Jo-Ann Goodwin and David Jones: The unspeakable practice of female circumcision that's destroying young women's lives in Britain
It is known by a variety of names, the most common of which are female genital mutilation (FGM), female circumcision, or simply “cutting” – a word which somehow conveys the raw pain its prepubescent victims suffer. Most people will be unfamiliar with this practice, which involves removing part or all of the clitoris, the surrounding labia (the outer part of the vagina) and sometimes the sewing up of the vagina, leaving only a small opening for urine and menstrual blood. [...] During a highly disturbing, four-month investigation, however, we uncovered evidence that thousands of British-African girls, in towns and cities throughout the country, have been forcibly “cut”. By conservative estimates, 66,000 women and girls living in Britain have been mutilated. [...] And thousands more girls are at imminent risk as families club together to fly professional “cutters” from Africa to Britain. These women “elders” perform the crude operation for up to 40 [UK Pounds] a time, often on kitchen tables or floors, without anaesthetic, using filthy, blunt knives, razor blades or scalpels.
[Article continues at link. The authors go on to explain that every religion practices female genital mutilation equally - Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, etc. - but culturally insensitive Islamophobes exclusively criticise Muslims. Just kidding. Everybody knows that Islam corners the market on mutilating girl's genitals, leaving the mutilation of boy's genitals largely to Christians and Jews. Every religion has a place at the table when it comes to mutilating the genitals of infants and children. The more we tolerate superstition in the 21st Century, the more infants and children can have their genitals mutilated. Not just in the 'backwards' countries, but right here in the West. In Britain, in Canada, in the United States. - Trevor Blake]
