Female Genital Mutilation

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on having introduced this debate on FGM because this is a taboo subject, especially in the countries where it is practised. We have already heard about the terrible impacts of FGM and how widespread the practice is. It is truly shocking that still today in Djibouti, Egypt, Guinea, Somalia, Sudan and Sierra Leone, more than 90% of women have been through some form of FGM. Many countries already have laws prohibiting FGM; it is a criminal offence in 15 of the 28 African states where FGM is prevalent, although there are few prosecutions. But where it is deeply embedded in the culture, laws alone have proved insufficient to stop it.

Education is key to ending FGM, through both teaching girls their rights and educating the general communities about the dangers of this abhorrent practice. I would like to give two short examples. First, three years ago I visited a women’s group in Abou Mosalem, just outside Cairo, where we talked about FGM. These women explained that they were worried that if their daughters were not done, they might be rejected by their husbands on their wedding night. Then they would be returned and would for ever be an unmarriageable burden on their families, who could not afford to feed them. Some of these women had attended an informative meeting on FGM and changed their minds. It had made some of them decide not to have their daughters circumcised.

Secondly, in July 2010, I visited Komarbai village in Sierra Leone to see a project that was being run with the whole community by Plan UK. In Sierra Leone, it is often the father who will decide when a girl needs to undergo initiation. In many of their communities, it is a big disgrace for a girl to have sex without having gone through the initiation. Sometimes, families will even demand that a girl is circumcised to marry into their family. Through role-play at this village meeting, it was shown that the process not only could be lethal for girls but was illegal. When questioned afterwards, the chief and elders said that they were now not so sure it was a good idea.

In both these countries, the custom of FGM is deeply rooted but these visits show that it is possible to shift that culture. However, it will take time and needs a combination of the right laws and sensitive community education, which I hope that DfID will support, because to truly cease this practice, the communities themselves must embrace change and not just have it foisted on them from the global north.