FGM in Britain.

Female genital mutilation is a very complicated situation. Many different groups of women activists and feminists have sought to stop it and change a tradition that is often very harmful to young girls and carries with them into adulthood. Britain has recently launched an awareness campaign as FGM has become prevalent in the immigrant communities of the UK.

The centuries-old practice, prevalent mostly in Africa, is now also being brought by immigrants to Western countries, like Britain.
“FGM is a huge problem in the UK,” said Ensharah Ahmed, community development officer at the UK-based Foundation for Women’s Health, Research and Development (Forward).
Forward estimates there are around 279,500 women living in Britain who have undergone FGM, with another 22,000 girls under 16 in danger of joining them.
This year London police launched an awareness campaign to coincide with the start of the summer school holidays — a period, they say, when women who carry out FGM are most likely to come to Britain, or when families send their daughters back to their countries of origin where they can be circumcised.

As the detective notes, what makes this a difficult issue to tackle is that this is a cultural practice. Folks are doing it out of love and have been doing it for years. They believe it is necessary.

Legislation passed in 2003 makes it illegal for British residents to arrange FGM in Britain or abroad, and those guilty of procuring or carrying out the practice face up to 14 years in jail. No one has yet been prosecuted.
“It’s not something you can stamp out in two seconds — it’s been going for thousands of years,” Hamilton told Reuters.
“Most communities will say it’s necessary, it’s something they need to protect their cultural identity now they are living in another country,” she said.

“I’ve been going to a lot of communities and I have spoken to a lot of women and men and they all tell me the same thing — they have to do it.

The fear of losing cultural identity does indeed exaggerate practices, cultures and beliefs, indigenous to immigrant groups. If the West wasn’t so obsessed with cultural hegemony, immigrants probably wouldn’t feel so threatened. But let me not digress.
At what point can Westerners say anything on such a complicated issue? And should they be allowed to?
via Reuters.