Perpetrators Still Subjecting British Girls to Genital Mutilation with Impunity

FILE PHOTO. © Pacific Press / Getty Images

British children are being subjected to genital mutilation at home and abroad with impunity for the perpetrators, a campaigner has warned. Nobody would be held responsible if a girl goes missing from school, they said.

Hilary Burrage, author of ‘Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation: A UK Perspective’ told RT: “If a child doesn’t appear and she doesn’t come back, she doesn't exist anymore. Maybe she went ‘home,’ had FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) done, and she died. She’ll then just be history.”

According to figures released under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws this week, the number of reported cases of FGM has increased nearly five-fold. It is estimated there are some 137,000 girls and women living with FGM in Britain, and 144,000 girls at risk of FGM in England and Wales. It is impossible to know how many are being taken abroad for the procedure.

On International Women’s Day, Mama Silya, a victim of FGM living in north London, is calling on the UK to step up its efforts to stop the “traumatic” practice. She said the UK is only interested in trying to tackle FGM in countries it has colonized. “They are not talking to everyone, but just going to some places, which is not fair. Don’t just look to the Commonwealth countries. Look at other places where these children are at risk. Every girl is cut there, it’s happening daily.”

Silya is herself a victim of FGM. Some 27 years ago, aged 10 in her home country of Guinea, she was held down by five women and stripped of her most intimate parts. She had been taken to a river so she could be washed from head to toe, and dressed in a white gown. Her hair was plaited and her hands were covered in henna patterns as she was prepared for the coming-of-age procedure.

“They took something away from me without my consent. My clitoris, my right of a woman. I was born healthy, so there is no reason for someone to come and take it away from me just because of culture or what they said,” stated Silya.

No anesthetic

She described how she was forcibly held down. “Both women held me, one by the left hand and one by the right. The other two were holding my legs while another woman was cutting me. They cut my clitoris with blades. There was a lot of blood coming out so I lost it, I fainted.”

The mother-of-three said the women had no medical qualifications and carried out the procedure with no anesthetic. “Once I was held down, I was screaming, trying to run off, but when you are a child and four women are holding you, you cannot run. You can just scream and cry.”

FGM is a ritual procedure by which some or all of the external female genitalia are cut or removed. Depending on what type of FGM is carried out, the clitoris, and the inner and outer labia can be removed; and the vaginal opening may be sewn up. There is no medical reason for FGM, and it is not provided for in any religious text. However, communities mainly in Africa, the Middle East and Asia still consider the procedure a milestone on the path to adulthood.

Silya explained how FGM is used as a way of preserving virginity and controlling sexuality, as one’s desire for sex is subsequently lost. She said people in her community believe that “if the woman is not cut, she will have the temptation to go with men all the time.” She added: “[If] the woman is not cut, she is not clean.”

It's funny that they don't address men's temptation to 'go with' women all the time.

Not a single prosecution in UK

New figures released this week by the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organization, which is based in the UK, show almost a five-fold increase in reports to police of alleged FGM. Over a three-year period between 2014 and the end of 2016, FOI responses by 47 police forces show there were 1,337 reported cases of FGM, and that they had risen from 137 in 2014 to 647 in 2016.

tools of the trade

According to the latest data from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), however, there have been just 36 referrals of alleged FGM to the CPS since 2010. Despite the government having criminalized FGM in 1985, there has not been a single successful prosecution.

The first case, in 2015, saw a National Health Service (NHS) doctor acquitted in less than 30 minutes. The second case to reach trial collapsed last month after a judge ordered the jury to return a not-guilty verdict. The third case – brought by the Metropolitan Police – is set to open at the Old Bailey next week.

Burrage said the British government must now “get serious” about tackling the practice at home and abroad. She said it is difficult for authorities to track down parents who have sanctioned FGM on their daughters, as many girls do not want “to see the law involved because it would penalize their family.”

She added that some police officers are “not very well-equipped at all” to deal with FGM.

“The police are completely at a loss as some officers are still very embarrassed about talking about any female gynecology.”

Burrage believes the UK government “passes the buck,” as there is no one in Britain who can be held accountable for FGM here. “Isn’t that convenient?,” she said. “We do not have a single… person at the top of the political hierarchy who takes responsibility for what happens. Nobody is ultimately responsible.”

That means the Prime Minister is responsible! The PM, however, is tone deaf and just can't hear the cries of those who are voiceless!

Canada Needs to Pull Its Head Out of the Sand and Address This Nightmare

February 6 is International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation

There are no reliable, or for that matter unreliable statistics on the practice of FGM in Canada. There are most likely hundreds of thousands of women in Canada who have been mutilated - often as a small child, often with unclean tools, often without anesthetic, and often with significant physical and emotional damage. We just don't know the number.

We know that there are little girls taken overseas to be butchered. They may number in the dozens, or in the tens of thousands. We just don't know the number.

This practice, along with the practice of 'child brides', does occur to Canadian girls. It must stop! There are no indications that anyone has ever been charged with putting their little girls through these barbaric practices. 

How long can we bury our heads in the sand and pretend that it is not a problem. It's to our great shame that we have really done nothing, other than passing a law that is never enforced, to address the pain and suffering of the tens of thousands of girls and women subject to such brutal, medieval traditions.

Please forward this article to your Member of Parliament

 and ask them to get involved and 

do something about this horror.

FGM in Canada -  Ontario Human Rights Commission

For some time now, Canada has experienced immigrant and refugee movements from countries in which FGM is commonly practised. In Toronto, community groups have estimated that there are 70,000 immigrants and refugees from Somalia and 10,000 from Nigeria, countries in which FGM is commonly practised. As already noted, because of the nature of FGM, reliable statistics on the incidence of its practice are not available. However, based on discussions with members of the communities that are at risk, there is some evidence to indicate that FGM is practised in Ontario and across Canada. There is also evidence that suggests that in some cases, families from those communities send their daughters out of Canada to have the operation performed.

There is a growing recognition of FGM as a violation of human rights. Immigrant and refugee movements, governments and advocacy organizations in Canada have acknowledged the need to deal with FGM as an internationally recognized health and human rights concern.


Have Canadians experienced FGM, too?    Plan Canada

FGM is illegal here in Canada, but that doesn’t mean Canadian women and girls haven’t experienced it. In 2011, some 29,000 women from Africa and the Middle East became residents of Canada. Though there is no reliable evidence to suggest FGM is being practiced here in Canada, young girls in some communities are at risk as they may be taken to their countries of origin to have procedures carried out on them, often against their will.

Female Genital Mutilation Is a Canadian Issue Too     Huffington Post

In 2011, almost 29,000 women from Africa and the Middle East became permanent residents of Canada. Dr. Davis, who has worked with hundreds of immigrant women, says a high percentage of these will have undergone FGM.

In places like Kenya, where FGM is part of the culture, we have invariably found open discussion and debate -- mothers talking to mothers, doctors to parents, or women's groups to school classes. That conversation, more than any law, is helping decrease FGM.

Dr. Davis recalls examining a pregnant immigrant who had undergone FGM in Somalia. In order to have the baby, the woman had to be "defibulated" -- her vagina fully reopened. Dr. Davis saw the woman again when she became pregnant a second time. Performing FGM is illegal in Canada, so Dr. Davis was shocked to discover the woman had been reinfibulated -- sewn up again. The woman admitted she had gone back to Somalia to have it done because, to her, it was normal. Women who undergo this form of FGM often get reinfibulated after intercourse and giving birth.

According to Davis some immigrants even take their pubescent daughters back to their original countries to have FGM performed, often against the will of the girls who have become North Americanized and no longer see the practice as normal.


Effects found in study    The Canadian Women's Health Network

The Federal Interdepartmental Working Group on FGM commissioned key informant*
research across Canada in the late 1990s, to examine the health care issues of affected women
and to identify some prevention strategies. With respect to health care issues, community
providers and health care providers identified the following:

• Affected women may not realize their symptoms are FGM-related or preventable.
• Affected women tend to seek health care only when it is urgent.
• Even when affected women do want health care, they are reluctant to seek it due to a
number of social factors.
• When affected women do seek health care they may find it difficult and traumatic due to
cultural and language barriers.
• Health care providers may not be sensitized to certain critical FGM related issues. 
• The high Cesarean section rate is the number one health care concern of affected women.
• Key informants were concerned that FGM may be happening in Canada.
• Health care providers rarely have the opportunity to identify girls at risk.
• Schools could play an important role in identifying girls at risk.

Some views of people from African communities  Royal College of Nursing

“I cannot trust her if she is not circumcised”
“Female circumcision in our country has many beneficial aims like to keep the honour of the girl. But generally circumcision is not
good because there is a different between circumcised women and uncircumcised women”
“Yes I am happy to marry uncircumcised woman”
“The right time to open my circumcision is at night-time of marriage”
“The type of circumcision I am going to circumcise my daughter is how the Islamic religion allows that is the sunnah”
“Allah doesn’t accept to harm one organ of human being body, and is unlawful to cut human reproductive organs”
Quotes taken from interviews conducted by Comfort Momoh


Female Genital Mutilation in a Canadian Context

By: Honourable Senator Mobina S.B. Jaffer, Q.C.

Canada is a country that prides itself on multiculturalism and is home to individuals from various religions, races and creeds. It is also a country which relies on immigration in order to sustain its economy. A Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women claims that between 1986 and 1991, approximately 40,000 women who had arrived in Canada had been subjected to some form of female genital cutting. This is not including the thousands of women who arrived in Canada from Somalia after 1991 statistics indicate that many of these women were also victims of female genital mutilation.


College’s Position      College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia

The College endorses the position of the World Health Organization (WHO), and many other medical organizations, regarding female genital mutilation, as having no health benefits, and both immediate and long-term negative health consequences.

A physician must decline to perform female genital mutilation and must not make a referral for the purpose of female genital mutilation.

An adult parent or guardian cannot consent to the excision, infibulations or mutilation of the labia majora, labia minora or clitoris on behalf of a child, except in the circumstances described
under section 268(3) of the Criminal Code.

Urgent action must be taken if a physician considers that a child may be at risk of female genital mutilation.

After Girl Faces Rapist in Court, Judge Calls Child Sex Abuse an “Epidemic”

Lillian Schrock, Caspar Star-Tribune, Wyoming

Rene Bustillos-Carrillo

A teenage girl walked to the podium in a Casper courtroom Friday, cradling a caramel-colored teddy bear in her arms.

“The first time it happened, I found myself so weak and powerless,” the girl said with a loud, yet quavering voice. “It was ugly and horrific and downright repulsive. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

The girl recounted for a judge the years of sexual abuse she endured at the hands of Rene Bustillos-Carrillo, who sat just feet away from her, handcuffed and dressed in orange jail scrubs.

Epidemic 

After hearing testimony from the victim and her parents, Natrona County District Court Judge Thomas Sullins sentenced Bustillos-Carillo to 18 to 20 years in prison.

Just before handing down the sentence, Sullins called child sexual abuse “an epidemic” and said people must be deterred from committing such “horrible crimes.”

Unfortunately, it is an epidemic that few people are willing to talk about, so most don't know it's an epidemic. Is there something you can do to raise the awareness of this devastating evil?

“The message needs to be that these types of crimes have a high-victim impact, as we’ve seen in the courtroom today, and are absolutely inexcusable,” he said.

The judge said he was hesitant to honor a plea agreement made in the case. The District Attorney’s office charged Bustillos-Carillo last April with nine sex-abuse charges, which would have put him in prison for life. But prosecutors made a deal with Bustillos-Carrillo: If he entered pleas to two charges, they wouldn’t ask for more than 20 years.

With the help of a Spanish-speaking interpreter, Bustillos-Carrillo in September pleaded no contest to one count of third-degree sexual abuse of a minor and pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor.

The second charge pertains to another girl Bustillos-Carrillo molested.

Sullins said he’d go along with the agreement because he understands how extremely difficult sex abuse cases are to prosecute.

The second victim, a girl born in 2000, reported the abuse in February to police. After she came forward, authorities learned Bustillos-Carrillo had been abusing another girl.

Bustillos-Carrillo may face deportation to Mexico for the felony convictions. The defendant’s attorney, Richard Szekely, said it is up to the Wyoming Department of Corrections and the federal government to decide when Bustillos-Carrillo will be deported.


Victim impact devastating

The victim’s mother approached the podium with a clear plastic bag filled with her daughter's prescription medications.

“This is only a small amount of the medication she has to take every day because she can’t function, because he tortured her,” the woman said.

She said her daughter sleeps in bed with her now because she’s terrified Bustillos-Carrillo will come after her. The girl, who was born in 1998, said the abuse started when she was 10 years old.

For years, the woman said, her daughter suffered from physical ailments. She and her husband took the girl to see doctors, but they couldn’t figure out why she was suffering.

“I had no clue why this child had black eyes sometimes, and bruises on her arms and legs,” she said.

After the truth came out, the woman said she asked her daughter how many times Bustillos-Carrillo raped her. She’d lost count, the girl told her mom.

“He is evil,” the woman said. “He is so incredibly evil ... "”

The girl’s father told the judge his daughter is a hero for speaking out about what Bustillos-Carrillo did to her.

“He is a thief and a liar,” the man said. “He stole her innocence of being a child. He stole her childhood. He stole her happiness.”


In her own words

“When I was a little girl, I remember how happy I was,” the teenage girl said from the podium.

After the abuse started, she began abusing alcohol and harming herself. She couldn’t eat.

“It was the most traumatic and trying time of my life,” she said. “I was depressed, constantly.”

She said the abuse happened regularly for many years. Her attacker is going to prison, but she and her family are still recovering.

“Maybe I’m just going mad and I won’t get back to where I was before this happened,” she said. “I hope that’s not true.”

It's not true, sweetheart! You will recover with help; and you can be happy again in time. Right now, you are my hero! God bless and heal you!

People, please pray for this girl and the other two victims of this evil man.

Casper, WY

Anna Lee Gruenwald - A Child Sex Abuse Survivor's Own Story

This beautiful, courageous girl's story has gone viral on YouTube and she is my 'hero of the week'. I only wish I could give her a hug and tell her it will all be okay. I wish I had been there for her years ago. I wish someone had been there for her who could read the signs that should have been obvious.

Anna Lee Gruenwald

I was extremely nervous to post this but i know it will help alot of people.

And if I get negative comments, as long as I helped at least one person, it was worth it.

This is my story

Feel free to like comment and share

I made this for people who have struggled or still struggle with self harm.

I also made this for anyone who has ever been sexually abused. To let them know it can get better, you just have to stay strong and keep telling yourself it will get better. You are not alone and someone is always there.

Stay strong!

You too, Anna, I will be praying for you.

So many stories on this blog involve step-dads or mother's boyfriend molesting her children. Mother's and other relatives need to be much more alert to the possibility of child sex abuse by a partner who has no blood-relationship with their children. The odds on them sexually assaulting your children are considerably higher than their biological father.