Cruel cuts

It's disgusting that every year up to 22,000 girls in the UK are at risk of being sexually mutilated in order to guarantee their "purity" when they marry. And up to 100,000 women have already been mutilated.

The practice is illegal but nobody has ever been convicted and only two doctors have been struck off for carrying out the procedure since 1980.

Somalian supermodel Waris Dirie, who was genitally mutilated as a child, is vehemently against the practice and the racist double standard that allows it to continue on such a massive scale.

"If a white girl is abused, the police come and break down the door" she says. "If a black girl is mutilated, nobody takes care of her. This is what I call racism."

The police and the government think that convictions will not achieve anything and that the best tactic is a softly-softly cultural approach, working with local community leaders to persuade families that the practice is barbaric and unnecessary.

It's hard to say if this policy is working. There is evidence that some communities are getting the message, but the fact remains that the number of girls being "cut" is still shockingly high.

It makes me so angry that so many innocent young girls, unable to stand up for themselves or resist their family's pressure, are being deliberately robbed of sexual pleasure in the name of some abstract notion of "purity" and family "honour".

The authorities may say they're doing everything they can to stamp out this repulsive ritual, but I'm just not convinced when they say so little about it.

If little boys were being routinely castrated, would there be the same half-hearted approach?

Pic: Waris Dirie
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I can't stop listening to: Bonnie Raitt's new album, Slipstream. She may be 62 but hey, that lady still rocks!

Barbaric cuts

While we're scoffing our Christmas dinners, refilling our wine glasses and generally having a good time, let's spare a thought for the hundreds of little girls whose Christmas will be one of fear and pain.

Female genital mutilation is thriving in Britain, despite it being illegal and despite the appalling health risks. And Christmas is the time when many young girls are "seen to" by the "cutters" who do it for a living.

An estimated 70,000 women in the UK have had it done and some 20,000 girls are still in line for it. The victims can die of bleeding or tetanus, and later may develop urinary incontinence, recurrent infections and chronic pain. It can also cause major problems with childbirth and psychological disorders.

The British government has done scandalously little to stop it. Their attitude seems to be that it's a cultural tradition they shouldn't interfere with. So, unbelievably, not one person has been prosecuted in 25 years.

The Somali model Waris Dirie, who was mutilated when she was five, says "No one can undo the trauma that is caused by this horrible crime. It stays in your head for ever."

A government that's vetting some 15 million people for their possible paedophile tendencies, but turns a blind eye to the mass amputation of young girls' clitorises, is a very odd one indeed. Clearly their own daughters aren't at risk, so they don't really care.

The idea that because something is a long-standing cultural ritual from elsewhere, we should respect it and not intrude, even if it involves monstrous cruelty and suffering, is ridiculous. Cruelty is cruelty and should be prevented, whatever the perpetrator's background.

It's about time the government stopped sitting on its hands, stopped ignoring this barbaric practice and put the "cutters" in jail where they belong.