Female Genital Mutilation and the new school year!

Female Genital Mutilation and New School Year

 

As school opens campaigners are as ever faced with the fear that some of the girls coming back from their summer holidays might have been victims of female genital mutilation. While this is a possibility, it is all our responsibility to look around us and if suspicious contact the right agencies. We all have a duty to play.  Having said that, because a family that one knows has been abroad for the summer holiday, doesn’t necessarily mean they took their kids for genital mutilation.  Recently a Muslim family genuinely going on holiday was accused of going to Syria to join Isis, so lets not throw unfound accusations!

Working with families from FGM practising communities since 2010, I have since realised that the practice is different from country to country and even within the same country people do things differently where this practise is concerned. For example, some people in the diaspora that I have been working with claim to only be as protective of what they call ‘culture from the homeland’ only in name but don’t actually perform these practices and rituals. Some are second generation and don’t feel close to either the African culture or the culture they have embraced abroad. Clearly this brings a dilemma to anti FGM campaigners.  This therefore means we need to exercise caution when dealing with people.

The people who feel so strongly about their ‘original roots’ hold on to these archaic practices because they feel they don’t belong in the diaspora. There are many reasons for this -from lack of an education to not integrating when arriving in foreign countries.  I have been working with a few women from Somalia and they told me they feel all alone, so to them holding on to those practices from back home seem to keep them close to each other and give a sense of belonging somewhere. To them therefore anything that is still being done or practised in their home country is worth keeping.

Integration is as important as ever and working with these communities can be one of the many ways of making sure the message gets across of how dangerous this practice is. The other thing I noticed was some of the Somali women could not even speak English and feels even more isolated and therefore hold on to what they know best- themselves and their beliefs. Lets be welcoming and help others understand what's right and wrong without being judgemental! Understanding different communities and what makes them tick can be a starting point.

I hope the recent racist attacks since Brexit are not going to isolate communities and push them further ‘little communities within communities!’