July 23, 2013    http://thefrumiousbandersnatch.com/

Comment: As the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) releases a twenty year study into the practice of female genital mutilation and finds that 30 million girls are at risk of having their external genitalia forcibly removed in the next decade, isn’t it about time we cast off the shackles of cultural relativism?

The UNICEF report, Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: a statistical overview and exploration of the dynamics of change, is the most comprehensive review ever undertaken into the tradition of female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) and reveals that over 125 million women and girls alive today have already been subjected to the brutality and trauma of the practice.

While the report ultimately highlights a slow decline in the number of girls being subjected to this anguish, and reveals that girls and women consistently underestimate the number of boys and men who wish to see an end to FGM/C (in several countries, men now are more opposed to FGM/C than women) it also shows that even among those who wish to end the practice, social pressures exerted upon them are sufficient to ensure the bloodying of blankets continues with scant enquiry.

As defined by the World Health Organisation, female genital mutilation refers to ‘all procedures involving partial or full removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons’. In it’s most extreme form, FGM/C involves the sowing up of the vagina completely. The removal of the external  genitalia may be undertaken with sharp rocks, pieces of glass, scissors or blunted knives and razors. FGM/C is generally carried out without anaesthetic.   Read more of this post