FGM/C IN THE DIASPORA

Magda Mogilnicka et al. (Chapter 8) describe the findings of research on issues around healthcare provision among Somali-heritage families in Bristol, UK. They identify issues arising from the ‘hypervigilance’ around so-called FGM safeguarding, and the ways in which people of Somali heritage are made to feel that they do not belong in British society, and are (re)traumatised by their encounters with state services. The authors show how the authorities often look for ‘offending’ behaviour where none exists, which deters families from seeking healthcare. They conclude in part that UK policy has been developed on the basis of unreliable prevalence data, and leads to the criminalisation and stigmatisation of certain communities.

In Chapter 9, Tobe Levin Freifrau von Gleichen visits the Paris clinic of a French surgeon who offers reverse clitoridectomies to diasporic women seeking to restore what was removed without their consent when they underwent FGM/C as children. Women who have had this surgery describe in vivid language their motivations, mixed feelings, the results of surgery, how their lives have changed, and the hostility they have faced from certain quarters.

In Chapter 10, Hannelore Van Bavel et al. use case studies from The Netherlands, Kenya, and Egypt to examine the increasingly blurred lines between medicalised FGM/C and female genital cosmetic practices (FGCP). It echoes some of the points raised by Tatu Kamau (Chapter 12), and discusses the 2017 lawsuit she brought in Kenya. The chapter explores how the WHO definitions of FGM/C are challenged by emerging practices that modify female genitalia for non-medical reasons. Who determines the distinctions between these procedures, and on what basis? Why is one type of surgery widely condemned, while the other is largely tolerated? Critical attention to how FGCP shapes policy and legal frameworks can also inform broader debates on the criminalisation and medicalisation of FGM/C.