Conspiracy of Silence

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is happening today in Britain. Not far away in other countries and places, but here and it is closer than you realise. It is happening to girls in our communities, it has happened to women you sit next to on the bus and pass at the supermarket and it is happening to girls your child goes to school with.

July marks what is referred to as “cutting season” when young girls, on their summer break from school, are taken out of the country ostensibly to visit friends and family abroad and are subjected to the mutilation of their genitals. Often it is performed by intimate family members.

The government have introduced mandatory reporting for healthcare professionals and teachers; airport staff are on currently on high alert for warning signs of the danger that faces unknowing young girls. But it is still happening. And in many places communities refuse to acknowledge it is even happening, creating a conspiracy of silence which only fails, young, frightened, vulnerable girls subjected to unimaginable agony. 

 Every hour a woman in England attends a medical appointment where FGM is identified. The life-long and sometimes life-endangering effects of FGM are sadly all too familiar for healthcare professionals who treat FGM survivors for complications over their life course especially during pregnancy. And beyond physical treatment, funded services to support women with psychological and psychosexual counselling are needed to help FGM survivors manage the effects of physical and psychological trauma in their day-to-day lives. 

 As the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan recently disclosed; half of all reported FGM cases in the UK are from London. Reporting in itself is only a small part of a very complicated picture. The stigma is so widespread that many survivors will not use the term Female Genital Mutilation. 

 The #C_ntTouchThis event at KOKO Camden marked the launch the charity Global Comfort in partnership with ActionAid UK, The Global Campaign to End FGM and many others. It saw the start of what needs to happen, discussion, a gathering of professionals and young men and women, a celebration of music and people and a commitment to push through change by raising awareness and driving action. 

 #C_ntTouchThis was held in London, a city of 8.7 million, where a disproportionate number of FGM cases are seen. FGM is in desperate need of being propelled into the mainstream. No longer a peripheral ‘difficult’ issue, greeted with sympathy and a wince of pain and then forgotten. 

It affects too many women to be, as Cathy Newman remarked, put in a box labelled “women’s issues” or to be the preserve of healthcare professionals or survivors of FGM. 

It is a global problem, there are 200 million women and girls who have been subjected to FGM; with numbers as large as these, the scale and urgency of the problem and the failing of government and communities to safeguard young girls is overwhelming.

 BBC 1 radio DJ Clara Amfo acknowledged at the #C_ntTouchThis event, the men in the room's passion and dedication for change. Which highlighted the combined effort desired from from both men and women to end FGM to protect mothers, sisters, aunties, friends and partners. When celebrated musicians such as Little Simz, Tawiah and Afronaut Zu come together it is proof that passion and commitment to ideas and causes are not mutually exclusive to a profession or gender. 

FGM is not an issue for one group in society to tackle, it is child abuse and the base-less mutilation of a human beings body. It falls on all of us to make sure every child grows up with the knowledge of their fundamental rights and ownership over their own body. We all must champion girls who are voiceless, to develop and spread the conversation- rather than shying away from it- acknowledging the extreme damage that can be caused and to spark change from within the family itself.