Parents found guilty of mutilating one year daughters genitals

Kidchameleon

ceadaoin. wrote: »

I dont agree with male circumcision either, unless there is a medical reason for it. FGM is nothing like it though, not the reasons it is done for, the procedure or the lifelong medical consequences of it. You can't compare the two.

Male circumcision is horrific, barbaric, painful (do you think the boys just sit there indifferent?), perverted and dangerous. It serves no medical purpose. It is more tolerated in society because of male disposability. Gotta love that wonderful patriarchy :rolleyes:

Kidchameleon

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

Amazing how this conversation always gets back to male circumcision which is completely different and of absolutely no relevance.

How so? These people probably argued that it is their culture. Anyone who thinks male genital mutilation is culturally acceptable is no different to the parents in this case IMHO. I think it is a relevant part of the conversation as it shines a light on peoples attitudes to child mutilation in general. The effort to differentiate FGM from MGM says alot about someone & brings some home truths...

Still waters

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Male circumcision is horrific, barbaric, painful (do you think the boys just sit there indifferent?), perverted and dangerous. It serves no medical purpose. It is more tolerated in society because of male disposability. Gotta love that wonderful patriarchy :rolleyes:

Why not start a thread about it

Wibbs

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

Amazing how this conversation always gets back to male circumcision which is completely different and of absolutely no relevance.

Actually JMJ, the reasons given for both practices are almost identical in the cultures that practice it. It's more our own cultural bias that seeks to differentiate it. Put it another way, would people be OK with FGM if it was practised in a hospital for non medical cultural reasons and removed the exact same analogous tissue from young girls that is removed in young boys(and there's be a lot less of it). I doubt it and they'd be dead right.

Yes, FGM is most certainly worse than male circumcision from a tissue damage point of view, but both procedures in the case of cultural practice are non medically necessary procedures based entirely on said cultural practices and both should be outlawed except when medically required.

eviltwin

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Male circumcision is horrific, barbaric, painful (do you think the boys just sit there indifferent?), perverted and dangerous. It serves no medical purpose. It is more tolerated in society because of male disposability. Gotta love that wonderful patriarchy :rolleyes:

No one here is defending it but this case is about one little girl and what she suffered. Can we keep it to the topic at hand?

Kidchameleon

Still waters wrote: »

Why not start a thread about it

Because I believe it is relevant to this particular case. We need a root and branch shakeup of attitudes towards child mutilation in this country. We need to show people like the parents in this case that Ireland does not tolerate the abuse of children under any circumstances.

jam_mac_jam

The fact that the two are even being compared is just incredible to me. It's like comparing ear piercing with foot binding.

Mulberrytree

Calhoun wrote: »

Unfortunately there have been a number of high profile cases in Ireland referring to FGM from an African perspective. I am not aware of cases from other cultures/countries.

Of all the hills to die on you sure this is the one you want to do it on?

Also from the WHO -

Who is at risk?
Procedures are mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and adolescence, and occasionally on adult women. More than 3 million girls are estimated to be at risk for FGM annually.

More than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is concentrated 1.

The practice is most common in the western, eastern, and north-eastern regions of Africa, in some countries the Middle East and Asia, as well as among migrants from these areas. FGM is therefore a global concern.

Yeah.....because highlighting that is horrible practice (African female, never undergone FGM and have seen intimately what it is and what it can do, you have no idea unless you've been in scrubs trying to assist a birth complicated by fgm or seen the horrors that something as simple as menses become)... Yes this is a hill to die on! You've probably never come from a place with clearly distinct people's who are stigmatized as one big lumpen mass because of isolated stories of criminal acts. Look at your stats. This practice is alien to many many people and countries and yet you're adding in the WHO stats like it applies to all 54 countries? Give me a break.

Someone posted about calling people African...hmm well, that's why acknowledging the country of origin is important. Cultural practices in Mauretania for example are certainly not the same as those in Botswana for example. Why reduce the many differences, including the physical appearance of people into African? It's easy then to say fgm is an African practice - essentially implying that an African woman like myself or my people must know all about it or whatever when I first heard about it in a documentary on television when I was a teenager?

This is the danger of using one narrative description to box entire peoples. Even to say - this is an East African practice- there are still many in East Africa for whom it wouldn't even be thought of.
So saying - it's an African practice is wrong. There is no one "African" culture. I refuse to be associated with this just because I'm from the continent. It's a massive place and many are not aware just how big it is.

It's also a recorded practice in many parts of the middle East and Asia

Anyway, this story is about a particular set of so called parents. There is no cultural excuse anyway. Fgm never happens in social isolation and I'd be hard pressed to see where the cultural pressure was coming from. I can almost guarantee from experience dealing with women living with it that the pressure to get it done to the child came from the mother rather than the father. And there would be none of the suffocating cultural pressure here. I feel sorry for the baby

Wibbs

eviltwin wrote: »

No one here is defending it but this case is about one little girl and what she suffered. Can we keep it to the topic at hand?

There was also a case here a few years ago where a boy died from a backstreet circumcision when the parents were refused the procedure medically.

But I do agree with you E. I'm just trying to illustrate how our local cultural influences inform us all and until we acknowledge that it's going to be more difficult to a) understand a culture that would do that and b) reach said culture to try and stamp it out.

Imagine you're from a culture where both boys and girls are "circumcised" and it's a deep seated rite of passage into your culture going back centuries and with the demands of your god. A couple come to America(to take the extreme on one side) and while your son is near automatically circumcised in a hospital and with the blessings of the staff, just like his dad, yet the suggestion your daughter is similarly "circumcised", just like her mother, is seen as utterly abhorrent and illegal. Imagine coming from such a culture, there would be a large part of WTF going on.

1641

FGM is about subjugating and controlling female sexuality, even if the tradition is often maintained as much by women as men. It is about making the woman acceptable in a patriarchial society. Apart from anything else, this differenciates it from male circumcision.

Calhoun

Mulberrytree wrote: »

Yeah.....because highlighting that is horrible practice (African female, never undergone FGM and have seen intimately what it is and what it can do, you have no idea unless you've been in scrubs trying to assist a birth complicated by fgm or seen the horrors that something as simple as menses become)... Yes this is a hill to die on! You've probably never come from a place with clearly distinct people's who are stigmatized as one big lumpen mass because of isolated stories of criminal acts. Look at your stats. This practice is alien to many many people and countries and yet you're adding in the WHO stats like it applies to all 54 countries? Give me a break.

Someone posted about calling people African...hmm well, that's why acknowledging the country of origin is important. Cultural practices in Mauretania for example are certainly not the same as those in Botswana for example. Why reduce the many differences, including the physical appearance of people into African? It's easy then to say fgm is an African practice - essentially implying that an African woman like myself or my people must know all about it or whatever when I first heard about it in a documentary on television when I was a teenager?

This is the danger of using one narrative description to box entire peoples. Even to say - this is an East African practice- there are still many in East Africa for whom it wouldn't even be thought of.
So saying - it's an African practice is wrong. There is no one "African" culture. I refuse to be associated with this just because I'm from the continent. It's a massive place and many are not aware just how big it is.

It's also a recorded practice in many parts of the middle East and Asia

Anyway, this story is about a particular set of so called parents. There is no cultural excuse anyway. Fgm never happens in social isolation and I'd be hard pressed to see where the cultural pressure was coming from. I can almost guarantee from experience dealing with women living with it that the pressure to get it done to the child came from the mother rather than the father. And there would be none of the suffocating cultural pressure here. I feel sorry for the baby

Well the WHO call out that its a practice in all parts of Africa bar the south so it does look like its an African practice.

I would rather talk about and dismiss the horrible practice than derail the thread talking about being offended that your being lumped into one group. Its the same as the comments about the male circumcision.

sabat

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

The fact that the two are even being compared is just incredible to me. It's like comparing ear piercing with foot binding.

It's more like comparing Sligo Rovers and Real Madrid; fundamentally it's the same act of lopping off part of a baby's genitalia for religious reasons, differing only in its magnitude. Several boys have died here as a result of botched circumcisions BTW.

Wibbs

Mulberrytree wrote: »

So saying - it's an African practice is wrong. There is no one "African" culture. I refuse to be associated with this just because I'm from the continent. It's a massive place and many are not aware just how big it is.

It's also a recorded practice in many parts of the middle East and Asia

Again +1000. Africa is the most culturally, and genetically for that matter*, diverse area on the planet. While Europe is diverse enough and Asia is (much)more diverse again, Africa wins the diversity prize by a goodly margin.





*If you're a native Irish person, you're more genetically closely related to say A Greek person, than some groups of Africans living barely two hundred kilometres apart, and sometimes less. And that's before we get into local cultural practices which are extremely diverse, even within some Africa nations.

Kidchameleon

It would help prevent cases like that in the OP if child mutilation was completely and utterly rejected by Irish society. As we can see from this thread alone, there are many people who in some form or another believe genital mutilation is OK. People like the parents of the poor girl in this case should be told in no uncertain terms that Ireland will not tolerate the harming of children. It is not good enough to say MGM is OK but FGM is bad, we can do better than that as a society, we should have consistent and equal values. We must protect our children.

irishproduce

NewbridgeIR wrote: »

The Journal have turned off comments because they don’t want criticism of the parents

It's actually because they don't want criticism of immigrants.

Mulberrytree

Calhoun wrote: »

Well the WHO call out that its a practice in all parts of Africa bar the south so it does look like its an African practice.

I would rather talk about and dismiss the horrible practice than derail the thread talking about being offended that your being lumped into one group. Its the same as the comments about the male circumcision.

Every one of those countries bar the south so? Is that what the stats say? Or are they saying it's prevalent in those regions? Said regions made up of many countries and differing peoples?

Detail the thread ... 🙄 Sure, because you ignored the rest of what I posted that I actually have seen the results of this on adult women. And of course fail to see why it's an issue to associate fgm with "Africa". Sure, they're all the same, North East West, right??

But I've read your posts across this site. I'm not surprised

Hello 2D Person Below

irishproduce wrote: »

It's actually because they don't want criticism of immigrants.

Are you seriously suggesting that The Journal, as in thejournal.ie, doesn't want/allow criticism of immigrants?

jam_mac_jam

It's completely horrific and I am glad to see that it is being prosecuted here. Fair play to those who reported it.

The idea of doing this to a one year old girl is horrific.

ceadaoin.

Kidchameleon wrote: »

It would help prevent cases like that in the OP if child mutilation was completely and utterly rejected by Irish society. As we can see from this thread alone, there are many people who in some form or another believe genital mutilation is OK. People like the parents of the poor girl in this case should be told in no uncertain terms that Ireland will not tolerate the harming of children. It is not good enough to say MGM is OK but FGM is bad, we can do better than that as a society, we should have consistent and equal values. We must protect our children.

Who has said that some genital mutilation is ok? Can you quote them?

sabat

sabat wrote: »

It's more like comparing Sligo Rovers and Real Madrid; fundamentally it's the same act of lopping off part of a baby's genitalia for religious reasons, differing only in its magnitude. Several boys have died here as a result of botched circumcisions BTW.

You'd swear there was whataboutery going on saying FGM is ok.

This a case where the people have been sentenced. Next step is to do the same for boys.. We saw a link earlier where a boy died and the judge said it wasn't white culture's place to judge, so obviously something needs to change.

People saying it is of absolutely no relevance is absurd. It's called Female Genital Mutilation, not Female Orgasm Removal. If they have a problem with it being relevant to boys who can still get off, they should campaign for the name change.

Wibbs

1641 wrote: »

FGM is about subjugating and controlling female sexuality, even if the tradition is often maintained as much by women as men. It is about making the woman acceptable in a patriarchial society. Apart from anything else, this differenciates it from male circumcision.

Actually not such a big difference at all. Never mind that every society that practices FGM also practices male circumcision. The "patriarchal" thing would be much more in play if it was just on one side. The male version has long been associated with sexual control too. In the US and many other western nations in the 19th and early 20th century it was seen as an anti masturbation procedure(daft). And in some quarters was oddly enough seen as a way of also controlling women's desire. Yup, among some of these nutters it was thought that if a woman had sex with a non circumcised guy, she would be "ruined" by his "animalistic" penis and wouldn't be satisfied with anything else(daft again).

wellwhynot

The poor child was not sedated. They would have had to hold her down. How could a parent do that to their child who they are supposed to protect? I am was very unimpressed with the lies they told in court too. It is barbaric. Hopefully the judge throws the book at them and then deportation. They should never see their children again. Wishful thinking though as this is Ireland where sentences are a joke and criminals don’t get deported. My guess is a suspended sentence for both as it is their culture and no deportation. I sincerely hope I am wrong.

Calhoun

Mulberrytree wrote: »

Every one of those countries bar the south so? Is that what the stats say? Or are they saying it's prevalent in those regions? Said regions made up of many countries and differing peoples?

Detail the thread ... �� Sure, because you ignored the rest of what I posted that I actually have seen the results of this on adult women. And of course fail to see why it's an issue to associate fgm with "Africa". Sure, they're all the same, North East West, right??

But I've read your posts across this site. I'm not surprised

I don't know to be honest, I am going off what the WHO say's and im taking it at face value.

I am sure you have seen the results but you seem more outraged at African being grouped up than the FGM.

I don't have that luxury as your a new poster, all I can go on is that you seem very protective of Africa and signed up for that reason. There is allot of comments on this site about economic migrants so that would make sense.

I think there's a blind spot. People don't seem to realise that circumcision is like permanently extruding the clitoris and letting it rub of your panties for your entire life.

It's obviously nothing like FGM but it shouldn't be belittled either as if it's rude to even bring it up.

Wibbs

After the case of the judge who when faced with a boy who died from a daft cultural practice "wouldn't culturally judge" the parents, I dunno, though I suspect because it's FGM there'll be less sympathy going on.

vicwatson

mcmoustache wrote: »

We need to send a strong message here with a proper sentence for both parents. Mutilating kids is repugnant and needs to be dealt with harshly.

Can we do the same for male genital mutilation I wonder?

Spanish Eyes

Just to ask probably once again,

Why is male circumcision accepted in many cultures?

Does it affect the male enjoyment of sex, NO.

But for the ladies, FGM most certainly does and add in the trauma of ripping out the centre of sexual enjoyment whilst at it.

Glad to see this judgment today in our courts.

Wibbs

Calhoun wrote: »

I don't have that luxury as your a new poster, all I can go on is that you seem very protective of Africa. There is allot of comments on this site about economic migrants so that would make sense.

Da fuk C? Everything that poster said is factually correct about the continent of Africa. Put it this way if I was on Boards.co.ke and I had Kenyans conflating the social and cultural issues of Travellers with me as an Irishman, I'd be pretty "protective" too and Ireland could fit in some African country's national parks.

Calhoun

How would you go about policing it more if that was to be done? Seems there are ways in which parents can get around it if they want to.

Mezzotint

It's an abominable thing to do to someone and it's pretty clear that it's coming from a rather twisted cultural ideology that sexuality is something to be stamped out. It's designed to destroy women's sex lives. It's as simple as that and it's been turned into something cultural, thus making it somehow accepted, despite the horrific nature of what it is.

It's one of those topics that I first heard about in my 20s and to be quite honest, I found it difficult to even believe that someone would do such a thing. It just makes absolutely no sense. It didn't even compute in my brain.

I think with all of these kinds of cult-like practices, there's something to be challenged. It's about reason vs superstition. We've had all sorts of insane practices that have been culturally accepted in the past from foot binding in China to witch trials and burning people at the stake in Europe. Just because something is culturally acceptable does not mean that it should be protected from logic and criticism. If we had done that, we would still be in the middle ages now.

We live in an era and a culture that is based on concepts of universal human rights and on logic and reason. That's pretty much what has defined this era and made it stand out from the horrendous nonsense of the middle ages. It's not about ethnicity, religion or identity. It's about human rights and the state's obligations to protect someone from harm, including from their own parents if needs be.