While there have been claims that there are thousands of women and girls living in Ireland who have suffered Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), it is an issue that has mostly gained little public attention.
Last week, Gript’s Ben Scallan posed a number of questions on this issue at a Garda press conference. Detective Superintendent Ian Lackey outlined the Garda approach to tackling FGM which appears mostly to focus on an “awareness campaign” which was recently manifested publicly in the handing out of leaflets at Dublin airport.
Responding to a question from @Ben_Scallan, Lackey says that there are an estimated 10,000 victims of female genital mutilation present in Ireland.
He says it is a "worldwide issue" that is prominently found in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. pic.twitter.com/bBflm9BvIg
— gript (@griptmedia) December 8, 2023
He also quoted a statistic that there were in the region of 10,000 victims living in Ireland, and that the mutilation had mostly taken place “mainly in their country of origin.”
That seems to elude the fact that FGM would not only seem to be taking place within the Irish state, but perhaps, even worse, parents of young children are bringing their daughters back to countries which presumably most of them fled as asylum seekers to have this carried out.
In other cases, it was believed, according to the Superintendent, that whatever sort of ghoul specialises in this savagery for money is brought to Ireland for the purposes of conducting such a procedure or ceremony or whatever it is described as.
The WHO says: :
They add that FGM involves “the involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. The practice has no health benefits for girls and women and causes severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later cysts, infections, as well as complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths.”
One form of FGM, WHO says, known as infibulation, involves “the narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal. The seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the labia minora, or labia majora, sometimes through stitching, with or without removal of the clitoral prepuce/clitoral hood and glans.”
As confirmed by the Garda press conference it is mostly carried out in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Disturbingly, the End FGM European Network says the procedure is usually performed by traditional practitioners using a sharp object such as a knife, a razor blade or broken glass. The purpose seems to be a desire to control women and to, purportedly, increase sexual satisfaction for men.
Tell-tale signs that a child might have been subject to this mutilation include: “difficulty walking, standing or sitting, spending longer in the bathroom or toilet, “and “appearing quiet, anxious or depressed.”
During questions, Superintendent Lackey stated that there was just one ongoing prosecution in the Irish state, which reflected the fact that there are very few prosecutions worldwide.
He goes on to say that there are "very few prosecutions" for FGM worldwide.
"There's one ongoing case in Ireland which is the first ever case," he says, adding: "Hopefully we will never have to prosecute – we want to prevent it." pic.twitter.com/KT3gO1OAO5
— gript (@griptmedia) December 8, 2023
Which is surely a poor commentary on police forces outside of the countries which actually tolerate this barbarism? FGM was not even illegal in the Irish state until 2012. This despite the fact that a large number of claims for asylum had been made on the basis that people were fleeing countries where they or their child might be subjected to it.
In the ongoing case, to which Superintendent Lackey was presumably referring, a mother and father of a one year old girl who had been mutilated by them at their home in Dublin in 2016, a conviction was actually secured in 2019.
However, that has been subject to an appeal and the convictions were quashed in November 2021. The Director of Public Prosecutions immediately notified the court of the state’s intent to seek a retrial.
The reasons for the appeal and the main reason that the prosecution was overturned illustrate the “culturally sensitive” issues that are brought into play. The main reason had to do with a dispute over how a question to the father had been translated. The defence had also employed the services of Swedish gynaecologist Professor Brigitta Essen of Uppsala, who sought to argue that her view of the physical evidence was that no such mutilation had taken place.
Essen specialises in this sort of defence evidence in FGM cases and has attracted significant controversy in Sweden for her claim that FGM perhaps does not take place at all within the Somali community in Sweden or perhaps at all in any European country.
All of which appears to rest upon her view that whatever claims were being made to the contrary rested upon cultural and socioeconomic factors and even biases. I would prefer to take the view of victims of FGM such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali on this.
The question surely must also be posed as to why the Gardaí seem to be content to assign part of the responsibility for tackling FGM here to two NGOs, AkiDwa and the Irish Family Planning Association. They presumably do not do the same when it comes to any other sort of crime.
This is not a cultural problem for Irish people – it is something that if it ever took place here only did so in the context of some gruesome sexually motivated assault or murder.
Nor is this crime something that ought to mostly be addressed by “awareness”. People who might for some bizarre reason think that it might not be a criminal offence in this country to mutilate a child ought to be first informed that to perform FGM or allow it to be performed is a crime and that there will be consequences for abusing a child in this way. “Cultural factors” ought not be an excuse for this barbarity.
Is the State doing enough to have would-be perpetrators understand a crime is being committed – which might work better than “awareness” in making possible criminals rethink their cultural view of this obscenity.
The first duty of care in this instance on the part of the state is to the girls and women who have been, or are at danger of being, subjected to FGM. The second duty is to ensure that Ireland is not dragged into some undermining of western and Christian cultural standards by an abhorrent medievalism that has no place here.