Our Wanker this week is, sadly, anonymous - but no less of a Wanker for all that.
The Daily Mail carried a major article recently about the unspeakable practice of female circumcision.
"The girl is 15 years old but looks much younger. Her face has the fine-boned elegance typical of her native Somalia, but her accent belongs to the streets of East London. She is plainly terrified. That much is clear from the way she avoids eye contact and constantly fidgets in her chair. "Promise you won't print my name or anything?" she implores repeatedly. "Promise no one will ever know that I've spoken to you? If people in my community find out, they'll say that I've betrayed them and I'll have to run away. And anyway, I don't want my parents to be sent to jail."
With great courage, this British-Somali girl - she asks that we call her "Lali" - is about to describe a barbaric act of ritualised cruelty which has been perpetrated against her. Knowing the danger to which she is exposing herself, her anxiety is entirely understandable. For by speaking about it, Lali will break the ultimate taboo among Britain's 600,000 ethnic Africans. In Norway, where this brutal act is also prevalent, a young Somali woman was recently beaten, almost to death, for talking to TV documentary programme-makers.
It is known by a variety of names, the most common of which are female genital mutilation (FGM), female circumcision, or simply "cutting" - a word which somehow conveys the raw pain its prepubescent victims suffer. Most people will be unfamiliar with this practice, which involves removing part or all of the clitoris, the surrounding labia (the outer part of the vagina) and sometimes the sewing up of the vagina, leaving only a small opening for urine and menstrual blood.
It is carried out for a variety of cultural reasons. Such is the secrecy that surrounds the practice that even those aware that it occurs in large swathes of Africa and Asia will be shocked to learn that it is prevalent in Britain. During a highly disturbing, four-month investigation, however, we uncovered evidence that thousands of British-African girls, in towns and cities throughout the country, have been forcibly "cut".
By conservative estimates, 66,000 women and girls living in Britain have been mutilated. This figure, accepted by the Metropolitan Police, came in a report by a volunteer organisation funded by the Department of Health and carried out with academics from the London School of Tropical Hygiene and the City University.
And thousands more girls are at imminent risk as families club together to fly professional "cutters" from Africa to Britain. These women "elders" perform the crude operation for up to £40 a time, often on kitchen tables or floors, without anaesthetic, using filthy, blunt knives, razor blades or scalpels.
The Metropolitan police is so concerned that it recently set up a special unit to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators. Heading the unit is Detective Inspector Carol Hamilton, herself a mother, who was horrified when she discovered what was happening to other people's daughters. The Met team also educates regional police forces about FGM, and speaks to mosques, community groups and local authorities. Usually their visits are well-received, but we found that at least one London council declined to publish material highlighting the suffering and danger the practice causes - for fear of offending ethnic African residents.
This kind of attitude incenses Detective Inspector Hamilton. "We are all becoming very culturally sensitive," she says. "People are a bit frightened of saying 'You can't do this here' because people shoot back with 'But it's our culture'. But it's not: this is just plain cruel. I won't be put off by the politically correct argument. We have to be seen to be strong on this. I don't care about human rights - I care about the rights of the child."
Together with the Waris Dirie Foundation, an international campaign group formed by the Somali-born supermodel who suffered genital mutilation as a five-year-old child, the Met announced a £20,000 reward last July for information leading to the conviction of anyone who performs or abets cutting. Under the 2003 Female Genital Mutilation Act, those involved could be jailed for 14 years. Yet the fact that no one has been prosecuted says much about the problems the police are facing.
When Lali was 11 years old, her mother told her, quite casually, that they were to visit another Somali girl, whom she liked. "I thought I was just going to play with my friend, so I was happy," Lali says. Soon after she arrived at the friend's anonymous council house, however, cold reality dawned. In fact, Lali's mother had secretly joined together with several other women to pay for a "cutter" to travel to London from Mogadishu to circumcise their daughters.
What happened next was like a scene from medieval times. Her mother, other female relatives and family friends suddenly grabbed Lali and grappled her to the floor. Then, on cue, the strange woman came in, like a torturer with her bag of implements. "They held me down, and when the woman began cutting I screamed, so my friend's sister put her hand tightly over my mouth," she says. "I had known her and these other women all my life, and now they were doing ... this."
The cutting often results in life-threatening complications such as septicaemia, haemorrhaging or cysts, but in this respect Lali was fortunate. Outwardly, at least, she quickly recovered and returned to school, too frightened and ashamed to tell her teachers and friends about her ordeal. However, the legacy of the atrocity inflicted on her when she was 11 years old will always remain. When a marriage is arranged for her, sex will be a painful duty to be endured. If she is lucky enough to avoid the pre-natal complications frequently caused by genital mutilation and have children, she will almost certainly have to undergo a Caesarean section.
Perhaps we should take a lead from France, whose methods of prevention have been strengthened following a landmark case in 1999, when a woman of West African origins was jailed for eight years for cutting 48 young children. Now all French children of African background are closely scrutinised by social workers and doctors during infancy, and any abnormal behaviour or prolonged absence from school is immediately investigated. It is also considered a duty of French doctors to examine any ethnic African girls they suspect have been mutilated and, waiving usual patient confidentiality rules, report their parents to the police if their suspicions are confirmed."
Amazing, isn't it? Doctors, social workers and the iniquitous Family Court system are all quick enough to kidnap babies from their parents at the slightest suspicion of so-called "abuse", yet we are to believe that they are powerless when faced with real cruelty to defenceless children, where the physical mutilation leaves incontrovertible evidence of the assault. Couldn't have anything to do, could it, with the fact that white babies are easy to send for adoption but black babies are harder to find homes for?
And what of our Wanker?
Well, he or she comes from Teesside and calls him/herself "Anon" - and frankly we don't blame him or her. We wouldn't be proud either.
"Anon" sent the following email comment to the Mail …
However much I disagree with this practice I think two things. One, I think we should sort out our own problems with our health and criminal services before taking this huge challenge on, and second I am not sure that we have the right to decide whether this is or is not acceptable as it's such a huge part of their culture and … shouldn't we be tolerant to all aspects of society and help them express their culture and not be discriminatory?
Well, "Anon", that's just dandy. No matter what they do, we mustn't be discriminatory, must we? You idiot - would you still feel the same if their culture made them practise cannibalism?
Tell you what, hinny, here's an idea - send us your proper name and address, and we'll come round with a pair of secaturs and a packet of Paracetamol. Let's see how tolerant you'll feel then.
Wanker.
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