Crown Princess Mary of Denmark was the special guest at the world premiere on Thursday evening of Jaha’s Promise, a feature documentary on female genital mutilation (FGM) following the life story of a 26-year-old campaigner Jaha Dukureh.

The film, made by the Guardian and Accidental Pictures, got a standing ovation from the audience at the annual film festival. Dukureh, who is a Time 100 leader, survived FGM as a child in the Gambia and then at 15 was flown to New York to marry a man she had never met.

In the US the horror of what happened to her body became apparent. The film crew follow her as she confronts her past, her family, her culture, her religion, country and its leaders. Jaha becomes a lightning-rod for change in Gambia, leading to the eventual government ban on FGM and child marriage and a working relationship with the Obama administration.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/17/jahas-promise-fgm-film-premieres-at-copenhagen-film-festival

Smuggling vulva-decorated cupcakes into the Somali region of Ethiopia was one of those moments where I thought: “My work as an anti-FGM campaigner gets me into interesting situations sometimes.”

Three years earlier I’d made vulva cupcakes as part of a documentary about FGMthat I’d done for Channel 4. “We need you to bring them with you,” said Sagal Abdi, vice executive director of Maandeeq, when she invited me to an event in Jijiga, the capital of the region, part of 16 days of activism against gender-based violence.

Honestly, I was taken aback. I grew up in the UK as part of the Somali diaspora, and I’d assumed the people of Jijiga would not be ready for vulva cupcakes. But Abdi, also part of the diaspora, reassured me that the Ethiopian women had requested them. “Leyla, they watched the documentary and loved the concept of using art for campaigning,” she said.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/mar/13/my-vulva-cupcakes-were-confiscated-but-i-gained-a-sense-of-home

New figures reveal the number of women who have undergone hospital treatment after being put through “horrendous” female genital mutilation (FGM) – and how the crime can remain hidden for years.

The Advertiser has obtained figures in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from health trusts across the capital, which reveal that at least 1,600 women who have gone through FGM were admitted to London hospitals for treatment last year.

These women have suffered severe mutilation – including removal of clitoris, labia, and sealing the vagina with cuts and stitches.

Most would have endured these traumatic injuries between infancy and the age of 15 – with 10 being the accepted average age for when FGM is carried out.

However, it is common for the women experiencing these excruciating procedures to not receive hospital care until many years after their ordeal, with the practice of mutilation remaining a “hidden crime” until detected by doctors years later.
http://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/the-number-of-women-treated-for-genital-mutilation-in-croydon/story-30190225-detail/story.html

The police inspector in charge of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) investigations in London said the Metropolitan Police still does not know where young women and girls are being cut and disfigured.

Inspector Allen Davis’s comments came as the NHS revealed there were nearly 5,500 new FGM cases reported to hospitals, clinics and GPs in 2016.

No one has ever been convicted of carrying out female genital mutilation in the UK despite it being illegal in the country since 1985.

The Department of Health’s FGM Prevention Programme today revealed there were 5,484 new reports of FGM in 2016. There have been 10,067 new reports since records began in April 2015.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/met-police-fgm-32-years-no-conviction-where-happen-female-genital-mutilation-a7616536.html

Set in the poverty-stricken East End, Call The Midwife has tackled many difficult social topics.

And now it is to take on a subject that shocks even the hardy nurses on the show.

Tomorrow night, the pre-watershed drama will focus on a heavily pregnant Somali immigrant who is the victim of female genital mutilation.

The woman believes the barbaric procedure – which has left her unable to deliver a child naturally without risking her life – is normal because it is routinely practised on girls in her homeland.

But it is clear that her midwives and doctors have never seen anything like it. At one point, a midwife explains that the woman, Nadifa, has ‘nothing there but a scar from back to front’.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4258142/Call-Midwife-set-Sixties-takes-FGM.html#ixzz4ZsZagrPE
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Latest NHS figures show that 10 cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) were newly recorded in Lincolnshire in the year 2015/16.

Children’s charity NSPCC is calling for more action to stop FGM after it recorded calls at least once a day from people concerned that girls had already suffered or were at risk of harm.

The practise, also referred to as female genital cutting and female circumcision, is the ritual removal of some or all of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons.

FGM ranges from pricking or cauterising to partially or totally remove genitals. Cutting is made using instruments such as a knife, pair of scissors, scalpel, glass or a razor blade.

Religious, social or cultural reasons are sometimes given for FGM. However the practice is regarded as child abuse and is a criminal offence.

It is known to have been used to control female sexuality and can cause severe and long-lasting damage to physical and emotional health.

The practice is believed to affect around 137,000 women and girls in England and Wales.

The NSPCC has revealed that they get a call every single day from someone worried about female genital mutilation (FGM).

They launched their helpline in June 2013.

The charity has now revealed that they have been contacted more than 1,500 times, with around a third of concerns serious enough to be referred to police or social services.

Worried callers have included those contacting the helpline with fears for babies who they believed were at risk of FGM.

FGM has been a criminal offence in the UK for 30 years, and in 2003 it also became a criminal offence for UK nationals or permanent UK residents to take their child abroad to have female genital mutilation.

Despite this, there is yet to be a successful prosecution for the offence.

One doctor told the NSPCC helpline:

“I have suspicions in relation to a child that I think may have been flown out of the country for the FGM procedure.

“The child was brought into my surgery today but the parent wouldn’t allow me to perform an internal examination on the child. The parent was adamant that the child would be checked abroad instead.”