A study in BARBARITY
We apologise to those who find these pictures shocking, but they show the reality of female genital mutilation – one of the most distressing issues of our age
TERRIFIED and defenceless, teenage girls are lined up to undergo an outlawed female circumcision.
While some of the children attempt to mask their fear, others break down and weep as they face being taken for female genital mutilation (FGM).
The potentially lethal custom is banned in Kenya but — as these photographs show — it is still carried out by villagers who consider it a rite of passage.
Girls as young as 13 undergo the barbaric practice and i n many communities they will be shunned as ‘unclean’ if they resist or escape.
The British charity ActionAid works in the Pokot region of Kenya where these photographs were taken and spoke to a 13-year-old who walked for six days to escape a planned mutilation. The girl, identified only as ‘ Janet’, was forced to run away and cut all contact with her family to avoid the circumcision, which was to be carried out before her father began negotiations for a dowry for her marriage.
Girls who are cut get bigger dowry payments for their families, while those who are not may struggle to find husbands in their isolated communities.
FGM was banned in Kenya in 2001 and tougher laws were passed three years ago to introduce life sentences for those involved if the girl dies from the procedure.
These photographs show how brutal the practice can be, with the girls draped in animal skins and squatting
naked over stones before they are cut with razor blades.
They are left in excruciating pain and can bleed to death, and the procedure can also cause deadly complications in childbirth.
Older women — including the girls’ own mothers — preside over the ceremonies despite having undergone the ordeal themselves.
One mother said she was ‘proud’ her daughter had been mutilated, saying: ‘The pain will make her strong. She can show the rest of the community that she can endure it.’
Research in 2009 found that 27 per cent of Kenyan women had undergone FGM and the figure rose to 73 per cent among Masai tribeswomen and 98 per cent among Somalis. Worldwide, more than 125 million women and girls have been subjected to FGM and campaigners have claimed that 65,000 girls under 13 are at risk in Britain.
The practice — which involves the partial or total removal of the external female genitals — has been a crime in Britain for three decades but NHS hospitals identified 467 new cases of FGM in just one month this year. Despite this, there is yet to be a single conviction for a case that took place in Britain.
There are many girls living in the UK who have come from other countries already having suffered mutilation. And police and prosecutors fear many British girls of African extraction are spirited abroad every year to undergo the procedure in their countries of origin.
The first trial over accusations of subjecting women or girls to FGM in Britain is due to begin in January. Dr Dhanuson Dharmasena, 32, of the Whittington Hospital in North London, and a second man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have both denied wrongdoing.