in time for it to be considered before a final decision on this desperately retrograde proposal was made in Junly 2024.
For a final outcome report on this campaign, and warm thanks to all of you who supported (and will continue to support) it, please see here:
World Water Day – And Why It Matters For #EndFGM
World Water Day’s 2024 theme, Leveraging Water for Peace, is important also for ending female genital mutilation (FGM). Poor water access worsens hygiene challenges for women and girls, especially during menstruation and maternity, increasing infection risks in healthcare settings without clean water or sanitation. FGM exacerbates these dangers for over 200 million affected females, yet despite mapping such as below it’s rarely addressed in water-health literature like SDG6 evaluations. It is vital to integrate FGM into global water advocacy for better outcomes.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate..
22 March is World Water Day, a date the UN first observed in 1993. Attention is focused on the global water crisis, highlighting the 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water. The 2024 theme, Leveraging Water for Peace, shines a light on action to tackle the devastation of global water and sanitation failures, not least for women and girls. This failure to provide safe water for consumption and hygiene is both a general crisis and one, I suggest, relating specifically to FGM (female genital mutilation). What follows are some reasons why.
UNICEF says women and girls spend 200 million hours every day collecting water.
“200 million hours is 8.3 million days, or over 22,800 years,” said UNICEF’s global head of water, sanitation and hygiene Sanjay Wijesekera. “It would be as if a woman started with her empty bucket in the Stone Age and didn’t arrive home with water until 2016. Think how much the world has advanced in that time. Think how much women could have achieved in that time.”
This observation throws into sharp relief why we need here first to consider how and why water is such a critical issue in many parts of the ‘developing’ world / ‘global south’. Thereafter we will also ask how the adequate availability of clean water might influence efforts to end FGM – unfortunately a matter rarely at the forefront of water policy. This map by Ugandan Gwada Okot Tao helps to illustrate why water may be so important:
Male Policy-Makers Must Support #EndFGM – Empower Women As Adults Via Fair Social And Economic Contexts
Male policymakers can actively support ending FGM by respecting women as autonomous adults through fair socio-economic measures. In this CSW68 presentation, I explore proposed low-tech solutions like improving women’s access to mobile phones, bicycles, land ownership, agriculture resources, family planning, and water, all amid climate challenges. These steps enhance women’s economic independence, reducing reliance on early marriage and FGM as “adulthood” markers. So how can men best take these suggestions forward?
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
Today I joined my friends and colleagues Dr Tobe Levin and Lorraine Koonce-Farahmand Esq to deliver a session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68), the theme of which this year is “Accelerating the empowerment of all women and girls by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective”. The title of our presentation, chaired by Ms Lois Herman of WUNRN, was ‘Innovative Approaches to Ending FGM: Academia, Policy and Advocacy’. My topic was Can practical ‘developments’ in socio-economic contexts help end FGM?
My thoughts on this question focused around the criticality of supportive measures by men, comprising the majority of politicians, leaders and policy-makers, in places where female genital mutilation (FGM) still occurs. It is very largely still men who decide how to shape laws, communities and infrastructure; but few consider actively how their decisions can enhance or damage moves to end this cruel and harmful traditional practice.
Nonetheless, there are many more men than those brave few openly declaring their opposition to FGM (examples here), who would like to see it end. I suggest in this post for their consideration some ideas about how that objective might by wider socio-economic developments be pursued.
Efforts to ensure women everywhere are respected as responsible adults, regardless of their FGM ‘status’, might be a powerful force towards eradication. This would require determined focus on enabling women to live their lives autonomously, free to be economically independent, and without the ‘need’ for reliance on husbands and other men.
Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation: Progress Via Practical And Low-Tech Approaches?
How can practical, low‑tech tools and broader socio‑economic measures advance the eradication of female genital mutilation (FGM)? Can accessible technologies such as mobile phones, bicycles, open mapping, and improved agricultural practices increase women’s autonomy, reduce their dependence on men, and thereby weaken the social and economic conditions that sustain FGM? What of wider issues like land ownership, access to water, climate‑change‑driven poverty, and reproductive rights which intersect with FGM? Will actively addressing these help accelerate its abandonment?
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
This post, in recognition of International Women’s Day (8 March), is a follow-up to my piece 0n Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation: Identifying The Tensions And Challenges of 6 February 2024, which was International Zero Tolerance for FGM Day. In the first post I considered some wider socio-economic contexts in which violence against women and girls (VAWG), especially FGM, continue, and some issues which can occur in terms of potentially conflicting interpretations and / or hypocrisies around such difficult and complex situations.
In this second post, referencing the always critical issue of sustainability, I consider some of the possibilities, already potential or in use, for the general adoption of practical measures, low technologies and public information in the eradication of FGM and other VAWG. In doing so I have drawn on findings from the COP26* conference on global environmental challenges such as energy (carbon), population and food, and on examples of accessible technologies and items such as mobile phones and bicycles. None of these ideas and suggestions is mine alone, but perhaps they help focus on the wider aspects of ending FGM, as well as the immediate medical, legal and educational mechanisms. Both are I believe essential for effective progress to be made.
This is the UN statement of IWD 2024. Below are some suggestions about how it interfaces specifically with efforts to #EndFGM.
In a world facing multiple crises that are putting immense pressure on communities, achieving gender equality is more vital than ever. Ensuring women’s and girls’ rights across all aspects of life is the only way to secure prosperous and just economies, and a healthy planet for future generations.
One of the key challenges in achieving gender equality by 2030 is an alarming lack of financing with a staggering USD 360 billion annual deficit in spending on gender-equality measures.
The time for change is now! Join us on 8 March 2024 for International Women’s Day as we rally behind the call to “Invest in women: Accelerate progress”.
[*COP26 was the 2021 meeting, in Glasgow in November 2021, of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). ‘COP’ is an abbreviation of ‘Conference of the Parties’, of which that event was the 26th].
Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation: Identifying Practical Socio-Economic Measures And Technologies
In this post, timed for International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM, I review challenges in eradicating female genital mutilation (FGM) from a UK sociologist’s perspective, drawing on my 2015 book. I see four key tensions: (1) lack of accountable leadership in multi-agency efforts, favoring a public health model; (2) cultural issues like ‘purity’, Western hypocrisy, and relativism; (3) transitions from tradition to modernity risking underclass status, anomie, or autonomy for refusers; (4) economic barriers including education, work, land rights, and well-being impacts like stunting. I frame FGM as structural violence hindering economies and human rights, urging socio-economic solutions over legal/clinical approaches alone. A follow-up post will consider practical low-tech measures.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
Today is International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), which perhaps offers an opportunity to look at progress made and some of the challenges ahead in ending FGM.
I am an academic sociologist. I subtitled my Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation book, published in 2015, ‘A UK Perspective‘ because I wanted to show respect to those, unlike me, working in and reporting directly from the field, often in countries in Africa or the Middle East.
What I researched and wrote about covered also however many parts of the globe beyond the U.K. – and the book was amongst the very first expressly to consider FGM from wider socio-economic and epidemiological perspectives. My thoughts today, presented here in summary, are therefore on progress made since 2015, and on issues which we must still address.
Particularly, I have considered here, looking back on this topic, ways in which these issues connect with another major theme which preoccupies me – the adoption of practical wider socio-economic measures and low-level technologies which, as well as having intrinsic value, may help to move forward the resolution of matters such as FGM. I will examine this second theme more closely in a subsequent post. Read more…
And The Most Complex Unaided Human Neurophysiological Collaboration Ever Is… An Orchestra?
Is a full‑size professional symphony orchestra the most complex “unaided” (non‑automated, entirely human‑driven) neurophysiological collaboration ever devised? An orchestral performance comprises immense, split‑second coordination over an extended period between dozens or hundreds of musicians—guided by a conductor yet for each and every person largely self‑regulated—all working in real time to a common artistic end. Is this kind of large‑scale, conscious, synchronised human coordination, with no external automation or AI, uniquely complex compared with other forms of collective human activity? And what if so does that tell us about collaborative brain‑and‑body dynamics?
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
This is a little diversion from my usual themes, but it’s a happy thought, so here goes: I suspect that the most complex stand-alone neurophysiological ‘exercise’ in the whole of human history is… a symphony orchestra. And since this week marks the annual conference of the Association of British Orchestras, now seems a good time to mention this.
The picture of the left is just one small example of the score for a single instrument (in this case, first violins) in a work for a large-scale orchestra.
As the score suggests, sometimes more than one note must be played at once, and they must often be played very rapidly, and always exactly together and extremely accurately. And everything must carry on precisely like that for, say, forty minutes or even an hour, if a major symphony or concerto (with soloist) is on offer in the concert.
But of course orchestras have many more instruments than ‘just’ violins…. Read more…
I Kick and I Fly by Ruchira Gupta is a 2023 novel about 14-year-old Heera from a poor Indian red-light district who faces sale into sex trafficking by her father. Heera learns kung fu at a hostel, gains empowerment, and mounts a daring rescue of her missing best friend. This story against trafficking offers themes of courage, ingenuity, and escape from exploitation.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
The strapline on the cover of this book tells us much about its message: ‘When the world is against you… fight back!’ I Kick and I Fly is the tale of fourteen-year-old Heera, living in a grimly impoverished red light district in India, and about to be sold into the sex trade by her father, to pay the family’s debts.
But Heera has other ideas, bolstered by a chance opportunity to learn Kung Fu. Then her best friend goes missing, and Heera embarks on a daring rescue mission…
Ruchira Gupta, a journalist and activist, is a powerful advocate for feminist strength. To quote no less an authority than Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, ‘Any work from Ruchira Gupta is sure to further the cause of liberating women.’
In this story of a fast-moving adventure we learn about a part of the world unknown to many, a world where it takes determination, ingenuity and courage to secure a way out. Read more…
The Routledge International Handbook of Harmful Cultural Practices
The Routledge International Handbook of Harmful Cultural Practices (2023, eds. Jaschok et al.), is a cross-cultural study of gendered abuses like FGM, virginity testing, hymenoplasty, and genital cosmetic surgery. The book’s feminist, intersectional approach uses ethnography to advocate global action against these context-specific harms, condemnation of which is often muted by prejudice or dismissed as ritual. Divided into six parts—from discourses to shattering silence—it promotes ending FGM (I am one of the authors) via scholarship accessible to teachers, activists, and policymakers.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
Dr Tobe Levin von Gleichen writes: “Addressed to teachers at all levels, activists, policy-makers, and readers who care about girls’ and women’s wellbeing, this wide-ranging cornucopia of scientific analyses and literary essays promotes ending FGM. Its power derives from scholarship clearly presented to lay readers and contrasting viewpoints from all continents except Antarctica. Its intersectional lens illuminates FGM among allied abuses: early and forced marriage; surgical responses to intersex infants; the virginity complex in Western countries and more.
“Dr. Tobe Levin von Gleichen and Dr. U.H. Ruhina Jesmin edit UnCUT/VOICES publications, and the fine work of a number of contributors, including Hilary Burrage, has also appeared under the UnCUT/VOICES colophon. We are proud of our association with Routledge in offering you this resource.”
The book can be obtained as a paperback here. I am delighted to be a contributor to this important publication, as the author of Chapter 12, on FGM Studies: Economics, Public Health, and Societal Wellbeing. Further details of the book follow below.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
Edited By Maria Jaschok, U. H. Ruhina Jesmin, Tobe Levin von Gleichen and Comfort Momoh Copyright 2023
NB Another Routledge book chapter I wrote relating to FGM and other genital surgeries is Female Genital Mutilation and Genital Surgeries, pp 495-511, Ussher et al, Routledge International Handbook of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health (2020) [See also Twenty Years Of Zero Tolerance Day To #EndFGM: But No End To Gender Debates And Genital ‘Treatments’.]
A National Traffic Lights System To Report NHS And Other Concerns Would Ensure Accountability
This post argues for a mandatory national “traffic lights” reporting system, to ensure concerns about child or vulnerable-adult abuse are logged consistently and official responses are overtly on the record. Fundamental questions are how to stop warning signs being ignored, how to reduce confusion about who must report, and how to prevent organisations from hiding behind reputational concerns. How can a single secure, shared route for reporting across professions and the public be created, so repeated concerns automatically trigger fast action and accountability?
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
UK news a few days ago of the paediatric nurse Lucy Letby ‘Guilty’ verdicts – confirming that she did indeed murder several tiny babies (and tried to kill even more) – has left most of us numb, almost unable to comprehend what happened. But behind these verdicts lie questions about why it took so long to stop the horror; and what can be done to prevent such awful crimes in the future? One possible way forward would be a national ‘traffic lights’ system to record all child or vulnerable adult abuse concerns and the official responses to them.
Blade of Tradition in the Name of Religion: A Phenomenological Investigation into Male Circumcision in Iran (Ahmady, 2023)
Kameel Ahmady’s 2023 book on male circumcision (MGM) in Iran frames it as a traditional religious practice akin to female genital mutilation (FGM). Key issues include: non-consensual cutting of children causing fear, pain, trauma, harm, or death; persistence despite modern ethics due to power dynamics and economics; and the need to question its rationale in Islamic society. I wrote the foreword, noting similarities/differences with FGM and the need for awareness of MGM’s under-studied realities in places like Iran. The debate on children’s rights and bodily integrity is also critical.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
There has long been a debate about whether ‘male circumcision’ – what some of us call ‘male genital mutilation’ (MGM) – can be seen in the same light as female genital mutilation (FGM). My own view is that there are both similarities and, to an extent, differences, but each is done on children who cannot consent, and both can in fact be deeply incapacitating or even lethal (in parts of Africa, many boys die from ritual circumcision every year). Yet still, in some global locations very little is known about the realities of MGM. It is good therefore to report the newly published study by my colleague Kameel Ahmady of male circumcision in Iran. Kameel asked me to write a Foreword to his book. This follows below.
Foreword by Hilary Burrage to Blade of Tradition in the Name of Religion (Ahmady, 2023) Read more…
It is vital that we validate women’s anger over gendered violence like FGM, honor-based violence (HBV), rape, and killings, emphasizing survivors’ firsthand insights as essential for prevention. There are nonetheless many challenges for community activists, including family loyalties, personal risks, and distrust of outsiders due to trauma and cultural omertà. Likewise, third-party campaigners face resentment from survivors wary of “interference” by professionals. One key question: How can all parties collaborate respectfully—starting from affected communities outward—to end these harms without simple solutions?
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
It was great recently to meet up with Prof. Lori Ann Post, whilst she was on a visit to London. Dr. Post is Director of the Buehler Center at the Northwestern University Feinstein School of Medicine in Chicago, where she some while ago appointed me an Adjunct Professor; so we had a lot to catch up on and discuss. Lori is well able to express her own views, but one issue which we explored a little is why there is often something of a chasm between the activists campaigning on the ground against, eg, FGM, and those who research it with the same aim. I will try to consider that challenge briefly in this post.
Dr Phoebe Abe-Okwonga: FGM Activist And Physician
Dr Phoebe Abe‑Okwonga is both a GP/physician and an FGM activist, with her long‑standing community work in Yiewsley, London and beyond. There are however always difficult questions about how medical professionals can simultaneously treat patients affected by FGM and campaign against the practice, and whether clinicians embedded in practicing communities get adequate support and recognition. Tensions exist between different professional groups (medicine, law, activism) and about how to better protect and resource community‑based women who speak out against FGM, especially when they remain personally vulnerable.
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
Dr Phoebe Abe-Okwonga MB ChB, MSc(CTM ), FRSA is a General Practitioner (GP) and Community Health physician who has practised for many years at the Yiewsley Health Centre in West Drayton, Greater London, England – where she holds an hour-long free and open clinic every Monday and Friday lunchtime, even in lockdown, for any woman who has undergone female genital mutilation (FGM).
Phoebe, a widowed mother of five originally from Uganda, completed her medical studies decades ago in the UK and has been concerned about FGM for many years. There are, she says, some 200 million women and girls now alive who have endured FGM, and around 130 to 140 thousand of them live in the UK.
I explore whether patriarchy persists in the UK and similar nations in this Fabian Society talk on gender inequality. My focus is ongoing patriarchal influences via economic power: forced/early marriages (including in UK communities), educational neglect of some ethnic minority girls, cuts to female-dominated care roles (e.g., school nurses), US abortion restrictions post-Roe v Wade, societal dismissal of older women, global FGM/FGCS and polygamy, male-led Western medicine, the UK gender pay gap (56 lost days/year, 30 years to equity), and falling pay in feminized professions like UK medicine (64% female entrants).
You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.
‘The Patriarchy’ has been a mainstay of feminist critiques of societies for decades; and even before that, over the centuries, the idea that men have huge advantages over women was well understood and often discussed. But is it still the case in modern contemporary societies that, simply because they are men, some human beings have advantage over others, who happen to be female?
This was the question I addressed today in a talk for our local Fabian Society. Does patriarchy remain so embedded that we just don’t see it?
Hilary Burrage 