Honour based abuse

Female Genital Mutilation is a ritual practised in countries in Africa and some in the Middle East and Asia. FGM is the name for ‘procedures involving the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or any other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons’. It is a harmful cultural tradition and not part of any religion. FGM mostly takes place on girls aged 5 to 12, although it can be done at birth and up to the birth of a woman’s first child. Communities tend to use local names such as ‘sunna’.

FGM is a painful, dangerous and an unnecessary practice, which can have detrimental and long-term effects on girls and women physically and psychologically. In the short-term it can result in trauma, severe pain, bleeding, infection and death. Long-term consequences can include: severe birth complications, problems during sex and menstruation and disability.

FGM is often practiced by families in the belief that they are doing the right thing for their child and to maintain their family honour in the community, as part of their cultural tradition, practiced for generations.

The United Nations describes some reasons behind the practice as -

• sociological - as an initiation for girls into womanhood
• social integration and the maintenance of social cohesion
• hygienic and aesthetic - where it is believed that the female genitalia are dirty and unsightly
• sexual - to control or reduce female sexuality
• health - in the belief that it enhances fertility and child survival
• religious - in the belief that it is a religious requirement
• socio-economic - where FGM is needed before marriage, (and marriage is a necessity to survive) and it may be the circumciser’s main source of income

FGM is a specific offence in its own right. The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 makes it illegal for FGM to be performed in the United Kingdom and for any British person to aid, abet, counsel, or procure FGM on any UK national or resident anywhere in the world even if it is not illegal in that country. This legislation includes parents who allow FGM to be performed on their daughters.

Signs that you are at risk of FGM are -

• if older sisters or other female relatives in your family have had it done
• if your family is planning a long trip back to your family’s country of origin

If you are at all worried, talk to a teacher, nurse or another adult you trust outside your family.