Welcome. This website comprises mostly Hilary's sociological papers and articles about patriarchy, (gendered) harmful practices (e.g. female genital mutilation / FGM) and thoughts on science, health, environmental issues, sociological analysis, social policy and good practice.
Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation: Book Launch (My Talk, At The Guardian, 4 November 2015)
My book, Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation (Ashgate, 2015) was launched this evening at an event very generously hosted by Maggie O’Kane at the Guardian London offices. It was an occasion I will never forget, amongst colleagues, friends and family, all of them committed to eradicating female genital mutilation forever. I took advantage of the opportunity to share some thoughts about how the fight against FGM is developing, what needs to be done and why Public Health is critical…
Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation: Backstory To My Book
My book, Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation, is now published and available for everyone to read. It can be obtained from the publishers, Ashgate, in paperback, hardback and e-formats, or from any good bookshop.
Below is the account which I wrote for the Ashgate blog of how the book came about. As I say in that piece, this is a book which should never have had to be written. But now that’s done, I hope very much that soon we can close the conversation and consign the whole phenomenon of FGM to history.
Conference: Ending FGM Together (Amplifying The Message With Mojatu)
3 September 2015 was the date of an International Conference in Nottingham on Ending FGM Together. The event, devised by Valentine Nkoyo and colleagues from the Mojatu Foundation, offered an ambitious agenda addressing many aspects of the issues. My contribution was a workshop on the media, entitled #EndFGM: Amplifying the Message. The notes for the seminar are below. I hope we can now use this blog to share more Twitter accounts, websites etc, to spread ‘the message’ and to connect with other campaigners..
And please support the e-petition which arose from concerns expressed during our workshop:
Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation [my book]
My book, Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation: A UK Perspective, will be published by Ashgate in just a few weeks now (September 2015).
I am unequivocally committed to eradication, but have also have tried to develop a sociological analysis of the issues; and whilst I have drawn quite often on the UK experience I hope the analysis will serve well as a starting point also for many other places in the western world, including the USA, Australia and of course the various parts of continental Europe.
Details from the publisher of the book’s contents, its first review and how (if you’d like to) you can order it are below…. And here are links to the detailed Contents, the complete Introduction (24 pages) and the full Index.
And so we find ourselves confronted by yet another Anthropologist ‘explaining’ why women ‘choose’ to have themselves ‘cut’. Again, it’s Prof Bettina Shell-Duncan of the University of Washington, reporting to The Atlantic on ‘Why Some Women Choose to Get Circumcised‘. She asks us to consider ‘common misconceptions about female genital cutting, including the idea that men force women to undergo the procedure’. When will this comforting denial of the truth finally become a matter of shame for those who promote it? FGM is vile, patriarchal child abuse.
The Guardian Global Media Campaign #EndFGMWhyWait
The Guardian launched its Global Media Campaign to end FGM at the UN ONE Plaza Hotel on 12 March 2015. The idea is to support the new generation of activists using the media to amplify their message – stop FGM! – to their communities and the world. Here you see two of these determined activists, Domtila Chesang from Kenya and Jaha Dukureh, originally from the Gambia. Their presentations, with those of UN Women Under-Secretary General Mme Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and others, are available here.
The symposium Contestations around FGM: Activism and the Academy, held on 7 March 2015 and organised by Dr Tobe Levin, was a first, in formally bringing together activists and academics to discuss many aspects of continuing efforts to eradicate female genital mutilation. My task was to contribute to a round table discussion on ‘the benefits, the hurdles and the effects on prevention of committed implementation of the law’. In my paper I examined the risk that an inadvertent turf war around FGM might now be emerging in the UK between the medics and the lawyers.
Wanted: First-hand Testimony By FGM Survivors, Activists And Campaigners
Can you help? My second book about female genital mutilation is very different from my first (a formal textbook). It focuses on the ‘human stories’ behind this harmful traditional practice. I aim to bring to a wider readership the realities of FGM, talking to people in communities, survivors, ‘rescuers’, opponents, campaigners (in the field or diaspora), anyone with direct FGM experience, women, men, older, younger. Please contact me for details. Anonymous, or I’ll try to feature your organisation, if you wish. Thank you!
Postscript: January 2016
Female Mutilation: the truth behind the horrifying global practice of female genital mutilation (New Holland Publishers, 2016) is now on sale. Massive thanks to the many people – survivors, family members, campaigners, concerned professionals – who helped to make this book possible.
The UK Home Office has been conducting a Consultation on whether and how to introduce a mandatory reporting requirement for female genital mutilation FGM), as proposed in the Home Affairs (Vaz) Report in 2014. I agree absolutely that reporting of FGM should be mandatory for professionals directly involved, but I’d like to see a single, much more integrated and comprehensive approach – eg including all suspected child abuse, plus adult FGM (and forced marriage?) with a national network of trained Abuse Reporting Officers. This is my submission:
Why Does Female Genital Mutilation Occur?
The passage below is an excerpt from my book, Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation: A UK Perspective, published by Ashgate / Taylor and Francis in 2015. This was written as a textbook drawing particularly on the information available in the UK at that time – though it in fact covers the issues and what was known then of the history (some now almost forgotten) of FGM arising in many countries around the globe. The chapter in which this extract can be found is Chapter 1: Demography and Epidemiology of FGM, pp.31-34.
Why does FGM occur?
Female genital mutilation is an age-old phenomenon. It precedes all the major world religions and has been known, like other harmful traditional practices (HTPs) [26] , from the earliest times [27] .
The claim is regularly made that FGM is a ‘Muslim’ practice, but in fact it occurs amongst animists and in both Muslim and Judeo-Christian countries. A large majority of spiritual leaders of global faiths – though certainly not all leaders in, especially, the Islamic tradition [28] – reject it as an inhumane transgression of basic rights to physical integrity and freedom from fear and oppression [29] [30] .
Nonetheless there is a widespread belief that Islam and FGM are linked, because it is most often encountered in countries where that religion is in the ascendant. The reality is that it is perceived in large numbers of traditional communities to be required. The association of FGM and Islam is, however weak the evidence that the relevant scriptures deem it necessary, a significant aspect of the way that FGM is perceived by many, and must therefore be acknowledged in order that it can be challenged (not least by the large majority of adherents of that faith) [31] .
The reality is that over millennia female genital mutilation has occurred principally as a way to ensure the ascendancy of patriarchy [32] . FGM therefore presents itself in different ways in different places and at different times.
In some instances FGM occurs very early in a girl child’s life, in others later, even perhaps in adulthood [33] [34] [35] .
- Sometimes the preferred ‘procedure’ is relatively minor / non-invasive (though never risk-free); in others it is routinely life-threatening [36].
- Some communities link FGM to large-scale festivities, with much ritual and celebration. In others, especially since the introduction in many places of laws forbidding the practice, it is carried out without ceremony and in secret [37] .
Similarly, the rationales of FGM are diverse [38] [39]
- FGM may be an early marker of belonging to a particular group, perhaps carried out when the child is only a few days or weeks old. (Similarly, ex-pat groups may adopt it as a way of indicating difference from their host community.) [40]
- In some communities FGM is seen as a rite of passage, an initiation to adulthood during which pain must be endured, which occurs as the girl approaches puberty and thus ‘becomes a woman’ (Chad [41]) . FGM also often has religious and social significance. The shedding of blood may be seen as a symbolic stream connecting the woman to the rest of her close-knit community [42].
- FGM is sometimes required to ‘preserve’ family ‘honour’ [43] .
- It may be done in order to ‘cleanse’ a girl, in the belief that it is more hygienic and will stop unpleasant genital secretions and odours as the child develops to maturity [44] [45] .
- Another rationale is that the girl must be made ‘pure’ and chaste [46] , and virginity must be assured before she can be made available at a good bride price for marriage [47] She may be sewn up almost completely as she approaches puberty, when she reaches marriageable age, or even after each birth, so that sexual intimacy is almost impossible unless the infibulation is reversed, on her husband’s say-so [48] .
- A corollary of bride price is that a girl for whom a good price can be secured (i.e. whose ‘purity’ is assured) is also a safety net for her parents in old age; pensions are not part of the experience of elders in traditional communities, but a good (i.e. economically sound) marriage offers a degree of assurance for parents as they become more frail .
- FGM may be deemed a beautifying procedure, or to remove ‘masculine’ aspects of a girl’s or woman’s body [49] to reinforce gender ‘differences’. The clitoris may be seen as ‘male’ and removed to ensure the girl doesn’t develop perceived ‘male’ traits, such as aggression or promiscuity.
- Excision of the clitoris may be believed to ensure women will not be like men in regard to sexual appetite or aggression, and that it will control the rampant sexual desires which adolescent girls are believed to harbour [50] .
- Fear of the clitoris may be a factor, with the belief that it must be excised because otherwise it will grow into a ‘third leg’ (c.f. a penis, only perhaps longer), and / or will cause the girl discomfort when she becomes a woman [51] .
- Fear of the clitoris, and its consequent excision, is also a rationale in communities which believe a man – or baby – will die if they come into contact with it during intercourse or labour [52] (in a few communities such as the Samburu in Kenya a baby born to an uncircumcised woman is deemed impure, and may even be killed [53] ).
- Excision of the clitoris is believed to reduce a woman’s sexual pleasure or desire, thus reducing the likelihood that she will become sexually active with anyone other than her husband [54] .
- Some communities believe men’s sexual pleasure will be enhanced by FGM [55] .
Underlying all these rationales however is another factor, essential to understanding FGM. It is a ritual, much more than just a mere customary action, which has continued unquestioned for millennia. Those in traditional communities who perpetrate have known no other. For large numbers of such people there is in a very real sense no alternative. As the anthropologist Gerry Mckee points out, the risks of neglecting to inflict FGM may be too high to take. The practice is bound to a belief trap [56]. Who knows what horrors might befall an individual or community where it ceased?
For more information about FGM please see:
“What we know about female genital mutilation – A summary (2025) of the many and complex aspects”
[26] http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/02/weekinreview/africa-s-culture-war-old-customs-new-values.html
[27] http://www.fgmnationalgroup.org/historical_and_cultural.htm
[28] http://www.meforum.org/1629/is-female-genital-mutilation-an-islamic-problem
[29] http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/06/23/fgm-is-not-a-religious-duty-says-dar-al-ifta-representative/
[30] http://www.economist.com/node/9444160/
[31] http://www.forwarduk.org.uk/key-issues/fgm/fgm-islam
[32] http://www.coexistkenya.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/FGM-community-study.pdf
[33] http://www.trust.org/item/20130225174500-wh24c/
[34] http://www.prb.org/Publications/Datasheets/2010/fgm2010.aspx
[35] http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/fgm/fgm_trends/en/index.html
[36] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/
[37] http://www.afya-bora.com/fgm.htm
[38] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/
[39] http://www.fgm.co.nz/beliefs-and-issues
[40] http://www.nmhdu.org.uk/silo/files/fgm-psychiatric-considerations.pdf
[41] http://replacefgm.eu/sites/default/files/pressroom/REPLACE%20Toolkit.pdf
[42] http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/femalecircumcision/femalecirc_1.shtml
[43] http://www.fgm.co.nz/beliefs-and-issues
[44] http://www.patriciacrossley.com/FGM.htm
[45] http://www.patriciacrossley.com/Africa/Vignettes/2004-5/Oct%20104.htm
[46] http://www.african-women.org/documents/behind-FGM-tradition.pdf
[47] http://www.african-women.org/documents/other-face-of-FGM.pdf
[48] http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/fgm/fgm_reinfibulation_sudan/en/index.html
[49] http://www.african-women.org/FGM/myths.php
[50] http://www.irinnews.org/indepthmain.aspx?InDepthId=15&ReportId=62470
[51] http://www.fgmnetwork.org/gonews.php?subaction=showfull&id=1236961202&ucat=1&
[52] http://voices.yahoo.com/female-genital-mutilation-15953.html
[53] http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/ktn/video/watch/2000071089/-a-cursed-culture-samburu-kill-unclean-infants
[54] http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/frontiers/reports/Kenya_Somali_FGC.pdf
[55] http://www.path.org/files/FGM-The-Facts.htm
[56] http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2096305?uid=3738032&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21105174417523
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Books by Hilary Burrage on female genital mutilation
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6684-2740
A free internet version of the book Female Mutilation is available
here.
[It is hoped that putting all these global Female Mutilation narrations onto the internet will enable readers to consider them via Google Translate in whatever language they choose.]
Hilary has published widely and has also contributed two chapters to Routledge International Handbooks:
Female Genital Mutilation and Genital Surgeries: Chapter 33,
in Routledge International Handbook of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health (2019),
eds Jane M. Ussher, Joan C. Chrisler, Janette Perz
and
FGM Studies: Economics, Public Health, and Societal Well-Being: Chapter 12,
in The Routledge International Handbook on Harmful Cultural Practices (2023),
eds Maria Jaschok, U. H. Ruhina Jesmin, Tobe Levin von Gleichen, Comfort Momoh
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PLEASE NOTE:
The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children, which has a primary focus on FGM, is clear that in formal discourse any term other than ‘mutilation’ concedes damagingly to the cultural relativists. ‘FGM’ is therefore the term I use here – though the terms employed may of necessity vary in informal discussion with those who by tradition use alternative vocabulary. See the Feminist Statement on the Naming and Abolition of Female Genital Mutilation, The Bamako Declaration: Female Genital Mutilation Terminology and the debate about Anthr/Apologists on this website.
~ ~ ~
This article concerns approaches to the eradication specifically of FGM. I am also categorically opposed to MGM, but that is not the focus of this particular piece, except if in any specifics as discussed above.
Anyone wishing to offer additional comment on more general considerations around male infant and juvenile genital mutilation is asked please to do so via these relevant dedicated threads.
Discussion of the general issues re M/FGM will not be published unless they are posted on these dedicated pages. Thanks.
A Policy Polemic On Female Genital Mutilation (For Northwestern University, Chicago)
I was pleased in October 2014 to write a Polemic about female genital mutilation (FGM) for the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics, Northwestern University, Chicago, with which I have connections as an Adjunct Professor.
The format of the piece was questions / statements and responses. No doubt over time, as we unpick the issues further, the precise interrogation of FGM will change, but I hope nonetheless this Polemic will remain of interest. Here it is….
It’s been a busy year for activists seeking to stop female genital mutilation in Britain. We’ve seen media campaigns, debates in Parliament, more research on incidence and a full Home Affairs Committee investigation, chaired by Keith Vaz, which resulted in a report, Female genital mutilation: the case for a national action plan. This is a version of the piece I wrote for Huffington Post, as a review of political progress towards ending FGM in Britain in 2014.
My 2014 Blog In Review (According To WordPress!)
The WordPress.com stats people sent me an annual report for this blog. Here’s their summary:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 24,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Friday 5 December ’14 was my day to join the Rutgers University ‘s #16Days of Advocacy Against Gender-Based Violence, with special reference in my case to female genital mutilation (FGM) in the diaspora, in Europe , North America and Australia. I’ve posted below all my Tweets as @NoFGM_UK, more or less in the order I wrote them. It’s quite a challenge to say things in 140 characters each time, but I hope I’ve captured the essence of some of the facts and views most relevant to my subject.
16 Days Of Advocacy Against Gender-Based Violence : #GBVTeachin #16Days
Curious about the intersectional nature of gender-based violence, about how all these aspects interact and interconnect?
Throughout the 16 Days of Activism, activists will be convening a #16Days Twitter based #GBVTeachin on various topics.
My own contribution will be on Friday 5 December, via Tweets from my @NoFGM_UK account.
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Do please follow me and all my fellow contributors, and join our debates whenever you can. (The whole programme is published below; to read it in larger print simply click on the items you want to look at.)
Share the line up with those in your network, and remember to use the hashtags #16Days and #GBVTeachin so we know you’re out there!
Sing And Shout Against FGM: Where The Arts, Human Rights, The ‘Old Days’ And A Big UN Announcement All Came Together
On 29 October 2014 Garden Court Chambers in London hosted an evening organised by Dexter Dias QC in support of FGM survivors. The sold-out event comprised drama, music and talks. I was delighted to be asked to speak – and even more so to relay the news that the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, was in Kenya to announce a global initiative with the Guardian to stop FGM. Using the arts to focus on FGM is very important too, so listed here are the performers at our event, as well as my thoughts on the ‘old days’ of FGM campaigning.
Appreciation: Efua Dorkenoo OBE
The death of Efua Dorkenoo at the age of only 65 is a massive loss to the global community of those striving to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). There have been many appreciations of her written already, but here is mine, composed at their request for the Morning Star. Above my small piece I have posted links to some larger tributes, and below it a photograph taken in 2013 with a note which Efua herself wrote on that occasion, encapsulating in just a few words her massive grasp of the issues and how to approach them. Thank you, Efua, for everything.
NoFGM Fringe Event At 2014 Labour Party Conference: Some Outcomes
The Make FGM History Fringe meeting (22 September) at the 2014 Labour Party Conference in Manchester brought together activists, survivors, politicians, public service professionals and others. Critical issues were examined – funding, mandatory reporting, the role of LSCBs and schools, and community cohesions amongst them – and differences in emphasis identified; but most importantly, a massive will to make progress became evident. Awareness of the horror of FGM is increasing rapidly…
Event To Explore The Big Issues In Making FGM History
The event (see here) alongside the Labour Party Conference in Manchester, on Monday 22 September 2014 (9.15-11.30am), aims to bring together policy developers, professionals and, most importantly, those with direct experience of FGM. Discussions will focus on the big questions as yet not fully resolved, hopefully exploring the differences in perspective between the different parties involved in Making FGM History in the UK. What follows is an article I wrote for the Morning Star about these issues and the people who will be discussing them.
Will The ‘Girl Summit’ Speed Ending FGM In The UK?
The Girl Summit in London on 22 July ’14 was an extraordinary event, bringing together various EndFGM and CEFM (child/early/forced marriage) campaigners and top influencers from around the world. The evident positives have however been balanced by caveats from, e.g., Naana Otoo-Oyortey * of FORWARDUK and the participatory development expert Clementine Burnley **. For me too there are issues, not least around where this leaves the stop FGM campaign in the UK.
Hilary Burrage 