When Laws Are Held Hostage | Khutbah by Dr. Omar Suleiman

 

The historical manipulation of sacred months in Makkah for unholy purposes and their weaponization against Prophet Muhammad ﷺ draws parallels with contemporary events involving ICJ judges, the UN Security Council, and US hegemony. Delve into the strategic misalignment of principles for political gain in both past and present times.

Why Did Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) praise the Christian King as 'Just King'

Another clip from Dr. Yasir Qadhi's lecture about Muslims living in non-Muslim countries and what did Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) mean when he called Negus a 'Just King'.

The twisting of Shariah

Shariah is a word many are terrified of these days. Muslims will be asked do you adhere to Shariah? Are you committed to implementing it? Are you trying to replace our (of course much more civilized laws) with it?

I am married according to Shariah, I eat meat slaughtered by its rules and have a bank account organized on its economical principles. I assure you that is nothing to panic about!

Shariah is simply laws that have been enacted on Islamic principles, they are not uniform, they should be pragmatic and above all justice should be the goal. However miscarriages of justice occur in all  legal systems, human beings are capable of making errors and justice is the casualty. This has occurred in Shariah too. In my homeland of India, triple talaq is upheld as part of Shariah, despite being banned in other Muslim countries. Pakistan unfortunately upholds blasphemy laws which many have argued contradict Shariah. Saudi Arabia refuses to let women drive citing all sorts of pseudo-religious/cultural reasons, none of which the vast majority of Muslims agree with.

Those in power will often twist or misinterpret Islam and its principles for their own benefit/ to suit their agenda. Indeed we must be wary of this and call it out every time. This is an ongoing struggle.

Being a history buff I enjoyed watching some clips/episodes of Turkish historical drama Magnificent Century. One of the most disturbing practices of the Ottomans was fraticide. (I certainly condemn the imperialism, incessant warring and entire concept of the Harem too) However it was quite sad to realize that Fatawa were given by the Ulema of Islam to Sultans to murder of their own brothers/half-brothers. Many Sheikhs argued it was better that a few princes were executed, rather than entire wars be fought between brothers for succession (for example the War of the Roses in Europe). One Sultan murdered nineteen brothers! Another killed his innocent and very capable son in a 'preemptive strike'!

Why the Ulema couldn't stress cooperation between brothers, the need to serve the wider Ummah not the Dynasty, the sanctity of human life, the great sin that is fratricide is a great shame. However it has to be noted many Ulema also opposed this barbaric practice and gave Fatawa against it. For details please read this excellent article.

As enacted in the clip above this particular Sheikh certainly misrepresented the Quran to give Sultan rather bogus reasoning to murder his own friend whom he had sworn to protect. (This may not be entirely historically accurate I am simply using as a possible example).  So Shariah is certainly not safe from being twisted to serve the needs of those in power. Indeed it has been argued quite robustly that Daesh are doing exactly that.

The interpretation of Shariah is dependent on the conscience of the people/scholars/jurists of Islam. Above all Shariah is a means to an end which is paramount. The end that is justice and compassion. That is what we must aspire to.

Incest & Widow Burning: How Much Can Muslims Stomach?

Must read article by Dr Jonathan Brown.

A few months ago, I wrote that, as a Muslim and as an American:

I support the right of same-sex couples to have civil marriages according to US law. Islam does not approve of same-sex acts, but I don’t believe that the social or religious traditions of any one group should dictate what sort of contracts or unions those of other beliefs can engage in. I want to preserve my right to have my Shariah marriage contract with my wife recognized by US law even though I know many Americans consider Islam’s conception of marriage to be unpalatable. I don’t see the desire of gay couples as any different.

In the near-carpal-tunnel-syndrome inducing outrage that followed that piece, many Muslims objected that I was ‘enjoining wrong’ instead of forbidding it. My response was that the Shariah has always, to a certain degree, allowed practices that Islam condemns as reprehensible among religious minorities (ahl al-dhimma) living under Muslim rule, practices that Muslim rulers could easily have banned (at least on paper). I wrote:

In classical Islamic civilization, Muslim authorities allowed Zoroastrians to engage in brother-sister marriage, Jews to charge interest, and Christians to cultivate wine and pigs. (Correction!  In the previous article I added ‘Muslim judges could even hear such cases brought by non-Muslim litigants by applying the laws of their respective communities instead of the Shariah.’  I cannot actually find any evidence to back this up. To the contrary, all evidence seems to be against this!)

Because the scholars who built up the Shariah system could easily have prohibited such practices among its subjects but did not, the Shariah effectively facilitated them. If Muslim scholars and rulers permitted practices that they considered reprehensible and were in a position to deracinate, a fortiori (min bāb al-awlā), a Muslim minority with no power to regulate the conduct of those around it, like ours in the West, can condone the rights of others to reprehensible practices.

Full article

Sharia Law in Nigeria

Pakistan needs laws against misogyny, not blasphemy

 The national narrative regarding blasphemy in Pakistan is that the offense is unpardonable: Once you utter words that disrespect the Prophet Muhammad, his companions or the Quran, only death or life imprisonment awaits you.

But earlier this month, Junaid Jamshed, an influential Islamic preacher, sought an alternative outcome. Accused of blasphemy by members of a different Islamic sect for remarks he made in a video posted on Facebook, Jamshed released a subsequent apology video, in which he pleaded ignorance and asked for forgiveness.

Jamshed’s case has attracted international attention and opened debate about whether blasphemy is pardonable. The week after the events, Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English newspaper, published a blog post outlining how Advocate Ismaeel Qureshi, the creator of Pakistan’s blasphemy law, has acknowledged the possibility that the regulation rests on an error in theological interpretation. Religious clerics and talk-show hosts on television devoted much airtime to discuss the blasphemy law and Jamshed’s apology video.

But one aspect of this episode ignored in the debate is the misogyny Jamshed displays in the alleged blasphemy video.

In the clip, Jamshed, speaking in front of a small group of men, tells them a story about how Ayesha, one of the wives of Muhammad, would often feign being ill to receive attention from him. The moral of the story, according to Jamshed, is that if Muhammad could not reform women’s crooked ways, then ordinary men do not stand a chance.

The message is simple: Even under the holiest of influences, women, by the simple virtue of being women, cannot be “fixed.”

Whether Jamshed committed blasphemy under Pakistani laws — and whether there is room for a pardon — is for the Pakistani courts to decide. But in this particular instance, Jamshed must be held accountable for more than the alleged blasphemy. And it is the moral responsibility of Pakistan’s media and civil society to call him out for imparting misogynist views to an unsuspecting audience.

 Full article:

Religious minorities under Ottoman rule

 Jews at the western or wailing wall circa 1900.

 

Much like previous Muslim Empires, the Ottomans showed great toleration and acceptance of non-Muslim communities in their empire. This is based on existing Muslim laws regarding the status of non-Muslims. They are protected, given religious freedoms, and free from persecution according to the Shariah. One of the first precedents of this was the Treaty of Umar ibn al-Khattab, in which he guaranteed the Christians of Jerusalem total religious freedom and safety.

The Millet System

The first instance of the Ottomans having to rule a large number of Christians was after the conquest of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed II in 1453. Constantinople had historically been the center of the Orthodox Christian world, and still had a large Christian population. As the empire grew into Europe, more and more non-Muslims came under Ottoman authority. For example, in the 1530s, over 80% of the population in Ottoman Europe was not Muslim. In order to deal with these new Ottoman subjects, Mehmed instituted a new system, later called the millet system.

Under this system, each religious group was organized into a millet. Millet comes from the Arabic word for “nation”, indicating that the Ottomans considered themselves the protectors of multiple nations. Each religious group was considered its own millet, with multiple millets existing in the empire. For example, all Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire were considered as constituting a millet, while all Jews constituted another millet. 

Each millet was allowed to elect its own religious figure to lead them. In the case of the Orthodox Church (the biggest Church in the Ottoman Empire), the Orthodox Patriarch (the Archbishop of Constantinople) was the elected leader of the millet. The leaders of the millets were allowed to enforce their own religion’s rules on their people. Islamic law (Shariah) had no jurisdiction over non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire.

In cases of crime, people would be punished according to the rules of their own religion, not Islamic rules or rules of other religions. For example, if a Christian were to steal, he would be punished according to the Christian laws regarding theft. If a Jew were to steal, he were to be punished according to Jewish laws, etc. The only time Islamic law would come into account was if the criminal was a Muslim, or when there was a case involving two people from different millets. In that case, a Muslim judge was to preside over the case and judge according to his best judgement and common law.

In addition to religious law, millets were given freedom to use their own language, develop their own institutions (churches, schools, etc), and collect taxes. The Ottoman sultan only exercised control over the millets through their leaders. The millet leaders ultimately reported to the sultan, and if there was a problem with a millet, the sultan would consult that millet leader. Theoretically, the Muslim population of the Ottoman Empire also constituted a millet, with the Ottoman sultan as the millet leader.

Legacy

The Ottoman Empire lasted from 1300 to 1922. Throughout most of this history, the millet system provided a system of religious harmony and belonging throughout the empire. As the empire expanded, more millets were organized. Separate millets existed for Armenian, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians, for example, with each sect being divided further into more specific regional churches.

The millet system did not last until the end of the Ottoman Empire. As the empire weakened in the 1700s and 1800s, European intervention in the empire expanded. When the liberal Tanzimat were passed in the 1800s, the millet system was abolished, in favor of a more European-style secularist government. The Ottomans were forced to guarantee vague “rights” to religious minorities, which in fact limited their freedoms. Instead of being allowed to rule themselves according to their own rules, all religious groups were forced to follow the same set of secular laws. This actually ended up causing more religious tension in the empire, which was one of the causes of the genocide of the Armenians during World War One in the Ottoman Empire’s dying days.

The millet system was a unique and creative solution to running a multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire. The rights and freedoms it gave to religious minorities were far ahead of their time. While Europe struggled with religious persecution into the 1900s, the Ottomans created a harmonious and stable religious pluralistic system that guaranteed religious freedom for hundreds of years.

 Source: http://lostislamichistory.com/

"He culturally believed he had the right to hit his wife and discipline his wife.”

 I hope he enjoys the dhal in prison! So disgusted....

A Pakistani immigrant beat his wife to death in their Brooklyn home after she made the mistake of cooking him lentils for dinner instead of the hearty meal of goat meat that he craved, according to court papers.

Noor Hussain, 75, was so outraged over the vegetarian fare that he pummeled his wife, Nazar Hussain, 66, with a stick until she was a “bloody mess,” according to prosecutors and court papers.

“Defendant asked [his wife] to cook goat and [his wife] said she made something else,” the court papers indicated as Hussain’s murder trial opened on Wednesday.

“The conversation got louder and [his wife] disrespected defendant by cursing at defendant and saying motherf- -ker, and . . . defendant took a wooden stick and hit her with it on her arm and mouth.”

Defense attorney Julie Clark admitted Hussain beat his wife — but argued that he is guilty of only manslaughter because he didn’t intend to kill her. In Pakistan, Clark said, beating one’s wife is customary.

“He comes from a culture where he thinks this is appropriate conduct, where he can hit his wife,” Clark said in her opening statements at the Brooklyn Supreme Court bench trial. “He culturally believed he had the right to hit his wife and discipline his wife.”

Prosecutors, however, said Hussain meant for his wife to die.

“His intentions were to kill his wife,” Assistant District Attorney Sabeeha Madni said in court. “This was not a man who was trying to discipline his wife.”

Madni said that Hussain “brutally attacked his wife as she lay in her bed” — leaving deep lacerations on her head, arms and shoulders, and causing her brain to hemorrhage.

He beat her with a stick that the family had found in the street and used to stir their laundry in a washtub, the court papers state.

He then tried to clean up the blood that had splattered onto their bedroom wall before calling his son for help, Madni said.

“I killed her. Hurry up and come over,” Hussain told his son, according to prosecutors.

Madni also said Pakistani women who lived in the same building as the Hussains would testify about the beatings Nazar received at the hands of her husband.

“They have told us about years of abuse they witnessed,” Madni said.

Hussain met his wife in Pakistan and the couple married before moving to Brooklyn, prosecutors said.

The trial continues Thursday before Judge Matthew D’Emic.

Source

How NGOs helped change Moroccan law on rapists marrying their victims

In parts of Morocco, particularly in rural areas, a girl or unmarried woman who is not a virgin, even if she lost her virginity through rape, is seen as bringing dishonour to her family. Marrying the rapist is thought to alleviate this stigma.

 Another horrific consequence of this law was that if a man wanted to wed a woman who was unwilling to be his bride, by raping her he could, in effect, force her into marriage. It took the tragic case of Amina Filali, 16, who was forced into marriage after she was raped, and who killed herself seven months into wedlock, to be the catalyst for action. Her plight caused such outrage across the country it triggered protests in several cities. Last August, several women's rights groups joined forces to tackle child marriage. We organised a so-called peace and white march – "peace" because our protest was non-violent; "white" to represent the colour of doctors' coats.

Our aim was to show how rape and forced and child marriage had a negative impact on women's health. A pair of doctors who work in our clinics joined us on the rally. We waved placards, but fell silent as we marched on the parliament building in the Moroccan capital, Rabat. Many women suffer in silence and we wanted our demonstration to emphasise that. The peace and white march was followed with a pink march – to symbolise women's rights. Each demonstration increased public interest. Victory came last month, in January, when we discovered that the law had been changed, though the clause relating to child marriage has been postponed for further consultation. Source

“I made it possible for my father to buy new wives”

She escaped from her husband. Ran to court. Got a divorce. All at the age of 10. Publishing her memoirs, Nujood Ali from Yemen began to break down barriers. Five years on, we visit Nujood to see how she is getting on. Her life, it seems, has only gone from really bad to less bad.

BY RNW correspondent Judith Spiegel, in the Yemeni capital Sana'a

The house I enter is dark and small. I am in Al Hasabah, an area of Sana’a where heavy fighting took place between government troops and tribesmen in the spring of 2011. On the bare concrete floor are some dirty mattresses and a jerry can with water. A wire without a light bulb hangs from the ceiling. The only decoration in the four square meter room is a poster of a car and one with Quranic verses.

I am confused. I was supposed to meet a girl rich by Yemeni standards. In the media Nujood was portrayed as a happy middle class girl, going to a private school, wanting to become a lawyer. My thoughts are interrupted when Nujood steps out of the darkness, wearing her best dress. 

Fled the fighting“I do not go to school anymore, maybe next year,” Nujood says with an apologetic look. “We had to flee during the war and ever since I didn’t go back to school. I do not live in my own house anymore, because my father lives there. He used to beat me, I cannot live with him.” His third wife kicked her out of the house that Nujood actually owns. It was bought for her with the help of the publisher of her book. 

Nujood’s book did well. But she is not the one who has benefited. Nujood explains: “My father gets a monthly salary, I think it comes from the publisher, but I am not sure. He gives me only 50 dollars a month, sometimes I get nothing.” Suddenly she realises: “I made it possible for him to buy new wives.” 

No new lawA law to impose a minimum age for marriages, for both girls and boys, never made it through the Yemeni parliament. Religious scholars and other arties intervened to prevent it. Fathers in Yemen can still marry their daughters off as young as eight or nine. 

Bad advertising
The Yemeni authorities have twice denied Nujood permission to travel. Both times she had been invited abroad to receive an award. But the government clearly feels the story of a nine-year old child bride is one better not told to the world. More bad advertising for a country that still ranks at the bottom of the list when it comes to gender equality.

Nujood is not angry, for her this is life. She used to dream of becoming a lawyer, of travelling, of getting scholarships. It did not happen. But Nujood tries to see things positively: “After the book we had a house and food.” Nujood gives me one of her sweet smiles again. She touches my hand, shows me her black nail polish and wants to be in a photo.

Never everThe 13 or 14 year old (Nujood is not sure), is no longer married to a much older man who raped and beat her. She still hopes to go back to school, but does not seem very sure she will. And how about marriage, will she ever get married again? “Never ever ever ever!” 

The publisher has not responded to a request for information about why the book revenues are not paid directly to Nujood and whether anyone is monitoring the situation. Source

Why stoning is not a part of Islamic Law

Violence Against Afghan Women "More Extreme"

Following a spate of particularly brutal murders, Afghanistan’s minister for women has said attacks on women are becoming more extreme in nature.

This week, two men were arrested in the northern Kunduz province for beheading a 14-year-old girl, apparently because one of them had his marriage proposal turned down. The case came a month after the beheading of a 25-year-old woman in the western Herat province, and the mutilation and murder of a 30-year-old in the same province earlier in October.

Speaking on November 25, at an event to mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Afghan women’s affairs minister Husn Banu Ghazanfar said a higher incidence of “extreme or brutal violence” had been recorded in recent months.

At the same time, Ghazanfar said the 3,600 cases of all kinds of violence against women recorded between April and July represented a fall on the same period in 2011.

"We have recorded some very tragic cases this year, though the numbers are lower than last year,” she said. “We are concerned.”

Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission, AIHRC, disagrees that the total numbers are down. Commission member Soraya Sobhrang has told the media that her institution recorded 4,000 incidents in April-October, 1,000 more than in the same period last year.

Violence against women often relates to matters of “honour” – perceived offences against a family’s reputation, often arising out of baseless rumour.

Kamela, a young woman from the eastern Nangarhar province, is now trapped in a marriage to a man about five times older than her, after suffering a cycle of violence.

When she was just 14, her father married her off to a 35-year-old man. On their wedding night, the husband discovered she had suffered sexual abuse from a cousin two months before – she had never said anything before because the man had threatened to kill her. Kamala’s husband beat and kicked her until she passed out, and sent her back home on the grounds that she was “immoral”.

Because father felt his honour impugned, he too beat her to a point where the family thought she was dead. Then she was confined in a barn with the livestock for four months until her husband divorced her.

After that, her father accepted 30,000 US dollars from a 78-year-old man who agreed to marry her.

"People are usually aggrieved with other people, but I am aggrieved at God. It would have been better if He hadn’t created me in the first place if I was fated to live with so much suffering,” she said. "Is there anything other than death that can help me?”

In theory, the Elimination of Violence Against Women Law, passed in 2009, should offer Kamela protection and redress. It covers the various things that have happened to her, outlawing a range of abuses from assault and rape to marriages that are coercive, involve minors or amount to a transaction between the families concerned.

Ghazanfar says translating this legislation into practice needs coordination between all government agencies, not just the women’s affairs ministry.

"There’s a long way to go to implement the law,” she conceded.

Qodsia Niazi, who heads the prosecution service department that deals with violence against women, says obstacles to making the law work include traditional values and attitudes, the general security situation, the impunity of the rich and powerful, and a shortage of female staff in Afghanistan’s legal and judicial institutions.

However, Niazi said, some prosecutions have been successful.

"We have dealt with 1,320 cases of violence against women since last year [ending March 2012], mostly concerning assault, harassment, coercion to prostitution, sexual abuse and mutilation," she said.

She argues that fair, well-publicised trials will serve an exemplary purpose.

"People have welcomed two public trials, one a case where a father sexually abused his daughter, and the other involving a man who assaulted and mutilated his wife before imprisoning her in a toilet for six months,” she said. “Such trials are very effective in reducing violence against women."

Others are less upbeat about the prospects for change.

"Has anyone who murdered a woman ever been executed?” asked Samira, a university student in the capital Kabul. “That makes it obvious that the government has no intention of protecting women’s rights. Nor can these so-called institutions do anything, either."

Samira says years of talking about rights for women, and the proliferation of institutions dedicated to this aim, have resulted in very little.

"For the whole of a decade, the so-called women’s rights defence institutions have pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars, particularly the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Women’s rights have become lucrative,” she said, “Yet rights for women have not been assured, and the violence has gone up rather than down. All these conferences and slogans are purely symbolic. Everyone has started up an NGO in the name of women and is making money."

One of the arguments often made in the campaign against violence is that many Afghans mistakenly conflate local ultra-conservative traditions with Islam.

Daiulhaq, the deputy minister for the Hajj and religious affairs, says his institution is working hard to dispel such perceptions, with new departments focusing on gender issues and on Islamic teachings on women’s rights. In addition, he said, mosque prayer leaders were being asked to devote part of their weekly sermons to women’s rights and the evils of violence against them.

Despite this, Parwin Rahimi, head of the AIHRC’s women’s rights support and development department, accuses the religious affairs ministry of shirking its responsibilities.

“I am sure religious scholars do not ignore the truth, but certain people whose own interests could be at risk are blocking cooperation," she said.

Specifically, she said, the ministry had raised objections to the law on eradicating violence against women on the grounds that it conflicted with Islamic precepts.

Keramatullah Sediqi, director of Islamic research at the ministry, said the anti-violence legislation had deficiencies that needed to be addressed, such as the penalties which courts could impose, and the need for the law to set out “penalties if a woman commits violence against men".

Source

The horror of female genital mutilation

"After the pain, it was the screaming that I'll never forget. It wasn't just mine and my sister's screams, there were so many other girls there - all being cut. I've never heard screams like that again and I don't think I ever will."
Aissa, from Mali, West Africa was just six years old when she and her one year-old sister were told: "We have to go somewhere". The sisters were taken on a journey by the female members of their family, oblivious to the torturous destination that was waiting for them. Aissa and her sister were then forced to endure a depraved ritual, scarring them for perpetuity: female genital mutilation.

I ask Aissa, now 29 and living and working as a midwife in London, what she can remember of that day when she and her little sister arrived at the place they were taken to by their step mother. "Isn't it ironic?" says Aissa, "That I can remember everything so clearly, like it happened yesterday, but that is only because the memories of the blood, the pain, the screaming will always haunt me, like a re-occurring bad dream".

Aissa describes how her sister was taken away by a woman to "wait for her turn" while Aissa's stepmother instructed her to lay down on a bed. Aissa did as she was told, as four women stood over her pinning her to the bed as another woman began to cut her. No anaesthetic was used to remove Aissa's clitoris with a razor blade. Aissa explains that it doesn't matter how tightly you are held down, your body instinctively convulses, which results in deeper and longer incisions.

"The pain is, well, it's so difficult to describe to you what it is like. Imagine when you cut your finger, it's a million times worse than that. But that doesn't even begin to describe the type of pain that takes over when the part of your body that has the most nerve endings in it is cut away. Only girls who have been cut will ever know what that level of pain is like. I honestly thought I was going to die, and then everything went black."

Aissa then tells me there is another reason why she will never ever forget that day. Almost whispering, she says: "It was the first time I had ever slept in a real bed; we had always slept on the floor before. I can't remember how long I stayed in the bed, maybe one or two weeks until I was able to walk again."

As you read this, vulnerable young girls (children in the majority of cases) across the world are being led to a place by their mothers, stepmothers, aunts and grandmothers where they will be subjected to physical and emotional pain like no other. That physical and emotional pain inflicted on them, on so many levels, will be and will stay at such an intensity, there are just no appropriate words to attempt to describe the young girls' ordeals. To listen to another woman reflect back to the time she was betrayed by those whom she loved and trusted the most, through the most invasive, barbaric and brutal treachery, is only comparable to torture so extreme it just can't be real, except it is.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), also referred to as Female Genital Cutting (FGC), is recognised internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. The World Health Organisation says FGM also violates a person's rights to health, security and physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death. The United Nations, Amnesty International and UNICEF are just three of many organisations across the world working tirelessly to 'consign FGM to history'.

The World Health Organisation has classified FGM into four types:

1.Clitoridectomy: partial or total removal of the clitoris, and in very rare cases, only the prepuce (the fold of skin surrounding the clitoris).

2.Excision: partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia (lips) minora, with or without excision of the labia majora. 

3.Infibulation: narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal. The seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the inner, or outer, labia, with or without removal of the clitoris. (The seal is then cut open and stitched up again to allow for sexual intercourse and childbirth; hence the woman goes through repeated opening and closing procedures, increasing immediate and long-term risks.)

4.Other: all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes

Latest figures show around 140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of FGM. The latest statistical exploration from UNICEF states it is most common in western, eastern, and north-eastern regions of Africa. It is also prevalent in many countries in South-East Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. Despite it being illegal in Canada, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, France, Sweden, Switzerland, the US, Kenya, Egypt and the UK, Female Genital Mutilation is still widely practiced.

An utterly useless UK government

The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, introduced to close the loophole of the Prohibition of FemaleCircumcision Act 1985 (which permitted parents to take their daughters out of the UK to undergo FGM abroad before bringing them back) does not scare or stop those intent on mutilating our future generations. This act tragically fails to uphold the UK's zero tolerance to FGM. There has not been one single prosecution of FGM in the UK, despite thisabhorrent crime being outlawed in 1985.

Like any illegal practice, thriving ferociously deep and dark underground, it is impossible to be precise regarding the number of girls in the UK who have suffered and are currently suffering at the hands of this brutal and barbaric ritual. The UK charity FORWARD estimates from their research that 66,000 girls in the UK have been mutilated, while 24,000 girls under 16 are at risk from the most severe form of FGM in England and Wales. One would assume then, faced with this alarming calculation, that the British government would swiftly take action and act as a matter of uttermost urgency. That sadly though is just an idealistic aspiration of what should be happening. Our government, whose duty it is to protect its citizens, have adopted what can only be described politely as a pitiful and pathetic 'attempt' to safeguard and protect the thousands of children at risk in the UK. Utterly useless bureaucrats are depriving vital funding, resources, information, care and support to those desperately gasping for it.

If you search FGM on the Home Office website, the search results give little comfort or re-assurance to  its victims, merely  facts, figures and three telephone numbers. The Home Office re-directs most of the responsibility for the charity FORWARD to deal with. On the Department of Health's website there are just seven search results for this ignored and neglected crime - none of which have been updated for over a year. The Home Office and the DofH refused to put anyone forward for interview to answer my questions on what exactly the British government's approach is in dealing with the illegally practiced and prevalent FGM in the UK. They also refused to provide details on what measures have been and are being put in place to safeguard and protect the victims, how the illegal underground networks plan to be broken and how much funding has and is being allocated to fight FGM in the UK.

Quite why no minister is able to speak out to re-assure British citizens that the government are doing everything in their power to tackle the illegal practice of FGM in the UK is just mystifying. A standard statement  was sent from both departments to attempt to provide a response. From the Home Office, Minister for Equalities and Overseas Champion for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls, Lynne Featherstone says: "Female Genital Mutilation is an abhorrent crime and we are very clear that those found to practice it should feel the full force of the law. As a government, we are also working with UK and international agencies on the ground to help prevent women and girls being subjected to this practice." 

From the Department of Health, a spokesperson says: "We have written to the Royal Colleges of Midwives and Obstetricians and Gynaecologists about making sure we are doing everything possible together to eliminate this abusive and abhorrent practice and protect future generations of girls and women from harm. The current professional guidance highlights that NHS professionals have a clear duty of child protection if a doctor is approached to perform a mutilating procedure or if it becomes known to them that a child is to be taken abroad for that purpose." Neither the Home Office nor the DofH provided details about the type of work they say is happening to protect future generations of girls and women in the UK from harm.

Saria Khalifa, the Youth Programme Officer for FORWARD, tells me the charity is extremely concerned about the British Government's patchy approach to tackling FGM, which is failing to safeguard all children at risk of FGM who reside in the UK. She says: "The UK government has a duty to develop effective primary prevention measures particularly in London where FGM has become a growing concern. Additionally there is need for protection strategies that offer safety nets and specialist support to women and girls. There is no national action plan on FGM nor a strategy in place to engage key communities and key opinion makers on ending FGM. More importantly, the Government funding cuts which have hit the women's sector very deepy, coupled with lack of a comprehensive strategy is making our work even more difficult and a greater struggle."

The poisonous power of patriarchy 

Female Genital Mutilation is without a doubt powered by the poison of patriarchy. In a FGM affected community, there is a fundamental belief that mutilation is the only way to initiate a girl into becoming a "good woman" ready for marriage and childbirth. The bitter irony is that the very process of FGM is achieving the exact opposite. Removing part of a girl or a woman's anatomy, disturbing and forcefully changing the way her body is intended to function not only takes away her femininity, but biologically changes the composition that makes her into the woman that she naturally is intended to be. Women across the world are torturing other women to accommodate and appease an ideology and disorted history of male supremacy. FGM is practiced to satisfy the wishes of a patriarchal family structure, but in reality the men distance themselves from the procedure of the practice, maintaining a dominating presence in the "background" and are not concerned enough with the consequences to stop inflicting this depravity onto their daughters.

Despite the "cultural justification" that FGM "turns a girl into a woman" there is also the assumption that when she does become a "good woman" she needs to be appropriately controlled and oppressed. It is widely believed that removing parts of her genitalia reduces her libido and in turn makes her less sexually demanding, supressing the level of pleasure she is "allowed" to receive and sustain. It is not uncommon in some cases for a woman's vulva to be stitched up, leaving just a small opening for urine and menstrual blood to pass through, before the woman is then re-opened for sexual intercourse and childbirth. 

Aissa says it is not only the damaging physical effects that victims are forced to endure for the rest of their lives:"I still need to work on myself psychologically because of all the feelings of self-loathing I have towards my body. I am different and I look different - for a very long time I didn't even feel like a woman. It was impossible to have sex, the pain was horrific and I have suffered with lots of urinary infections. Still now I find it so difficult to have any medical appointments, which is part of the reason why I wanted to become a midwife to help others who are like me."

There are no cultural or religious justifications ever for mutilating another woman's body. There is no endorsement of FGM in the Bible, the Tanakh or Quran. Charity Forward has published a research on FGM and Islam as many Muslim (as well as non-Muslim) communities tend to associate FGM with Islam. "Words like 'sunna' and 'tahur' used for FGM by Muslims erroneously endorse the link of Islam to FGM and brings the great religion into disrepute. All religions say God created human beings in the best forms and wanted them to keep the nature in which they were created. It is forbidden to make changes in God's creation unless there is a compelling reason ie for medical reasons."

Aissa recently returned to Mali to take the brave step of explaining to her father how the life she dreamt of living was cruelly snatched from her through the destructive and devastating consequences of the Female Genital Mutilation she endured. She tells me she wanted to make the visit to protect future generations of her family - to make sure they never ever have to suffer like she has. After many difficult and emotional discussions with her father, he has now promised Aissa that no other girls in her family will ever be mutilated again.

"And do you believe your father's promise?" I ask. 

 Aissa pauses, then responds slowly: "Yes I do, what other choice do I have, but to have faith in those whom I love and trust the most"?

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