Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

[Edwin]

PM Cambeul (top right) at a South Australian Anti Muslim Rally

Authorities issue warning as young girls vanish during 'cutting season'

Victoria Craw | News.com.au | 3 August 2015

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/authorities-issue-warning-as-young-girls-vanish-during-cutting-season/story-fnq2o7dd-1227466942790?sv=ce7a85b1ee8fdbac9db50745c0717f17

EVERY year around June, thousands of [mud] girls disappear from homes and schools for extended holidays never to return the same again.

It's a part of the annual "cutting season" where girls younger than 15 are sent to visit relatives only to have their genitalia mutilated using knives, scissors or pieces of glass and sometimes sewn up using thorns.

Now a new report on female genital mutilation (FGM) shows just how widespread the practice is with victims in every county across the UK.

Equality Now's Program Officer for Sexual Violence and Trafficking Anber Raz said while it's virtually impossible to get a handle on exact numbers due to secrecy surrounding it, there is no doubt it's happening to young girls today despite moves to ban the brutal practice.

"Summer generally is what they call the cutting season which also means that people have often taken girls abroad in the summer holidays to have this done," she told news.com.au.

"Of course we expected urban areas to have a high prevalence but we didn't expect it to be literally in every authority across England and Wales."

The report showed nearly five per cent of women in London's Southwark are effected by FGM, with highest estimates outside London found in Manchester, Slough, Bristol, Leicester and Birmingham.

It comes as he UK's International Development Minister Lynne Featherstone warned people to watch for young girls that went missing if they suspect if could be happening to them.

"This is everyone's problem. If a Londoner was concerned about a neighbour and a child ... she or he should have no hesitation in taking that to an authority," she told The Evening Standard.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) can range from cutting off the clitoris to a process known as infibulation — where all external genitalia is removed and two sides of the vulva are sewn together. It's often done without anaesthetic as a rite of passage or form of sexual control rather than linked to a specific religion.

It's estimated there are between 100 million to 140 million victims around the world with rates up to 90 per cent in parts of Africa. It can have severe and lifelong consequences including chronic infections, pain and difficulty with sex and childbirth for life. The number of women who die is unknown.

In Australia, the NSW Government has taken a tough approach in cracking down on FGM, last year increasing the maximum penalty for performing the procedure from seven to 21 years.

It has also become a criminal act to take a girl out of NSW to undergo FGM, closing a loophole that previously let people avoid charges if they had taken their child overseas.

Despite this, a handful of people in NSW have faced court over the practice, including a Sydney father who had his then nine-month-old baby daughter circumcised while abroad in February 2012.

Immigrant Women's Health Service chief executive Dr Eman Sharobeem said it's virtually impossible to know how prevalent it is but she wouldn't be surprised if it's happening here.

"It's happened before and there's nothing from stopping it from happening again," she told news.com.au. "And in most of the cases it is actually the woman in the family who will take her daughter to undergo such a practice.

"They have many excuses: it's our culture, it will control her ability to have sex before marriage, we can protect her from her own desires, it is actually a part of being hygienic — there are many arguments around it."

Her clinic is focused on educating people about the dangers before it's done and she wants education embedded in the school curriculum so young girls can learn to say no.

"But this must happen on a primary school level because the primary school age is when the girls are taken for this barbaric practice," she said.

"And it is a barbaric practice. When you are cutting part of a human being without their permission and without their understanding of what's happening to them, this is a horrific act against humans ... Unless we have someone dobbing other people into the authorities we wouldn't know how many cases are out there."

[W.Anthony]

Man, Nogs are quite stupid indeed.