Mainichi Daily News
Monday, December 16, 2013
The northeast African custom of female genital
mutilation finds itself an issue now in Britain due to increased
immigration from the region. Whilst few women report being victims of
genital mutilation due to embarrassment or pressure from people around
them, one woman, 29-year-old lawyer,
Nimco Ali, has spoken out about her own experience in a bid to wipe out
the practice. Our London correspondent, Takayasu Ogura, spoke to Ali.
Mainichi: Please tell me about when you were subjected to genital mutilation.
Nimco Ali: It was when I was 7 years old. We were
living in Manchester at the time. When we went on a trip to my mother's
hometown in northern Somalia, a weird looking woman who I'd never met
before came to the house. Without any explanation, she carried out FGM (female genital mutilation) on me.
Mainichi: Was it painful?
Ali: I was given an anesthetic beforehand, so I don't really remember the physical pain.
The first time I went to the toilet afterwards it was very painful, but
it was more the emotional pain of not knowing what had happened to my
body, and wanting to find out.
Mainichi: What happened when you came back to the UK?
Nimco Ali (Mainichi)
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Ali: I did confide in my teacher, but at that
time, teachers didn't really show any interest. They told me, "It's part
of your culture." After that I started to feel very angry about the
FGM. Even now, that such a stupid thing was done to me without any
explanation hurts emotionally.
Mainichi: Why did you "come out" about your experience?
Ali: Last year I met a Somalian woman who'd had
the same experience. She believed that in order to eradicate FGM, we
need to make people hear our stories, so we started talking about our
experiences.
Mainichi: How did your family react?
Ali: Even now, they don't like it. They don't
really understand why I'm so angry about it, but I don't want other
young Somalian women to feel like I do, so we carry on.
Mainichi: There is the belief that one ought to respect different customs and cultures, isn't there?
Ali: FGM is a tool to oppress women; it is a
custom to allow men to control women. There is no choice for the woman.
To me it is a form of violence against women on par with rape.
Mainichi: What is female genital mutilation exactly?
Ali: FGM is a practice that remains in African countries
such as Somalia, Egypt and Sudan. It's done mainly to girls in their
mid to late teens to prevent pre-marital sex, and suppress sexual
appetite. It is often carried out by people without medical training, in
places with poor hygiene. Some victims have no anesthetic and suffer
from post-traumatic stress. There have been cases where the procedure
has gone wrong, and even resulted in death.
Since the increase in African immigration in the 1980s, FGM has become a social issue
all across Europe. In 1985, the UK passed a law that not only made FGM
illegal in the UK, but also banned people from taking girls overseas
with the intention of carrying out the procedure. (However), because it
is difficult to obtain the facts and to pursue the parents' liability, a
prosecution has never been brought. An inquiry by the UK Commons Home
Affairs Select Committee to look at the reasons behind the lack of
prosecution against the perpetrators of FGM has been scheduled to begin
in January (2014).
In London alone, in the last three and a half
years around 2,000 second and third generation African immigrants with
FGM have been treated. The United Nations and the African Union have set
a goal of stamping out FGM as a form of violence against women.