A horrifying investigation by The Sunday Times has revealed that as many as 100,000 women in Britain have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) with medical practitioners in the UK, some of whom have performed the extremely illegal procedure on girls as young as 10.
Practitioners willing to perform the procedure or willing to set up the procedure were recently secretly filmed by investigators from the Sunday Times. It is also against the law to arrange FGM.
Every year more than 22,000 girls in Great Britain and 6,000 in London are at risk of the possible life threatening procedure. According to Forward, a charity which campaigns against FGM, an estimated 100,000 women in the UK have undergone mutilation.
The majority of British-based victims are from Egyptian, Ethiopian, Somalian and Sudanese families, while young girls from Nigerian, Kenyan, Togolese and Senegalese backgrounds are also at risk, says Forward.
Female Genital Mutilation is widespread across parts of Africa, where victims are rarely given anesthetic and frequently even suffer continuing damage and pain from the operation long after the fact.
Supermodel Waris Dirie, who was mutilated as a child, is a vociferous opponent of the practice.
She said: “If a white girl is abused, the police come break down the door. If a black girl is mutilated, nobody takes care of her. This is what I call racism.”
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