“New figures from the U.K. are finally revealing the true extent of female genital mutilation [FGM],” writes Charlotte Lytton today at the Daily Beast: “In just six months, nearly 2,000 women and girls have been treated by Britain’s National Health Service after undergoing the brutal procedure.”
Good on Lytton for reporting on a horrific practice that seems to be expanding in the United Kingdom. But an attentive reader might notice something missing from her “wake-up call.”
From Lytton’s account, one might get the impression that the U.K.’s FGM problem is a bizarre new fad among the natives — old aristocratic London families who, between tea and cricket, enjoy oppressing their women. The reality, of course, is that FGM is on the rise in the U.K. because of the influx of persons from countries in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia where FGM is commonplace. In those countries, female genital mutilation is ritualized as part of Islamic practice.
But words such as “Islam” and “Muslim” are largely absent from reporting on the topic.
Lytton hints that FGM is not a practice indigenous to the Isles. She mentions “FGM ‘holidays’ (in which girls would be taken to their parents’ native countries to undergo the procedure).” But which countries does she mean, exactly? New Zealand? Norway? Guatemala?
As with the abuse in Rotherham, the perpetrators of female genital mutilation are not a diverse bunch. Refusing to acknowledge that reality does not help to protect vulnerable women; it aids those who, through a despicable practice, seek to repress them.