Female genital mutilation, also known as circumcision or cutting, continues to be widely practiced on young girls.
The numbers increase during the summer when many girls are taken abroad during the summer school holidays to be cut.
We all know that there is plenty of discussion about FGM.
But what does this actually mean for those of us living in communities where this continues to be practiced?
Florence Acquah you’re a health care worker, you’re trying to help those young women who have had FGM.
What kind of impact does FGM have on their lives?
For women who have undergone FGM can have a number of problems.
Whether it’s infertility, difficulty passing urine, urinary infection and sometimes they have problems during childbirth.
It’s important for us to understand what these women are going through and give them the appropriate referral.
Whether it’s the GP, the General Practitioner, whether it’s a doctor, whether it’s a nurse, whether it’s a midwife
they should be able to access help.
Some people claim that for cultural reasons there are benefits to having FGM.
Are there any health benefits afforded to a woman who under goes FGM?
No. That’s all I will say. None what so ever.
So if there are no health benefits why does the practice continue? Why?
Some people link it with purification, cleansing.
It has nothing to do with that: it’s a manipulation.
Ibraheem, what can men do to help end this practice?
Men can easily end this practice
If we stop the cultural beat of it
Because if we keep on asking our parents. I want to be married.
I need a woman that is clean
and when you say it to your father or your grandparents that you need a woman that is clean.
Automatically it clicks. That any woman who you want to marry must be circumcised.
What about the spiritual side?
Pastor McCauley let me ask you directly. Does your faith support FGM?
No. There is nowhere in the Bible.
Nowhere that it says it should be done to females.
I can’t find it from Genesis to Revelation, no.
Let’s look at the Quran then.
Shahin, does the Quran, does the Quranic scripture support the practice of FGM?
FGM is not sanctioned in the Quran whatsoever.
It is also not sanctioned in the Sunnah.
So it is not sanctioned by our religion.
Let me go to you Muna Hassan. You’re working with young people in Bristol and beyond.
What do you see?
Often young people mention that FGM is a really sensitive issue.
It’s an issue that has always been discouraged to discuss and to talk about.
It’s something that’s very taboo in all our communities and there are boundaries there that you never cross.
It could be quite difficult though for a young person, say a teenager to challenge some of the myths
or the cultural practices that have been handed down.
What’s really important for young people is to have the right kind of information from the right people
and to go home and say, well actually, Mum or Dad this isn’t in the Bible, this isn’t in the Quran,
this isn’t in the Torah; this isn’t in any religion.
It’s okay to go home and say well this has detrimental health impacts on a woman’s body
on a woman’s mental health and I don’t want to experience that.
At the end of the day FGM is illegal.
So child protection, child safeguarding is paramount.
What we need to do is to trust the social services.
These women who have gone through this practice, it’s not their fault.
Yeah.
So we have to help them
And the only way we can help them is to join up and fight to put this thing to an end.
So Florence if I were a survivor or somebody who felt at risk of FGM and I went to the NHS what would happen?
First and for most it’s about a caring and compassionate service that we can provide.
So it’s about making sure that we listen to what you are saying and actually make the appropriate referral.
So depending on what you have if we have to refer you to counselling services to neurology etcetera,
we can make those referrals in a timely fashion.
Well I think this is clear, FGM is harmful but there is hope.
Not only can women who have survived FGM get help and support
but change is possible if we all pull together to stop FGM happening in our communities.
If you or your family have been affected by FGM, the NHS is here to support you.
Visit nhs.uk/fgm or speak to your GP, nurse or midwife.