The Personal Is Legal: UK Law and Policy on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting

DARFUR, SUDAN (2003/4)

I am nine years old. It is a sweltering day in Al-Fashir. In my grandmother’s house, where we live, there is an air of anticipatory celebration: the smell of bakhoor, henna and the hubbub of food being prepared, people walking in and out of the house, my mother, my aunties, and our neighbours engaging in wanasa (a word that doesn’t have a direct translation in English but calling it ‘gossip’ would be doing it a disservice, so I won’t).

It is the day of my tahoor, or purification; it is the day that I am to be cut. I am feeling joyous but slightly nervous (and a different feeling I couldn’t quite categorise) about the occasion: the communal ritual which will, in my eyes, make me a woman!

It’s time now, and I am in the room at the back of the house, where the women mainly gather. There is an old woman dressed in a black jilbab (whose name I forgot as soon as she introduced herself to me); she is adorned in henna that I think is so beautiful (it was covering scars that only years later I would remember them for what they were, or maybe what I think they were). 

The small razor blade, the musa, looks sharp. I cannot help but sob, only because I am scared to be in pain, not necessarily because of the tahoor itself. A lot of the girls/ my friends in the town would talk about tahoor and would describe looking forward to it (perhaps the equivalent of having a ‘Sweet Sixteen’, a concept and a show that I only knew about after coming to the UK and being exposed to the wonders of MTV). 

The neighbour’s daughter (whose name I no longer recall and from whom I am now separate miles, cultures, seas, and deserts away) restrains my flailing arms, as the woman cuts into me, out of me, off of me – I can’t get the lexicology right (not then, and not now: it seems, even after all these years, I am yet to process things properly).

It is a couple of hours afterwards, and I am now bed-bound in a different room (incidentally, the room where my grandmother is now bed-bound also, slowly dying and in the in-between, where she is observed with helpless anxiousness, by some of her children and grandchildren, and an entire community held together by words unsaid, and a thin thread of hope that stretches from Sudan, to the rest of the world where so many of those she has reared and fed, and taken as her own, are now dispersed). 

I feel an innate sort of wrongness about something that I cannot quite pinpoint, but I don’t care too much because I am overall so happy and am being treated like royalty. I won’t be able to walk for a week, but that doesn’t bother me: I am too busy with the presents, and sweets and the fact I will not have to go to school.

I feel like a woman, finally. That’s the one thing I remember feeling so distinctly, so assuredly. 

If I walk differently afterwards, it isn’t because it hurt (it did), it is because I feel different. I am a woman now that an integral part of me had been taken. I wouldn’t realise the irony until years and miles later, in England. 


ENGLAND, UK (2005-2022)

I don’t remember thinking about the tahoor for much afterwards, and for most of my life until a certain point. It quickly became a memory – and a happy one, at that – in the furore of having to leave Darfur during the tail end of the Genocide, and all that happened afterwards: the winding trauma (of separation, death, grief, hiding) that eventually led to being reunited with my mother on a crisp Hampshire morning.

I would get flashbacks sometimes, and the specific pain of the cutting (and the feeling of personal wrongness) is an undercurrent I would carry with me for the rest of my life, but for the most part I didn’t think of it as anything other than what it was, at the time.  

It was only in 2013/14, outside my university’s library, that the ‘trauma’ of it became a ‘thing’, when a white (and probably well-meaning) Fresher was handing out leaflets outside my university’s library, calling an end to this thing I had never heard of, called Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C). Casually, like the blunt back end of a Janjaweed soldier’s gun, it hit me that my tahoor was a…mutilation

I never told my friends, we rarely talked about my life in Sudan and the war or anything like that; there wasn’t space for that, not then and not there (I felt too insignificant, too wrong to say anything about my experiences, about the war and all the fleeing; and honestly, I didn’t think they would have cared, at the time).

All I could do outside the library that day was to limply accept the leaflet, with a smile that I hoped conveyed ‘thanks’, avoiding eye-contact. Instead, I quietly but quickly walk to the toilet and, in a cold cubicle, vomit and sob and stifle a scream for the rest of term and probably for the rest of my time at university. 

I had on the periphery, since that day, been keeping mental tabs on the UK’s legislative and policy guidelines on this mutilation; never engaging, just observing. An inofficious bystander. 

Fast forward to 2020, and I see a Tweet by the UK government’s ‘Independent’ Adviser on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) (who had also undergone FGM/C), in which she states that she believes the UK is “finally delivering for women and girls like me”. As a woman ‘like her’, I felt sick; all that I had suppressed, that anger, the pretence; that stifled scream from before, came out silently, like a broken banshee. 

When I saw the Tweet, I felt betrayed: as a woman like her, all I could see was that the Conservative government was using her as a shield to allow it to continue, through legislative imperialism - to ignore, stigmatise, infantilise, and shame women and communities impacted by FGM/C. Many women in FGM/C practising communities feel that the government unfairly targets them in its anti-FGM/C campaign.

I am writing this on the final issue of The Everyday Magazine’s publication to hold a mirror to the government, and to the legal framework itself: begging it to look inwards, and examine the contours of community oppression, the black spots of safeguarding measures that frighten; to peel back all the layers, ironically cutting into the skin with that same mirror to look inside and to really examine how their own laws and guidelines affect us, to see how it feels, and how it felt. 

In a vaguely similar sense to what Carol Hanisch meant by saying that “the personal is political”, I sternly believe, in issues where the law and people’s lives intersect in such vulnerable ways, that the personal is legal and the legal is personal

As such, I am writing it in such a personal and revelatory manner specifically for this very reason, and to also explore the idea that one can (legitimately) discuss and/ or analyse the law (where particular legislation etc., affects people’s lives in the ‘everyday’ – making this Magazine itself so starkly, serendipitously appropriate for this) while rejecting the sterile and clinical ways in which we are taught to approach legal discussion in certain situations. It’s the first time I’ve written about this publicly and put my thoughts to ‘paper’ (as it were), but in doing so, on the final issue of this Magazine, I hope that it is a personal beginning in my own brevity and bravery when it comes to critique/discussion/analysis at the intersection of the law and people’s everyday lives (in this instance, FGM/C).

This piece of writing won’t necessarily come without consequences for me personally in a community and family perspective (which is, in a wider sense, insignificant), but I hope that this knowledge alone demonstrates to the reader the extent to which I care about this issue.

Weaving in the personal (through recounting, through art) and in doing so, discussing legislation and policy (how it came into place, and how its enforcement is currently affecting people), I argue that the government’s punitive, ‘zero-tolerance’ approach to tackling FGM/C is a symptom of neo-colonial attitudes towards communities that practise FGM/C, and the countries from which most individuals in those communities originate, proposing instead a different approach: one that is community lead, and does not stigmatise, one where punitive enforcement is abandoned, and instead the courts take a common sense approach to do what the legislation supposedly set out to do in the first place.

Background/context

With that in mind, let’s delve into the more ‘academic/legal’ discussion. FGM/C is defined as “the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons”. There are four types of FGM/C, each differing in ‘severity’. It is a form of violence against women and girls that is reinforced by a complex web of socio-cultural traditions, which differ from one ethnic group to another. 

FGM/C has no known health benefits. In fact, it causes various long and short-term consequences for women and girls which can encompass physical, mental, and psychosexual health complications. Equally, for some women, it barely has any impact, especially psychologically. 

It is recognised as a violation of numerous human rights that are codified in several international and regional treaties, including (but not limited to) rights in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees.

There has been a significant increase in FGM/C awareness (particularly in the West, where it is less prevalent) over the last three decades. Correspondingly, the trajectory of the efforts to eradicate the practice has seen a rapid surge in the form of legislative and social interventions at both national and international levels. 

FGM/C is practised in the UK, although the full extent of it remains unclear, despite NHS Digital data collected by healthcare providers. This is largely because FGM/C is a ‘hidden crime’ for which reporting by those in affected communities is relatively low. There is also a growing number of concerns supported by empirical evidence which question the reliability of FGM/C statistics in the UK.

The UK government has adopted a zero-tolerance approach to FGM/C, which is underwired by a legislative and policy framework that criminalises the practice and imposes mandatory reporting and safeguarding provisions on those responsible for girls and vulnerable young women, including teachers and social workers. 

So far, criminalisation has resulted in only one (1) successful prosecution -  in 2019, 30 years after it was first criminalised.  In addition, reporting of FGM/C is low, and according to NHS Digital data, between February and November 2020, reporting fell by a third compared to the same period in 2019. Funding for FGM/C has been reduced by 84% since 2015, falling from £2,718,000 annually in 2015, to £432,000 a year in 2020. The Muslim Women’s Network reports that criminalisation has led to FGM/C going underground, which causes further harm to girls as operations are being performed by people with little to no medical training, further exacerbating health implications.

Neo-Colonialism 

I do not think it needs to be explained to the reader, but for the purposes of the point being made here, it is important to at least re-iterate the meaning of neo-colonialism.

Neo-colonialism refers to the techniques that originate from the residues of colonialism and imperialism. Kwame Nkrumah who coined the term in 1965, describes it as “imperialism in its final and perhaps most dangerous stage”.   Neo- colonialist techniques are used by Western nations to exert control over non-Western countries. In respect of FGM/C, neo-colonialist ideology politicises global health (which is an eco-system of healthcare that FGM/C certainly orbits) and frames it within a narrative structure which implies that Western knowledge systems and ideas are front and centre in the languages and efforts to advance global health, with little consideration for non-Western nations.

To distil this definition further, the neo-colonialism imposed on the diasporas/communities originating from former colonies, who reside in countries which previously operated as colonial powers, could be interpreted as a form of ‘internal’ neo-colonialism. By this, I mean one where neo-colonial techniques are imposed to exert control/power over those communities/diasporas that are now living in the UK, for example. It is important for the reader to note that this is a geographical boundary I am applying to the definition of ‘internal’ neo-colonialism for the purposes of this piece.  

The Law: 1985 and 2003 Acts

In analysing FGM/C laws in the UK, it becomes evident that ‘internal’ neo-colonial techniques have been applied (subconsciously or otherwise) to shape the history of anti-FGM/C strategy. 

In 1983 a BBC journalist travelled to Khartoum to investigate the cultural practice of FGM/C and produced a documentary film called ‘Female Circumcision’, culturally shocking the British public to call for action on ending FGM/C. A direct result was the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act, which came into effect in 1985 (the “1985 Act”). I searched everywhere for this documentary but came up empty - the only ‘physical’ evidence of its existence that I could find was a Guardian letter by a Mr Roger Mills in 2014.

I dug so deep into Hansard (which is the edited but verbatim record of what was said in Parliament) of the debates and discussions for the Bill which preceded the 1985 Act, I thought I would never find my way out. Reading these debates provided me with a lot of contexts on the reasons for criminalisation, and starkly highlighted the Western ‘saviour’ perspective that the UK - perhaps instinctively – adopted (old habits don’t die at all, I guess).

In the debates, Lord Kennet stated that “the reason for the Bill is that this operation has begun to appear in this country, among people who come from the belt in Africa and South-West Asia”. The language used in the debates is reminiscent of language used by colonial powers to justify its rule over the countries it colonised. For example, Baroness Gaitskell describes FGM/C as “savage”, Baroness Mashom of Ilton expresses horror that “this barbaric operation has taken place here in Britain”, Baroness Ewart-Biggs describes the practice of FGM/C as a “barbaric habit”.   

As Fanon explained, this type of language itself was a weapon used by colonial powers to exert control over colonised nations.   Examining this language through the lens of ‘internal’ neo-colonialism as defined above, it shows that criminalisation of FGM/C may have come from a perspective of ‘liberating’ communities in the UK of practices that Western nations consider to be ‘backwards’, which as we will see below when looking at the effects of more recent FGM/C legislation in the UK, encourages a culture of stigmatisation. 

In 2003, the 1985 Act was repealed by the Female Genital Mutilation Act (as amended by the Serious Crime Act 2015) (the “2003 Act”)). The 2003 Act creates the offence of female “genital mutilation” (note the stark change in language, from “circumcision” to “mutilation”) and in further contrast to the 1985 Act it, among others, creates the offence of failing to protect a girl from risk of FGM/C. For a further look into this, have a read of sections 3-5 of the 2003 Act.

The noticeable shift in the language of the 2003 Act, from ‘circumcision’ to ‘mutilation’ shows a deeper intent to codify ‘internal’ neo-colonial attitudes toward FGM/C practising communities. This is harmful because among other impacts, the violent language contributes to exacerbating victims’ trauma. To add to this, enforcement of the 2003 Act is shrouded in ethnically coded assumptions and forces those mandated to safeguard and protect to make harmful judgements on individuals. This seemingly re-inforces ‘othering’ of ethnic minorities in practising communities, which undermines the efforts to tackle it. Many women from practising communities report being targeted and racially profiled in the name of FGM/C safeguarding. 

Enforcement of the 2003 Act also targets medical practitioners in the ordinary course of their profession. In R v Dharmasena, a prosecution was brought against a doctor assisting a woman to give birth. To allow the labour to proceed, he had to open (or ‘deinfibulate’) scar tissue from the woman’s earlier FGM/C, which he later replaced to stem bleeding. The doctor was eventually acquitted, but this case was met with heavy criticism from medical practitioners, who say it has instilled a culture of fear in the NHS on doctors who worry that they may be prosecuted for doing their jobs.

Enforcement becomes an even more complicated issue when we look at the wording of the 2003 Act itself. In section 6 (1), it states that a “girl”, as constantly referred to in the 2003 Act, includes and also means “woman”. So, when we look at section 1 (1), which says that “a person is guilty of an offence if he (*for clarity purposes, I should mention that a general reference to a gender in legislation (in this instance “he”) includes every other gender) excises, infibulates or otherwise mutilates the whole or any part of a girl’s labia majora, labia minora or clitoris”, a confusion becomes apparent: if “girl” includes “woman”, we must assume that this refers (at least) to someone over the age of 18. So, is this section telling us that a consenting girl over the age of 18 who gets (what the 2003 Act in section 1 rather loosely defines as genital mutilation) her clitoris or labia pierced (and therefore ‘cut’ in some way) has had FGM/C? If so, then every single woman in this country who has a clitoris/labia piercing may have also been subject to FGM/C and anyone who performed that piercing may be guilty of that crime.

In practise, that is not how it has worked. Instead, enforcement of the 2003 Act has largely focused on ethnic minorities from specific FGM/C practising countries/communities. In terms of girls under the age of 18, this may be logical (if we ignore cultural nuances etc.,), but when it comes to a consenting woman, where does the 2003 Act sit? Can I, Iman (a consenting woman from an FGM/C practising country and community) get my clitoris or labia (or what’s left of them!) pierced, without section 1 of the 2003 Act being invoked? It is unlikely to happen, for example, to ‘Sara’ (who is, hypothetically, not from an FGM/C practising country (such as the UK) or community). 

The Government’s ‘updated’ Strategy: 

In November 2021, the Government updated its VAWG strategy.  To inform this, it had an open “Call for Evidence”, which included: a public facing survey, a victim and survivor survey, focus groups, and submissions from expert respondents. This is in relation to the wider scope of VAWG, not just FGM/C. So, from this perspective, it appears that the government is trying to listen – or at least, wishes for us to think that it is trying. It is so difficult to tell but having a healthy scepticism about this new strategy and the way it is marketed is appropriate, from my perspective in relation to the topic at hand, and as a ‘survivor’. 

I engaged in the open public survey, writing my own suggestions - and with an almost defeatist approach, circulated the survey to some people that have been affected by FGM/C, urging them to respond before the deadline, which if I remember correctly, was sometime in July. 

FGM is referenced 31 times in the VAWG strategy (please note that the strategy refers to ‘FGM’ and not ’FGM/C’, but for the purposes of continuity, let’s say they are interchangeable). The strategy is new, and looks forward, so I decided to also look at it from this perspective and where it references FGM/C, analyse what different approaches it proposes (if any), with the healthy scepticism referred to above:

  • The government initially reflects on what it has done so far, which is that it introduced a mandatory duty for frontline professionals to report cases of FGM/C in children to the police: as shown above, this causes stigmatisation and there is so much nuance around this, that this duty can only be interpreted as being tone-deaf. 

  • The government says that it is continuing to ensure that perpetrators are held to account: this is a positive for other VAWG issues, but for FGM/C, this is again very tone-deaf. Does the government not see that this language, when it comes to FGM/C, is counterproductive? How can, for example, a 16-year-old girl report her mother (e.g. where there is no abuse issues and where it is an otherwise loving relationship, albeit perhaps one that has its own issues as any teen daughter-mother relationship does, let alone one with the nuance of culture/rituals) for something that could send her mother to prison? Again, there is a tone-deafness there that is shocking to see, because FGM/C is rife in cultural nuance. Such an approach could possibly deter girls from getting help. 

  • Through the Call for Evidence, the strategy recognises that FGM/C has a detrimental effect on mental health: what it fails to recognise, is that the law and strategy itself may impact people’s mental health (e.g. the mental health of families targeted at airports, or girls singled out at school).

  • The strategy also refers to the Home Office’s Border Force, which works with the police to identify those at risk of FGM/C: again, the strategy does not look inwards, and examine how this has, in the past, stigmatised and racially profiled people, causing mental health issues and a further mistrust in the system that is supposedly trying to protect people. 

  • In realtion to actual health services, in 2019, NHS England and NHS Improvement launched pilot FGM/C clinics to support women who are not pregnant by providing basic healthcare services and emotional psychological support. The government, in its new strategy, has increased funding for this: this is positive as far as I can tell. I have been signposted (by various medical professionals) to FGM/C clinics over the last two or three years for several reasons, but I have been far too afraid to go. Personally, it is because I have been told that the FGM/C clinics have Drs/professionals from practising communities working there also.

  • In theory, this is positive and something which the government – or, perhaps, the NHS – has done well. It makes sense that those from the community help other women in the community. 

  • One problem arises at a very specific level, especially in relation to young women, who had undergone FGM/C in childhood and who may feel uncomfortable to talk to someone in the community about the specific issues and worries they are currently facing. I do not know how the clinics approach this (if they do at all), because I have not yet been to one, so it is not fair for me to make an assessment on how this is handled in the clinics, yet. 

  • In the strategy, the government references a resource pack on FGM/C which it produced in 2014, and states that it circulates this document to different organisations as part of a multi-agency approach to end FGM/C. In theory, this multi-agency approach sounds lovely; in practise, it misses the point. Tackling FGM/C should be focused on people in communities engaging with each other and addressing the cultural nuances that may arise (such as the issue I referred to above), not on agencies with people who are given leaflets and bureaucratic safeguarding policies in the platitude of ‘inter-agency’ working. 


Conclusions and Possible Solutions 

The UK’s anti-FGM/C strategy is not ‘finally’ delivering for girls and women like me; it is, in fact, failing the women and girls it seeks to protect, it is failing those that are required to safeguard those women and girls, and it is failing communities from FGM/C practising countries. 

This is largely because the criminalisation of FGM/C in the UK is a direct hangover of colonialism and perpetuates deep rooted neo-colonial ideologies. This is harmful and it infantilises those from practising communities and removes their right to self-determination in navigating how they want the eradication of the practice to be conducted. 

Cases are low, and reporting is inconsistent and unreliable because criminalisation has pushed the practice of FGM/C underground. 

I have been very reticent to criticise, without offering solutions. Sometimes it is not the responsibility of the one doing the criticising to offer solutions, but in this instance, I wanted to provide some recommendations/thoughts, instead of a ‘conclusion’ that offers nothing: 

  • One possible solution (which could prove to be controversial) is the complete decriminalisation of FGM/C, instead replacing the system with inter-community governance. The government already has a guideline which promotes tackling of FGM/C through education, training, and community engagement. However, this guideline is intended to be complimentary to the 2003 Act, for which the main aim is prosecution, which should not be the metric by which a successful FGM/C strategy is measured. Instead, why doesn’t the government focus its attention on funding the people in the different communities themselves?

  • Going back to Hansard, Baroness Masham of Ilton said something on the 15th May 1985 at 7.57PM that I found myself agreeing with: “education is of the utmost importance. Education and correct counselling among the communities in which female circumcision has been a custom and practice is absolutely vital. I cannot stress this enough….legislation would be pointless without it”. 

  • I am not sure who Baroness Masham was referring to, in relation to delivering this education. However, based on the ‘internal’ neo-colonial narrative of the debates, I think it is fair to assume the Baroness likely meant for this education to be delivered by people that are not from those practising communities.

  • Even with this in mind, I do not believe Baroness Masham’s words should be completely dismissed in this instance: the legislation is pointless without education. As such, if criminalisation must persist, then why not place a bigger emphasis on education (as suggested above) that is to be delivered by women who are from those differing communities, and slowly defund the stigmatising enforcement efforts?

  • I raised earlier the issue of younger women perhaps feeling uncomfortable to discuss these issues with women from their own communities, even in FGM/C clinics. I cannot see that the government has recognised this as an issue, but if it does, I would recommend creating a safer space within that ‘safe space’ structure of the FGM/C clinic, where younger women can go and talk without fear of judgement from their own communities. It is this kind of nuance that the strategy lacks, and it is this very reason why the Government’s ‘Independent’ Adviser’s Tweet enraged me so much. 

  • One final recommendation is that section 1 of the 2003 Act needs to be amended; its vagueness has facilitated enforcement in such a way that can only be described as ethnic/racial profiling and has created a strange confusion in the law.

  • This is also where the courts could be useful – as we could see in the R v Dharmasena case, the courts took a very common-sense approach and dismissed a case that should never have been in court.

  • If prosecutions are brought forward in the future, especially where the confusion caused by section 1 of the 2003 Act is concerned, the courts could use this as an opportunity to not only act as a buffer, but also to provide some much-needed clarity. 

Finally, I wanted to end at the beginning: with a 9 year old patient un-etherised on a bed, writhing, arms flailing, unable to walk properly, but whose mindset was of general acceptance of a pain that must be endured as part of a wider ritual; a person who, at the time, did not imagine that she would be sitting here, re-living it all, and observing it from a different time and place, now knowing maybe just a microcosm of the mental and physical issues it will cause her when she actually becomes a woman: the physical pain, the self-hatred, the shame, the fear, the ever present feeling of wrongness and the undercurrent of crippling depression that nothing has ever been able to ‘fix’. 

I wanted to tie it back in this way because NHS Digital data shows that most of the women who come asking for help underwent FGM/C years ago, when they were younger. For most of these women, the issue arises when they are pregnant or during maternity, years later as an adult.

At this very moment there is a throughline of FGM/C affecting that 9-year-old as a late 20-something, despite that she underwent it almost 10 years ago, but who knows in the future should she choose to have children, how that might affect her (if at all). 

These are the thoughts that keep me up at night, not just about myself, but more so about other women my age (and those much older than me, too) with their current worries, and the future worries that will become more prevalent the older they get.

Looking back at my tahoor, this is what haunts me now. This is why I care so much, so deeply, about this issue: beyond the theoretical, beyond the academic, beyond even the political, and more so in the ‘everyday’. 

That is where it matters the most. That is where anything that affects people at the vulnerable intersection of the law and their lives truly matters.


Limitations/scope – or, in other words - apologies and revelatory caveats: the parameters of this piece of writing is the UK’s anti-FGM/C policy in so far as it affects practising communities in the UK, especially those from countries that used to be former British colonies. It does not further explore the criminalisation of FGM/C in other countries. It is also limited to the UK’s VAWG strategy in relation to FGM/C only. This piece of writing is limited in scope, and there is so much more to be explored – so many avenues and nooks and crannies one could (and perhaps should) go down (including exploring the ritual of FGM/C itself) but unfortunately, there needs to be a limit somewhere (including a word limit that I have embarrassingly exceeded). 

It is something I am very passionate about, and if you are interested in further reading recommendations or sources, I’d be more than happy to provide this. 



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Written by Iman Maygi

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