by LORNA GLEDHILL
Two Somali women look at a photo-exhibit that worked to bring the reality of the suffering to the public as part of a London StopFGM campaign in 2011. IMAGE/Rufai Ajala
(WNN/OD/50:50) Yorkshire, UNITED KINGDOM, WESTERN EUROPE: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting or circumcision, is a practice that involves incisions or injury to the female genitalia or removal of external genital tissue for non-medical reasons. Recent research by the World Health Organization has estimated that roughly 140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of FGM, with the large majority living in African countries.
Data from a large-scale study published by UNICEF shows that in seven countries, almost all women and girls between the ages of 15 and 49 questioned stated that they had experienced some form of FGM. The national prevalence rates of Dijibouti (93.1 percent), Egypt (91.1 percent), Eritrea (88.7 percent), Guinea (95.6 percent), Mali (85.2 percent), Somalia (97.5 percent) and Northern Sudan (90 percent) demonstrate near universality of the practice in some parts of Africa.
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This weekend, the BBC News channel re-aired Sue Lloyd Roberts’ Newsnight report on FGM. Following the particular story of one Gambian woman seeking protection for herself and her young daughter from FGM in her country of origin, Lloyd Roberts investigated the Home Office’s grounds to refuse refugee protection to this young mother. While the Home Office claimed that this individual could be returned to another part of Gambia where FGM was not practiced (despite FGM being legal in Gambia) and where her family and previous community leaders could not locate her, Lloyd Roberts revealed that this option of ‘internal relocation’ was both unfeasible and unsafe. To return this individual to Gambia would be to facilitate the practice of FGM on this mother’s young daughter.
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Speaking to the New Internationalist earlier this year, a Nigerian woman seeking safety from FGM for herself and her daughter explained her protracted battle with the UKBA to secure refugee protection. After witnessing her first daughter die at the hands of a botched FGM procedure, Abiola refused to allow her second daughter to face the same fate. After divorcing her husband and fleeing conservative relatives, Abiola requested help from the Nigerian police after her daughter was violently assaulted during a kidnapping attempt by her uncle. The threats to Abiola’s daughter were dismissed as a ‘family matter’ by the authorities, leaving her no option but to seek safety abroad. However, once in the UK, her asylum claim was rejected; internal relocation was once again offered as an alternative to refugee protection.
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