Apparently, 66,000 females in the UK have undergone FGM and 30,000 more are at-risk. From the London Evening Standard (UK), about the Somali-born libertarian feminist: "Hirsi Ali believes the only way to stop FGM is to check
at-risk girls. An annual visual examination ('there is no need to
touch') by a female paediatrician or nurse would remove from school-age
children the burden of telling a teacher or friend. Such a scheme, she
claims, would 'take the debate to the next level'. 'A detection
mechanism like this would be the biggest deterrent because when the
family says ‘Our little girl Fatima or Samira is now five or six, and
shouldn’t we have her done?’ they will know that they can’t because in
September every year, just as the school holidays end, she will be
checked. You then need one or two prosecutions to set an example.
It is the only model I can think of that will work. As long as there is
no systematic control, there is no deterrence.'"
More from Ms. Hirsi Ali, who underwent FGM when she was five years old: "But of course
such an idea will provoke howls of protest. Surely it’s a gross invasion
of the girls’ privacy; victimisation of families and communities; a
presumption by the state of guilt rather than innocence; humiliating and
unenforceable? Hirsi Ali says she has heard all this before. “And
we have to answer to our consciences. What is worse, the cutting itself
or the method of detection? The debate has to happen. MPs and the
British public have to be given a choice between two options — do
nothing and let them be cut and live with it or have a detection system
in place that stops it. Education campaigns do not work. Just
talking to the mothers and grandmothers about why the practice is
harmful is not convincing. They just tell their daughters to grit their
teeth....The core of the problem for them is, who is going to marry my
daughter if I cannot verify she is a virgin?'"
She ain't done just yet: "Later Hirsi Ali
says FGM is a symptom of the 'whole virginity obsession' within largely
but not exclusively Muslim communities abroad, and sometimes here.
Forced marriage, honour killings and child brides are similar horrors
related to a 'purity' required in women but not men. 'Actually it should
be a man’s campaign. Why do they need a virgin? Why do they need a
woman whose genitals have been demolished? Is that the only way to
express their manhood?'"
Britain: Ayaan Hirsi Ali Continues Her Battle Against Female Genital Mutilation
