Wonderful to see this published today by the Mail. A tip of the hat to Brendon Marotta, director of American Circumcision, for his contributions to the piece.
My published comments here.
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In contrast here we have the third conviction in the three decades FGM has been illegal in this country.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67225093
The case rather clearly sets out the situation, a practice widespread in Somali and other west African cultures, cultural and religious and considered an essential rite de passage. In cultures that regard MGM in the same way.
Given it is well understood and widespread in those cultures in the UK, why so very few prosecutions (5 in nearly three decades)? Well maybe because thus far two of the three people convicted in all that time are women (a mother convicted with the father and this woman no doubt a relative of the complainant). Having twice done the “training” rolled out to all public services following the two Acts passed on FGM its obvious that any real clampdown on this issue would in fact net lots of mothers, sisters, aunties and cousins because in fact in the cultures this is “women’s business” and men are excluded (just as MGM is men’s business ). So any actual clampdown would seriously undermine the assumption of saintliness we apply to women and produce a feminist backlash of course. So I don’t expect there to be any more such cases for a long time.
Double standards? Surely not.
Yes its good to see the issue of consent get an airing. Particularly as Tattoos are illegal for under 18s. It seems madness that one can have bits chopped off as a baby but are protected from tattoos till 18. I have been dismayed by the recent discussion about antisemitism which has seen a number of “experts” declare one clear mark of antisemitism is opposition to infant circumcision, even citing moves made in some Scandinavian and European countries to end non medical circumcision for infants until old enough to make the choice themselves. All of these in fact followed advise from the Medical institutions in these countries and all were stalled by claims of antisemitism and to a lesser extent “islamophobia”.
As a result I can’t see anything happening on this issue as political authorities will continue to “kick it into the long grass” to avoid the backlash.