Saturday, February 7

Man arrested for genital mutilation

When I read this, I was gobsmacked. First let me quote the main bits and then I am going to rant.

In Haarlem a man has been arrested on suspicion of having genitally mutilated his five-year-old daughter. The man of Moroccan origin was taken into custody at the end of October after the girl's foster parents had made a report to the police. The case has only now been made public. Doctors have confirmed that the girl's genitals have been mutilated, but the father denies responsibility. He has been charged with grievous bodily harm. The case is expected to come to trial in May.
Between summer 2007 and spring 2008, 44 reports were made to child abuse hotlines about girls thought to have been genitally mutilated, or at risk of being so. Deputy Health Minister Jet Bussemaker is concerned that this may only be the tip of the iceberg.
Ms Bussemaker recently proposed measures aimed at protecting girls whose parents come from countries where genital mutilation is prevalent, such as Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia. Parents would be asked to sign a contract before visiting their country of origin, promising not to have their daughter genitally mutilated. If on their return the girl were found to have been mutilated, they could then face a prison sentence.

I have ranted about FGM frequently, see here. See this photo which I posted before? That’s what these uncivilised barbarians do to their children.

I have a 5 year old daughter so I guess it hit me harder than most. I see her, I see this shaving blade and simply cannot imagine what benighted and stupid religious and/or cultural justification can you give to actually tie your daughter down and snip off bit of her genitals? This is obviously not fun, but surely this does make you feel wanting to go totally medieval on the perpetrators of these crimes? How about castrating the father? Sounds like a fair trade to me, no? I know I shouldnt act like a barbarian myself, but hey, the animal doesnt live that far below the surface.

Plus given the fact that so many people think this is religiously mandated means that it is going to be very difficult to wipe out.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is very common in Africa; i know one of my friend whos mother protested against this act.. Islam calls for men's circumcision not females..

Bhaskar Dasgupta said...

Rubab, take a look at the link, I am afraid there is religious justification for this. I cannot say whether its true or false, but there is.

shrek said...

As you post quite frequently on the "Islam" tag, thought you might be interested in these sites :
http://www.islam-watch.org/index.html

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html

Cheers,
shrek